An Outsider in the White House: Jimmy Carter, His Advisors, and the Making of American Foreign Policy

1. HIGH EXPECTATIONS

7 1 HIGH EXPECTATIONS Jimmy Carter was going to be different as president. Running against what he sometimes called the “big shots,” he publicly cast himself as an outsider. As Carter said in a commercial, “There is one major and fundamental issue. And that is the issue between the insiders and the outsiders. I have been accused of being an outsider and I plead guilty.”1 Certainly,he had pulled off a miracle in his campaign for the presidency. In an October 1975 Gallup poll, he had been the first choice of less than 3 percent of Democrats polled.2 Thirteen months and 297 electoral votes later, he would be president. In his campaign Carter had contrasted his decision-making style with that of Richard Nixon. He would have no “all powerful palace guard” in the White House; the cabinet system would be restored to prominence in the government; and his staff would have free access to him and would be encouraged to tell him when he was wrong.3 There would be “no anonymous aides—unelected, unknown to the public, and unconfirmed by the Senate—wielding vast power from the White House basement .”4 His main campaign strategist, Hamilton Jordan, even stated on CBS’s Face the Nation that“the concept of a chief of staff is alien to Governor Carter and those of us around him.”5 Carter’s appointments, moreover, would be distributed on the basis of merit, not as political rewards. Indeed, in an operation called Talent Bank 77, thousands of mimeographed letters were sent to African Americans and other minorities, women, and middle-level professionals, suggesting that the recipient was qualified for an executive-level government job should Carter win.6 Once in Washington, D.C., Carter acted to distinguish his administration from those that preceded it. At the inauguration he wore a two-piece business suit (purchased in Americus, Georgia, for $175) and walked over a mile down the parade route to theWhite House.At the swearing in of eight cabinet officers and four other cabinetlevel officials, he announced that the U.S. Marine Band would no longer precede him with the traditional “Ruffles and Flourishes” and “Hail to the Chief.” The next day, at his first cabinet meeting, Carter informed new department heads that he was eliminating chauffeur services for his White House aides and suggested they do the same with their own staffs. Foreign dignitaries, too, would be greeted without the usual military and other ceremonial display. A short time later, he vowed that 5 to 10 percent of the guests at state dinners would be“average” Americans.7 More important, Carter set up his advisory staff so that it would differ from the hierarchically organized system of the Nixon administration.“The idea,” Jody Powell explained in a follow-up interview,“is to make sure that no one or two people will be able to cut him off from dissenting opinions.” Powell used the metaphor of a wheel 8 THE PLAYERS with Carter at the hub to characterize the White House organization; the staff would have access to him through lines similar to spokes.8 Organizational and Political Realities Carter would soon find that he could not live up to several of these promises. “Hail to the Chief ” would be restored to announce his entry into a hall. Lavish ceremonies would be undertaken at the conclusions of the Panama Canal and Camp David negotiations to celebrate some well-deserved accomplishments. The Middle East peace talks at Camp David would be secret,the conferees closed off from access even to many of their own political advisors. Talk of inviting average people to state dinners fell by the wayside as cartoonist Gary Trudeau and others had a little fun at his expense. In one Doonesbury comic strip a woman was insulted when a“Secretary of Symbols”looking for “average people” offered her an invitation to a White House Affair.9 Even the Talent Bank 77 questionnaires returned by thousands of political hopefuls were never processed. Rather, they were packed away in crates and stored in the Executive Office Building across the street from the White House.10 To find the politically experienced cabinet department heads he needed, Jimmy Carter—the outsider—called upon many old Washington insiders. As journalist Hugh Sidey commented, the Washingtonians might feel that the past years were some kind of dream, and that what they had eight years ago would resume as Carter took over the White House.11 Like...