One Very Busy Ex-Prez

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Bill Clinton put out the order Tuesday night: nobody in his Administration should criticize Jimmy Carter. The command caused some gritting of teeth. In interviews and speeches the former President had not concealed his low opinion of the State Department, and he was even quoted as saying he was "ashamed" of U.S. policy toward Haiti. But Clinton was grateful for Carter's help in ! wiggling out of a tight spot. So dutiful Secretary of State Warren Christopher hopped a plane to the former President's home in Georgia to smooth things over.

That has not stopped le tout Washington from expressing views on Carter's return engagement. Negative and positive, it has all been said before. He is a softy who cuddles dictators. Or he is a tireless crusader for peace who has devoted his post-presidential career to resolving some of the thorniest international conflicts. Or a proud figure consumed by the desire to live down his 1980 election defeat and win the Nobel Peace Prize many feel he should have received in 1978 for mediating the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David accords.

What he has unquestionably been is busy. He captured the public eye, post- White House, mostly during the one week a year he works as a carpenter helping to build low-cost housing, but that has been a small part of his activity. Domestically, his Carter Center runs a number of other housing programs and has launched the Atlanta Project, a complex of activities to revitalize the city. Overseas, Carter and other people from the center have monitored elections in many Latin American and African countries to make sure they were not rigged. His friends say Carter has intervened personally and very quietly to protect the human rights of the oppressed around the world. The consensus view: he has been a superb ex-President.

He obviously itched to get back into the main ring even while Republicans held the White House. He told the New York Times he had written to Deng Xiaoping and Francois Mitterrand urging a vote against the U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. That attempt to undermine the policy of his own country's government was, Carter conceded, "perhaps not appropriate."

When the former President insisted on accepting an invitation to visit North Korea in June "as a private citizen," his fellow Democrat Clinton had him briefed on what to tell Kim Il Sung -- because, says a resigned U.S. official, he would have gone and talked to Kim anyway. Carter took the occasion to denounce Clinton's attempt to impose international sanctions on North Korea. His visit led to negotiations looking toward a suspension of North Korea's nuclear program that have just been resumed, but with highly uncertain prospects.

Carter is proud of the Haitian agreement he negotiated and shrugs off attacks on his cordiality toward strongman Raoul Cedras. He is used to such griping; his wife Rosalynn once told TIME that "Jimmy sees good in everybody, and sometimes he sees more than is there." Her husband's defense is a blend of Christian principle and realpolitik: all people are sinners, but all can be redeemed -- besides which, denouncing a dictator does not help to negotiate an agreement with him. "When I'm trying to negotiate a last-minute settlement of a crisis," he told TIME, "it's not appropriate or advisable for me to rehash all the problems that the person I'm dealing with has created." An odd mixture, perhaps, but very, very Jimmy Carter.

With reporting by JAMES CARNEY/WASHINGTON