Of Minestrone and "Mondali"

Carter rides the rails to plug his energy program

Just when the U.S. seems on the verge of doing something about the energy crisis, the public loses interest in it. This is the problem that Jimmy Carter thought he faced last week, with Congress on vacation and the long gasoline lines of early summer fading from memory. The President and his advisers decided that he had to make some dramatic move to keep the energy issue before the public.

So he took an ostentatious train ride, boarding a special car attached to the Amtrak Metroliner at Washington's Union Station. Accompanying him were his wife Rosalynn, some White House aides and a bunch of security guards toting briefcases that concealed shotguns and automatic weapons. Aboard the special car, a red curtain separated Carter and his wife from the reporters in the rear. Behind other red curtains, Army communications specialists manned telephones and telex links that kept the President in touch with the White House. A four-car pilot train ran ahead of the Metroliner so that Secret Service men could check the tracks, and three helicopters hovered watchfully overhead.

Carter's destination? Baltimore, a mere 37 minutes away.

The White House claimed that the trip cost only $1,260 more than if Carter had traveled by helicopter--and was well worth the price. Carter traveled by rail, he later explained, to show that "trains represent the future and not the past in transportation in America." Baltimore was the first of several cities he plans to visit in the next few weeks to push for his energy program and, not incidentally, to try to revive his declining political fortunes.

Warmly received by small groups in Baltimore, Carter stopped first at the home of Mrs. Genitha Rhyne in a predominantly black neighborhood. CETA workers had weatherproofed the house, and a solar unit for heating water had been installed with a $9,500 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. "This ought to save you money," Carter told Mrs. Rhyne. Then he assured a group of neighborhood residents: "Our country is determined to win the energy war. The people here on East Biddle Street can help me. Do you agree?" The crowd roared its support. Predicting that similar solar units would eventually be" put on homes all over America, Carter asked: "There's no way for them to embargo the sunshine, right?" Again, the audience shouted its agreement.

Next stop was the convention of the Sons of Italy. Joining Carter on the podium were Attorney General-designate Benjamin Civiletti, Watergate Judge John Sirica, New York Democratic Congressman Mario Biaggi and Monsignor Gino Baroni, Assistant Secretary of HUD. Carter used the occasion for another attack on Congress. Said he: "I'm sorry to say that until now the general interest has had a hard time of it in the halls of Congress.

Congress has yielded to the narrow interests on energy issues time and time again." He asked his listeners to lobby their Congressmen to support the windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Then, in an obvious pitch to ethnic groups in which his support is eroding, he claimed that the U.S. is "not a melting pot. We are more like a pot of minestrone." In case his audience did not savor that line, he went on to say that among the top-level Italian Americans in his Administration was Vice President "Mondali." There was a strained chuckle or two.

Later in the week, while Carter stayed home in Washington to work, Rosalynn flew to Quito for the inauguration of Jaime Roldds Aguilera as Ecuador's first democratically elected President after nine years of dictatorships. This week Carter resumes his travels with a flight to St. Paul, where he will board Delta Queen, an old stern-wheeler that will take him and 188 other tourists on a week-long trip down the Mississippi River. At each stop the President plans to repeat his energy lesson. After the boat docks at St. Louis, he will head east for a few days' vacation in Plains, Ga., and Camp David. Carter acknowledges that a possible presidential rival, Senator Howard Baker, gave him the idea for the trip. Said Press Secretary Jody Powell: "Since Baker made several suggestions recently to the President and since the President could not accept some of them, he decided to take Baker up on this one."

In one of those turnabouts that create strange political bedfellows, the Senate minority leader and other Republicans have begun meeting on a regular basis with the President. Snubbed by many Democrats, Carter needs all the support he can get in Congress and thus welcomes the Republican advice. The Republicans, on the other hand, are worried that Carter may continue to stumble so badly that he will be denied the nomination. The G.O.P. leaders do not want this to happen because they figure Carter would be the easiest candidate to beat.

So for the time being, top congressional Republicans are trying to be nice to Carter.

Carter's excursions are just part of a new Administration campaign to sell its energy ideas to the public. White House staffers and members of the Energy Department have formed subcommittees to pursue 13 different goals, including winning approval of the synthetic fuels bill and the windfall profits tax. Last week Carter proposed using $1.6 billion of the projected revenue from the tax next winter to help poor people pay the rising costs of heating their homes.

At the same time, the President continued to get ready for this fall's energy and political battles by making more staff changes:

> Tim Kraft, his assistant for political affairs, will shortly leave the White House to join Carter's re-election committee, which now is a thin and inexperienced operation. It will continue to be headed by Evan Dobelle, who will concentrate on fund raising, while Kraft will line up political support and delegates for the 1980 convention.

> Sarah Weddington, special assistant to the President for women's affairs, has been promoted to the senior White House staff. She will take over Kraft's White House political chores as well as serve as chief adviser on women's issues.

> Robert Lipshutz, the President's counsel, is returning to Georgia to serve with Charles Kirbo as co-trustee of the Carter financial trust. Lipshutz turned in a lackluster performance as White House liaison with the Jewish community, and he was faulted by other Carter staffers for being slow to grasp the severity of the charges against former Budget Director Bert Lance.

> Greg Schneiders, a close Carter aide during the campaign and a deputy to Image Maker Gerald Rafshoon, has decided to quit after learning that there would be no future for him on a full-time basis at the White House. Schneiders was considered by top staffers as a bit too irreverent and not enthusiastic enough in boosting Carter.

> Alonzo McDonald, deputy to Robert Strauss when he was special trade representative, was named assistant to White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan.

McDonald was formerly chief executive officer of McKinsey & Co., an international management consultant firm. Said Jordan: "He'll improve our operations and processes, coordinate policy and politics. I plan to give him broad authority.

I think he does a lot of things well I don't do well. It'll give me more time to think and plan."

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