No Place for a Man to Hide

By Hugh Sidey

Does Jimmy Carter really think that a President can "hide in the White House" as he has accused Jerry Ford of doing? If so, Carter is in for a rude shock should he get the job.

A President may avoid reporters' questions for a time, but events claw at him 24 hours a day. There is no escape. "The whole damned world ends up on the White House threshold," sighed a Ford aide last week. At about that moment Ford was down in the basement, sleeve rolled up, getting his swine-flu shot to demonstrate it was safe. Three elderly people had died in Pennsylvania after receiving the shot, and doubts about the program were immediately directed at the White House. HEW Secretary David Mathews flagged the President's Washington staff, which informed the campaigning Ford. The President devised his tactics of reassurance while on the fly.

There are, of course, tremendous advantages to incumbency. Good news is shamelessly trumpeted, crop supports and weapons for Israel and Government contracts are turned into political capital. The President has at his command legions of aides, a nearly flawless transportation system, a highly sophisticated communications network.

But even the most normal actions may be judged political in the campaign season. Unusual actions, like the mass flu inoculations, are subject to deep suspicion and intense scrutiny. There are bills to be signed or vetoed, delegations seen and heard, world and national events commented on. Each day of a President's life is crowded with decisions that are statements of purpose and position. That record is fixed, not mere rhetoric that can be altered the next day.

It used to be assumed that while a President got blamed for bad news, he got compensating credit for good news. Some people now doubt that the equation still balances. This country is used to success. Thus, while a rising stock market is taken as an inherent right, a nervous market becomes the President's baby.

One day last week the genial Brent Scowcroft, Ford's national security adviser, was on the phone to the Pentagon. Did the Army engineers, he asked, create a fake mushroom cloud for a re-enactment of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima put on in Texas by a bunch of antique-airplane buffs? The Japanese were outraged. It turned out, to Scowcroft's relief, that Army engineers were not involved. But for a few perilous moments it appeared that the White House might have another illegitimate foundling on its doorstep.

Ford is held responsible for what happens now to China and southern Africa. Did the Soviet Union detonate, in underground tests, four nuclear weapons that exceed the agreed-upon 150-kilo-ton limit? Blame Ford, even though the U.S. cannot properly monitor such tests until the weapons-testing treaties are ratified by the Senate.

In its adjournment convulsion the Congress sent 190 bills to Ford's desk, each of which required action. He vetoed the bill designed to get more Indians into the Bureau of Indian Affairs. No wonder: to make room for Indians, the bill offered to retire all non-Indians over the age of 50 at full pension, a precedent that would have caused turmoil in the civil service. Nonetheless, the veto will anger some Indians.

Then there was the private bill for Mrs. Camilla Hester of Foley, Ala. She is a widow who has been unjustly denied a federal pension because of legal complexities. The bill contained a couple of quirks that would establish bad pension precedents. The President felt compelled to reject it with his 61st veto. Mrs. Hester, who has been leaning toward Ford in this campaign, allowed as how she was "disappointed." She seemed understanding. But who knows how Mrs. Hester and her family will vote on Nov. 2?

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