A Man Searching for Consensus

By Hugh Sidey

Sometimes he seemed like a college student as he sat there on the floor in those jeans and took those endless notes on his yellow pads. At other times he seemed more like a participant in group therapy. He wanted to hear what was wrong with him, how he had failed. Give it to him with the bark off, again and again. He seemed at times almost to savor the punishment. For hours, for days, Jimmy Carter counseled with dozens of diverse citizens flown to the Maryland mountaintop. He was writing one of the most extraordinary chapters in presidential decision making.

Born out of a personal concern for the country and his private political despair, Carter's exercise in group-think seemed destined, if successful, to recast his whole approach to leadership, the tone and emphasis of his Administration and, finally, American society. If not successful, then the singular twelve days in July might turn out to be a spectacular dramatization of just what is wrong with Carter's presidency --talk without understanding, programs without the means of implementation. When Carter finally came down to the Potomac valley last week, the question of what had happened was still delicately balanced, with as many doubts as assurances.

In Carter's approach to leadership, he has from the start differed markedly from his predecessors. He has been almost as much a suppliant as an authority, a man searching for an elusive consensus in town halls and along Main Street. He has walked more among the people than ahead of them. Thus, there were almost biblical overtones to the scene, described by the Camp David participants, of the most powerful man in the Western world seated at their feet.

Those who were in his presence came back full of praise and hope for Carter. His sincerity won them. Some, who had counseled Presidents as far back as Truman, were at first stunned, then fascinated by this attempt to lead by learning, to make new policy from a cram course in national attitudes. All of the guests seemed carried along by that small, warm figure who implored them to help him set the U.S. right again before the future fell in on the country.

But those who watched from below the serene encampment piled up more and more questions the longer the seminars ran. "A yellow-pad President," said Republican Howard Baker, an eager though undeclared candidate for the job. But he had a point that haunted many. It was estimated that Carter's notes ran to hundreds of pages. From such a mishmash of people, prejudice and points of view, how can an executive distill any rational policy in so short a time? Many thought he could not, that this was another demonstration of Carter's mistaken idea of how an executive does his job. He may overwhelm himself with too many facts, to the point that he cannot finally make a decision with vision and conviction. He may be searching for a mid dle way, the pathway of the healer. But it may be time now to move beyond that phase and take a road that will collide headlong with noisy minority interests. The late, infamous Jimmy Hoffa, prodded once about truth's being "somewhere in between," answered contemptuously and correctly, "The truth is where it's at." Leadership, too, is where it's at, and not necessarily in the middle.

Before he took to the mountain, Carter turned to Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger and uttered a line that has taken on some notoriety. He asked his chief energy planner for a program that would be both "bold and forceful" and "highly acceptable." New York Times Columnist William Safire seized on that rhetorical fragment as an illustration of Carter's contradictory nature. Bold and forceful programs get that way because they are not, at least at first, highly acceptable. Beyond that concern was another. After 30 months in office, living, eating and breathing the details of this world's troubles, why is Carter's mind not yet focused on the nature of the difficulties and the actions needed to correct them?

The Camp David domestic summit seems at once too much (too many people, too many notes) and too little (twelve days, or even twelve weeks, is not enough time to learn what is happening in this country if Carter is as baffled as his actions sometimes suggest). The President's consultations were also a devastating indictment of his own advisers--or testimony to his failure to use them correctly. If they have not kept him abreast of the origins and likely consequences of problems now before the nation, or if he has not listened to them, or, listening, has not heard, then there is not apt to be much of a mountain-top awakening, despite the brave words that will follow the summit. Surely the President has been at least vaguely aware of the cannibalistic rituals of his own men who from the first day on the job carved up Cabinet officers, who then returned the favor. The chief casualty was loyalty to the President, the cement of any Administration, the essential force of political progress.

For all the doubt, though, cautious hope was kindled again along the streets of summertime Washington. Maybe Jimmy Carter would be born yet a third time. And maybe the U.S. has changed enough in the past few weeks to accept a new challenge. The energy furor has sobered an inebriate citizenry to the fact that the problem is real, and just starting. Democracies are hard to lead when things are going well, reluctant to accept bad news. But in times of true crisis, their spirit and determination are the most powerful force in human affairs. The best hope is that Jimmy Carter, with a clearer view of the far horizon, might at last find the nation willing to listen and to respond. If so, we may have entered a new and exciting era in America. But if not, we may enter an age of dangerous uncertainty.

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