New Places to Look for Presidents

Can anyone remember when he last went to vote for a U.S.

President and felt both enthusiastic and confident? Totally enthusiastic about his own candidate; reasonably confident that if his man lost, the other fellow would still be a good President?

Not since 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower, a victorious general with some extra dimensions, squared off against the eloquent Governor Adlai Stevenson, have a large majority of Americans felt they were given a choice between two first-rate candidates, either of whom could lead the nation well. By 1956 both Ike and Stevenson had lost a little of their luster. Since then, more and more Americans have voted with deep misgivings. They have been worried that their own candidate was flawed, or that his opponent would be a disaster--or both. Nixon-Kennedy, Goldwater-Johnson, Nixon-Humphrey, Nixon-Mc-Govern. Increasingly the voters ask: "Are these really the best candidates we can find?" Between now and next November it is certain that the question will be asked again, often in anger: Out of our large (214 million) and highly educated population, is this the best choice the American system can offer?

No, it is not. The trouble is that presidential candidates are selected (or self-selected) from a very small pool. With rare exceptions, they are professional politicians who have served as a U.S. Senator or Governor, preferably of a large state. Since some of these are too old (65 is about the line) or heavily compromised on personal grounds (sex, drink, money) or hopelessly mediocre, it comes down at any one time to a list of maybe 50 who have a real shot at the presidency. Perhaps half of these would not be interested, so the list shrinks to 25. Considering that twelve men have already announced for the job and several more (Hubert Humphrey, John Connally, Frank Church, Charles Mathias) are clearly interested, roughly half the "eligibles" are already in the race.

And to this whole list many Americans react with a mixture of boredom and dismay. Ford-Humphrey? Reagan-Carey? The leadership of the free world?

It is wildly unrealistic to imagine the U.S. could tap new pools of presidential talent by Nov. 2, 1976. And there is no particular reason to think we will by 1980. But if the country did by chance begin to survey its presidential resources in an imaginative way, where might the search begin?

One place to start, surely, would be in the large private institutions, which find their leaders through an intensely competitive process and demand of them certain qualities the U.S. presidency also demands.

A U.S. President, above all, must be a leader, able to direct a large, complex organization, or federation of organizations, and to deal with competing, often conflicting constituencies. He (or she) must be able to recognize talent, recruit it, deploy it, inspire it, oversee it (and fire people when necessary). A President must be a man of vision who knows in what direction he wants to guide the nation, a persuasive individual who can explain his means and ends in ways that will move people to support him. In private life, the people who have the jobs most nearly comparable to the U.S. President's are those who head corporations, banks, universities, labor unions and large civic or public service institutions.

The chief executives of big corporations have far more executive experience than Senators and Congressmen, and some have training approaching that of Governors. The leaders of business have to deal with many varied constituencies--employees, shareholders, corporate directors, state and federal legislators, Government regulators, the press, consumer activists. The interests of these groups often conflict and, as in politics, the chief executive has to adjudicate. He learns, sooner than many professional politicians seem to, that you cannot promise everything to everybody. And like the successful politician, he has the fire in the belly; he could not have arrived where he has unless he had ambition, physical stamina and emotional stability.

Business leaders are rarely mentioned as possible Presidents, in part because corporate chiefs are little known by the public, in part because of the deep-rooted American suspicion of businessmen's motives. Many of our earlier Presidents (starting with George Washington) had some entrepreneurial experience, but the last out-and-out businessman who ran was Wendell Willkie in 1940. Says John T. Connor, chairman of Allied Chemical Corp. and former head of Merck & Co.: "Anyone with previous business experience becomes immediately suspect. Certain segments think that he can't make a decision in the public interest."

There are at least a dozen businessmen in the country who would make as capable a President as the dozen politicians who have declared themselves in the running for '76.

Any name will be good for some argument, but here goes.

Many lists would include Lawyer Connor himself. At 61, he has had varied and successful experience in Government as well as industry; he was Secretary of Commerce and also general counsel in the office of Scientific Research and Development. One of the businessmen most admired by other chief executives is Reginald Jones, 58, chairman of General Electric Co. (But for Jones to be elected, the Constitution would have to be amended. He was born in England, and brought to the U.S. as a child.) Another businessman on many lists would be Thornton F. Bradshaw, 58, the innovative president of Atlantic Richfield Co. He has a grasp of the nation's energy needs and extensive experience in dealing with foreign governments. Bradshaw also holds three degrees

from Harvard, where he once taught. William F. May, 60, chairman of American Can Co., has headed his company for ten years, and has given a great deal of time to commissions dealing with crime and delinquency, racial and religious discrimination and world hunger. Among the other chief executives who merit consideration by reason of experience, intelligence and conspicuous success in business and civic affairs are Deere & Co.'s William Hewitt, 61; Du Font's Irving Shapiro, 59; and Sperry Rand's J. Paul Lyet, 58.

Heads of big banks have broad leadership and management experience plus a deep understanding of money--a knowledge easily ridiculed but highly pertinent to the responsibilities of a U.S. President. The bankers must deal almost daily with government regulators and the competing pressures of borrowers from government and all branches of business. Perhaps the most admired (if not beloved) American banker is Walter Wriston, 56, who started out in the State Department and went on to lead his First National City to the No. 1 position in assets and profits among New York City banks. A witty, acerbic intellectual, Wriston is a frequent adviser to the White House. An almost equally wide-ranging man is A.W. ("Tom") Clausen, 52, who as head of the Bank of America is more than just the nation's biggest banker. Clausen, a lawyer, has been active in San Francisco civic affairs and is a serious student of U.S.-Asian relations. In Philadelphia, John R. Bunting, 52, an economist, has made First Pennsylvania Corp. into one of the nation's leading banks, in part by taking wise risks in lending to small businessmen. He is often mentioned as a candidate for mayor. Robert Roosa, 57, a partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, is a top-rung economist and foreign affairs expert who as Treasury Under Secretary in the early 1960s devised ingenious ways of easing world monetary crises.

As much as the chiefs of banks and corporations, many presidents of universities are equipped by managerial experience to be President. And many would have more intellectual depth and breadth than a corporation president, or for that matter recent U.S. Presidents. Like a President, the head of a university is at once a forward planner, budget manager, advocate and honest broker. He has to reconcile the often conflicting interests of many vocal (and self-divided) constituencies: students, faculty, trustees, legislators, alumni, contributors and sensitive groups within the local community. In the past decade, university presidents have had to cope with an extraordinary series of human --and economic--crises. They have simultaneously had to cool student and faculty radicals, deal with militant feminists, admit and help along more minority students, placate alumni who were angered by some of the changes and try to balance budgets increasingly strained.

Woodrow Wilson went on from the presidency of Princeton to become one of the greatest U.S. Presidents, and today at least half a dozen heads of universities appear to have a Wilsonian depth and vision. Among them are Yale's Kingman Brewster, 56; Stanford's Richard Lyman, 52; Notre Dame's Theodore Hesburgh, 58; Vanderbilt's Alexander Heard, 58; the University of California's David Saxon, 55; Princeton's William G. Bowen, 44; and James Hester, 51, who recently left New York University to become rector of the United Nations University in Japan.

Union leaders should also be considered because they, too, run large institutions and deal with conflicting constituencies, though like businessmen, or perhaps more so, they suffer from a reputation for narrowness of vision. Leonard Woodcock, 64, president of the United Auto Workers, has shown compassion, wit, a sensitivity to change in the economy, and a deep interest in foreign affairs. Lane Kirkland, 53, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, is one of the ablest union administrators and an astute student of automation, race relations, social security and foreign intelligence operations.

Top lawyers have rarely managed big, complex organizations, but they have analytical minds and wide experience, and many have done shuttle service in Washington and state capitals. Florida's Chesterfield Smith, 58, a past president of the American Bar Association, is particularly active in state affairs; he was chairman of the commission that revised the Florida constitution. Cyrus Vance, 58, has distinguished himself in Government as Secretary of the Army and the Johnson Administration's chief negotiator at the Viet Nam peace talks in Paris. He is greatly respected by his peers, who have elected him president of the Bar Association of the City of New York. Warren M. Christopher, 50, of Los Angeles, helped set up Governor Pat Brown's first administration in the 1950s, was a Deputy U.S. Attorney General in the 1960s, and now is chairman of the American Bar Association committee that reviews U.S. Supreme Court nominations. He also has been an adviser to the State Department on tariff policy. Willard Wirtz, 63, originally of Chicago, now a Washington lawyer, is a first-rate intellect, a rousing speechmaker, and did well as Secretary of Labor in the '60s and as adviser to both Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey.

There are indeed many men of presidential caliber who have held high appointive office but never run in an election. Economist and Educator George Shultz, 55, now president of the Bechtel Corp., showed vision, courage and the ability to win the respect of his opponents when he was U.S. budget director and Secretary of Labor and Treasury. The brainy McGeorge Bundy, 56, the former Harvard dean who is head of the Ford Foundation, performed with authority as National Security Adviser in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations (though his identification with the Viet Nam War would be a political burden). And then there is James Schlesinger, 46, who achieved high popularity after President Ford fired him as Secretary of Defense. "

In President Ford's present Cabinet, the two outstanding intellects are probably Henry Kissinger and Attorney General Edward Levi, former president of the University of Chicago. Both are Jewish, which might or might not still be a barrier to the presidency. Kissinger, despite his current troubles with Congress, remains one of the most admired men in the nation; but like Jones of GE, he is disqualified (unless we amend the Constitution) by his foreign birth.

Various other charismatic and influential Americans are sometimes discussed as potential presidential candidates, but cannot be taken too seriously because they have no broad leadership experience or represent too limited concerns. Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader, 41, would be in this group, along with many outstanding scientists and intellectuals.

In some cases, prejudice prevents first-rate leaders from being considered. Military men are almost never mentioned, except after popular and patriotic wars, and that rules out deep-thinking Admiral Noel Gayler, 60, the Navy's much decorated (three Navy Crosses in World War II) Pacific commander who was formerly director of the National Security Agency. Women, like blacks, still do not stand a chance, but their year will come. And though the bars against a Catholic layman were broken by J.F.K., Notre Dame's Hesburgh, a priest, would encounter church-and-state objections--as would any other clergyman.

Most significant, a large pool of elected officials tends to be overlooked. Mayors get short shrift. Though Arizona's Mo Udall is making a run now, U.S. Representatives are seldom considered. That is too bad, for there should be more discussion of such top Representatives as Illinois' John B. Anderson, 53; New York's Barber Conable Jr., 53; Wisconsin's Henry Reuss, 63, and Les Aspin, 37; Washington's Brock Adams, 48, and Tom Foley, 46.

At very least, the nation should make it easier for many more of its best people to be considered for the presidency. A few important steps have already been taken, so that the system, for all its flaws, is more open than at any time in modern history. The new Federal Campaign Finance Law smooths the way for people who lack either great wealth or rich backers to mount a campaign. The elimination of winner-take-all primaries is intended to give the conventions a wider choice of candidates.

But more needs to be done. Political Scientist Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution wisely suggests that the national parties should request that certain organizations--such as Governors' and mayors' conferences, bar associations, groups of businessmen, educators and labor leaders--"nominate" one of their own every four years for consideration by the conventions. But leaders in private life must overcome their own reluctance to ask for public support and their unwillingness to put up with all the handshaking, speechmaking, fund-raising necessities of running for office. ^

Businessmen, bankers, university presidents and union executives usually argue that they can accomplish more in private life than in elective politics, and for most of them that is doubtless true. But a few dozen could surely enlarge the nation's choices for high political office. Notre Dame's Father Hesburgh puts it well: "We are at the point in this country where we need the finest people we can get as leaders. I think we ought to find them and, if you will, pre-empt them or co-opt them to get them, somehow, into the process."

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