With Jimmy from Dawn to Midnight

Jimmy Carter has conducted his presidency in a remarkably open fashion, but journalists have had little firsthand access to what happens beyond the White House press room. The President readily takes his policies to the people, but he has kept the inner workings of his Administration somewhat of a mystery. Last week, however, TIME Correspondent Stanley Cloud was allowed to observe the President in action for an entire day, both in the White House and in his private family residence. The result is the first intimate look at how Carter governs, offering an extraordinary insight into what is involved daily in being the President of the U.S. today.

Jimmy Carter steps from White House elevator No. 1 onto the ground floor of the mansion and smiles. He asks a Secret Service agent standing in the marbled West Hall about a relative's health. "She's better, Mr. President, thanks," the agent answers. It is 6:45 a.m., the time Carter normally begins his day. He concludes his brief conversation and walks briskly outdoors toward the West Wing, along the colonnade bordering the Rose Garden. He throws open the tall glass door to the Oval Office, strides through that exquisite, historic room and heads directly for his study. Another day in Carter's young presidency has begun.

It will be a long and difficult one. Many of the issues preoccupying Washington during the week are converging --in some cases unexpectedly--on the White House. Meanwhile, outside, the sunny morning will slide into a dark and wet afternoon, though occasional bold rays of sunlight will slice through the tumbling clouds and bathe the budding treetops above the south lawn in startling shades of gold.

Purist Approach. Carter's initial grace period with official Washington, if there ever was one, is unmistakably over. The special interests, to whom Carter insists he does not owe a thing, are zeroing in on the White House. Trade-offs and bargains, which Carter does not like, are beginning to be an unavoidable part of his life. "When you start putting forth legislation,"' the President will observe later in the day, "it's hard to say when you should deviate from the purist approach and how much deviation is too much."'

Though the Oval Office is symbolic of the presidency--the literal venue of the nation's power--Carter tends to use it only for ceremonial occasions and special meetings. Most of his day is spent in his adjacent small study, which is connected to the Oval Office by a short passageway. The room is sunny, the decor simple yet elegant; long curtains, gold carpet, white couch, two green easy chairs that are prime candidates for recovering. His personal secretary, Susan Clough, sits in an office adjacent to the study. When she is not typing letters or penciling in the almost constant changes in Carter's daily schedule, she is feeding the President's Panasonic phonograph with classical LPs. The background music plays all day. Clough types the musical program on a tidy series of yellow three-by-five cards and places them on the President's desk so that he can make mental notes of what he is hearing. Some of the music for this Wednesday: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Verdi's Otello, Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, selections from Puccini and Mozart.

Carter is an almost compulsive believer in such self-improvement. He has been studying the White House works of art. In February he asked White House Curator Clem Conger for historical details about all the objects in the Oval Office, which include an 18th century portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, a Frederic Remington bronze, Broncho Buster (circa 1901), and the only known replica of Charles Willson Peale's portrait of George Washington, which is currently valued at $400,-000 to $600,000. Carter recently stunned the curator of Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art with his detailed knowledge of American artists. Thanks to a speed-reading course that he and his family just completed, the President now zips along at a rapid 1,200 words a minute. One night last week, as part of his final exam, he went through three entire books, including John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

But the pressures of his job are restricting him. During his first weeks in office, he tried to eat lunch with his family every day. No more. Now he most often lunches at his desk. Clough has done a study of the paper work that comes to Carter. During the week of March 7, for example, 292 items, totaling 1,384 pages--plus a number of "other" things such as lengthy studies and reports--were dealt with personally by the President. When Carter sent a memo to Clough asking why she had the "other" category in her study, she replied that these were things she assumed he either did not read or merely skimmed. "I read most of it," Carter wrote back. .

Carter takes off his suit jacket and dons the zippered gray cardigan he keeps handy in a small closet. A fire is blazing in the fireplace. As he settles behind his desk and sips his morning coffee, he comments on the beauty of the White House and its grounds, the blooming tulips and crabapple trees. A couple of evenings before, he says, he had picked a branch of crabapple blossoms for Rosalynn.

As his long day begins. Carter has foreign policy on his mind. He likes dealing with foreign policy, he suggests, because it especially challenges him and because his power--"my ability to act unilaterally more often than I can on domestic issues," as he puts it--seems greater. The day before, the President had met Egypt's Anwar Sadat for the first time. Sadat had talked frankly about Egypt's role in the Middle East and Africa--a continent very much on Carter's mind--and about Egypt's need for American aid. "He's a very frank person," Carter says. "We got along very well together."

The dust is still settling from the explosion of the SALT talks in Moscow (see THE WORLD), but Carter is extraordinarily confident. "I have no reason to wish we had done anything differently," he says. "I have no second thoughts at all. There is a much closer relationship between me and [Soviet Party Chief Leonid] Brezhnev--and between [Secretary of State Cyrus] Vance and [Soviet Ambassador Anatoli] Dobrynin--than anyone knows about." He says that "encouraging" communications on the subject are taking place between Moscow and Washington on a regular basis.

In domestic affairs, Carter's major concern is that his economic-stimulus package, including the $50 tax rebate, pass the Senate. (It has already passed the House.) A number of Senators, chafing at his decision to halt, at least temporarily, a long list of water-control --many would say "pork barrel" --projects, are dragging their feet on the Administration's economic proposals. Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale have begun making personal appeals to recalcitrant Senators for their support. In return, the President has agreed to reconsider some of the water-control projects on which substantial work has been done. His early-morning view: "I think a lot of them shouldn't go ahead even if they didn't cost a nickel. But the degree of completion is something that we should have given greater consideration to."

At 8:33, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski arrives at the President's study to give his regular morning intelligence briefing. He hands the President a report. "You should know," Brzezinski says, "that the Algerians are interested in better relations with us." That comment and other information on Africa prompts a later call to Vice President Mondale. With an edge of irritation in his voice, Carter says, "I want you to tell Cy [Vance] and Zbig that I want them to move in every possible way to get Somalia to be our friend." The President mentions other African countries to which he would like to direct new initiatives. "We're just sitting around," he tells Mondale. "I've told Cy that before."

Presidential Assistants Hamilton Jordan and Frank Moore (who is in charge Of congressional relations) enter the President's office at 9:45. They discuss the Administration's foreign aid request. "We're going to lose Africa," Carter says to Moore, "if we don't do something to help those poorer countries." Moore is instructed to tell Congress that "we've got to have some way to meet the challenge." On the subject of congressional recalcitrance over the $50 tax rebate, Moore tells the President: "[Senate Majority Leader Robert] Byrd called in four people yesterday to have lunch with them. He's got them turned around. You might give him a call today just to thank him."

"I will," the President replies. "Any time you detect a subcommittee member who's willing to help us, just let me know. I'll be glad to give them a call."

"We're going to win this tax rebate thing," Moore says. Carter is not so sure.

The meeting turns to the Administration's energy policy. The President refers to a lengthy memo on his desk from Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal and Charles Schultze, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Both have raised serious questions about the proposals being developed by Energy Chief James Schlesinger. They have insisted that they be consulted in advance --and in full--before any final decisions are made. "They treat me like I'm an idiot," Carter says to Jordan. "Do they think I would make a policy without consulting the other members of the Cabinet?"

"I gather you think you're competent to do the job?" Jordan asks with a grin.

"I think I can handle it," says the President, his voice heavy with irony.

"Well," Jordan says as he excuses himself from the office, "I'm glad my name ain't on that memo." . It is a short time later. The President is alone in the Cabinet Room with three Senators, Democrats John Glenn and Abraham Ribicoff and Republican Charles Percy. They have presented him a report by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment on the problem of nuclear proliferation. "I know you're working right in the middle of this now," Glenn tells the President, "and I think it's very important." Carter notes that the U.S. can limit its reliance on nuclear power--and thus cut back the production of reprocessed nuclear fuel that can be used for bombs--because it has adequate coal and oil reserves. Other nations, notably West Germany and Japan, are not so fortunate, he says. Then he gives the Senators some news: "We're going to take a unilateral step to end reprocessing, and we'll call on other nations to do the same."

After the meeting, Carter pulls Glenn aside for a private chat. "I really need your help on this tax rebate thing," the President says. "The whole economic-stimulus package is going to fail if we go ahead piecemeal and provide benefits for business and then ignore the working people." Glenn's response is noncommittal. Carter thanks him anyway, then rushes into the Oval Office for the day's most publicized activity: signing the bill giving him most of the authority he sought in order to begin reorganizing the federal bureaucracy.

At 10:45 a.m., the President is back in his study for a meeting with Press Aides Jody Powell and Rex Granum.

He wants them to hold a briefing for reporters on the decision to cancel two breeder-reactor projects that Carter had mentioned to Senators Glenn, Ribicoff and Percy. "It might reassure [Japanese Premier Takeo] Fukuda and [West German Chancellor Helmut] Schmidt to understand that we are making distinctions between our own situation and theirs," Carter says.

Granum mentions the lunch that Carter will have in about an hour with George Meany and a platoon of angry labor leaders. He notes that the AFLCIO'S No. 2 man, Lane Kirkland-- who in a blistering address the day before charged Carter with failing to keep his promises to the "working people"--has said labor would be willing to support the Administration's tax-reduction proposals in return for the President's backing of a comprehensive labor-reform law. "How should we respond in public to Kirkland's remarks?" Granum asks.

"In a low-key, noncombative way," answers the President. A little later, Carter recalls that the musicians' union is picketing Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Washington, to which he had planned to take Amy that night. The President says to Powell: "I'm going to tell the labor leaders how unhappy I am that they are keeping me from taking my daughter to the circus."

Before lunch, the President has a meeting with union representatives in the Cabinet Room. Vice President Mondale is there when Carter arrives and later remains to smooth feathers after the President has left. The union men urge a more protectionist policy on Carter, particularly for the TV, textile and footwear industries, which have severe competition from foreign imports.

Says David Fitzmaurice of the Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers: "There just aren't any jobs. I could cite plant after plant in the TV industry that is closing. It scares us. We're not against fair competition if it is fair. But... we're dealing with countries that exploit their workers and deal in dumping and so forth." Adds Red Smith of the Machinists' Union: "I remember I was told, 'Now, Red Smith, you vote for Jimmy Carter. He's one of us.' So I did. Now I want to see what's being done for us."

Carter gives the labor leaders little satisfaction. He says the U.S. is attempting to get foreign nations, especially Japan, to invest in the U.S. and thus help create jobs. It would be counterproductive to do that on the one hand and move aggressively to limit Japanese imports on the other. His firmly put conclusion: "Your members are also American citizens; what concerns the rest of the country also concerns them. And one of the things that concerns the rest of the country is inflation. When you put tremendous restraints on imports, it has an enormous effect on inflation."

"An interesting meeting," someone says to the President as he returns to his study. "Yeah," Carter says. "You just have to listen to them. There's no way to answer them."

But Carter does do something more than listen. It is only moments later that he is back in the Cabinet Room, this time meeting with a group of Japanese businessmen escorted by Georgia Governor George Busbee (Carter's successor), who is trying to encourage Japanese investment in his state. Says Carter to the group: "I told Premier Fukuda when I saw him recently that I would like Japan to share its great wealth. We would like to have you invest here. It's hard for me to avoid greater import restrictions when there is such an imbalance of trade between our countries."

"No President who performs his duty faithfully ... can have any leisure," wrote James K. Polk in 1848. "If he entrusts the details ... to subordinates, constant errors will occur. I prefer to supervise the whole operation of the Government myself."

Perhaps Polk could do it, but no modern President can. "I've reserved for myself only the things I have to do," Jimmy Carter says. But everything still revolves around the President. He sits in his study--with pastorals by American impressionist painters on his wall, his bookshelves laden with biographies of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Kennedy--and seems very much alone. But all things converge upon him, and there is a constant flow of people and ideas. Richard Nixon's lieutenants tried to protect Nixon from such intrusions. Within reason, Carter seems almost to welcome them. The White House operation is remarkably relaxed. Hamilton Jordan regularly dresses as if he were about to spend the afternoon quail hunting: sports shirt open at the neck, khaki work pants, heavy-duty boots. He, Jody Powell (shirtsleeves and vest), Zbigniew Brzezinski (baggy pants, Dagwood haircut) and others of the inner circle move calmly and freely in and out of the President's presence. They are respectful, at ease and only mildly deferential. The President sets this tone. He does not seem to have gone through a period of unusual exuberance, or of strain, in his first weeks in office. He settled into the job almost as if he had held it before. "I was relaxed about becoming President," he says. "I wasn't afraid of it."

When trouble does arise--as it does on this Wednesday--his aides do not hesitate to call on him. The energy policy is clearly at a crisis point. Not only are Blumenthal and Schultze deeply concerned about the effect of the proposed policies on the economy; others, including Schlesinger, are worried about potential political trouble.

An extraordinary meeting is hastily called for the afternoon. "It may be a long one," Jordan warns Carter, "maybe a couple of hours." In fact, it lasts nearly five hours, with the President sitting in and taking an active part for 31/2 hours. Among those attending is a Who's Who of the Administration: Schlesinger, Schultze, Blumenthal, Jordan, Powell, Moore, Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus, Bert Lance of OMB, Jack Watson of the President's staff.

Basically, the meeting consists of Schlesinger throwing out his proposals and others, in Carter's words, "trying to shoot them down." (In some cases, Schlesinger himself voices objections to program proposals on the basis of his understanding of the political situation.) Should sources of fuel be taxed? What restrictions should be placed on automobiles? What should be done to encourage--or require--home insulation?

The debate is often intense. After three hours, a participant comes out, grim-faced, to make a phone call. "Hell," he mutters to himself, "if Schlesinger does what he wants to do, I'll never be able to go to Texas again in my life." Frank Moore emerges, calls his secretary and asks her to send up "one of those little blue pills in my desk." A few moments later Watson is out to ask for aspirin.

The President leaves the meeting shortly before 7 p.m. He discusses it in the admiring way a street fighter would talk about a good brawl. "It was very tough," he says. "They really took a lot of shots at Schlesinger. But he defended himself well. He's a very smart man. There was a lot of very strong give-and-take. I was proud of everyone."

Carter says that perhaps 85% of the energy policy has been agreed upon at the meeting. The remaining 15% should be added the next day. The feeling in the White House is that they have a blockbuster on their hands. There is talk of a three-part presentation by the President next week: a fireside chat to discuss the need for a strong energy policy, a speech before a joint session of Congress to present the policy, and a full-dress press conference to explain it --all on national TV.

Carter is pleased with the performance of his subordinates at the energy meeting. "They are a marvelous group," he says. "The entire Cabinet is. I don't think people realize how strong a Cabinet I have."

. Amy has been sent to the Oval Office to fetch her father for dinner. Son Jeff, the unofficial family photographer, is there, and he takes some pictures. The President stops at his study to make a couple of phone calls, and leaves.

By now, Jimmy Carter is fatigued. His eyes are red-rimmed and his shoulders sag beneath his gray plaid suit coat as he steps into the elevator from the ceremonial ground floor and rides to his living quarters on the second floor of the White House. It is a few minutes after 7 p.m., and the President of the United States, who prides himself on his punctuality, is late joining his family for dinner.

The entire family is waiting for him in the cavernous West Sitting Hall: Rosalynn, wearing a red sweater, kissing the President as he enters; Amy, ready for bed in an ankle-length nightgown; the President's mother, Miss Lillian, whom the nation has come to think of as indefatigable, now using a wheelchair because of the arthritis in her legs; Rosalynn's mother; Sons Chip and Jeff and their wives. Like the President, the other members of the Carter clan seem tired. Chip is holding his six-week-old son James Earl Carter IV in his arms. The baby is asleep and hardly stirs as the President takes him and sits down on a couch to watch a few minutes of the evening news.

Only six members of the family adjourn to the dining room a few minutes later. Amy has already eaten. Chip and Caron are going out to dinner. The family hold hands around the table while Annette, Jeffs wife, says grace, and Ely Young, a tall black waiter in a tuxedo, prepares to serve the meal: pork chops, boiled broccoli and mashed potatoes.

"It's been a rough day," the President says as he takes a single pork chop. He recalls his lunch with the labor leaders. "Whew," he says. "Those fellas can be mean. They used a blowtorch on me. That's the first time George Meany has ever talked to me that way." Then comes a typical Carter afterthought: "Tough, but polite. I listened, but I don't think I satisfied them. The minimum-wage bill has labor mad. The farm-price-support bill has the farmers mad. Pretty soon we're going to announce the energy policy--and everybody will be mad."

At 8:15 dinner ends. Carter returns to his study. His secretary has gone home. His press staff, Frank Moore and Ham Jordan, are drinking beer and discussing the energy meeting in Jody Powell's office. It is shortly after midnight when Carter leaves the study. He carefully turns out the lights.

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