CARTER SPINS THE WORLD

"It is a new world that calls for a new American foreign policy. "

To that ringing declaration, made at the University of Notre Dame last May, Jimmy Carter might have added "You can depend on it!" In his half-year in office, the President has gone far toward creating a new American foreign policy, both in content and conduct. He has tirelessly emphasized --some might say preached--the virtues of open diplomacy and moral principles as a substitute for what he contends was the often secretive and sometimes amoral Realpolitik of the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger years. He has spent an extraordinary amount of time on foreign affairs and has made more news in dealing with the world than with domestic concerns. He has sent off his emissaries in all directions and tried to tackle virtually all major international problems simultaneously.

All this activity and rhetoric has had a significant effect at home. After the guilt-ridden defeat in Viet Nam and the shocks of Watergate, Carter has given many Americans a renewed feeling that they are standing for something good in the world. He has done this in his own special style, but in the tradition of Wilson, Roosevelt and Dulles, who, in very different ways, affirmed that U.S. foreign policy must have a moral content.

At the same time, Carter has greatly alarmed both traditional friends and adversaries abroad and raised serious questions about his aims and methods in foreign policy. In the U.S., quite a few members of the mainly Democratic foreign policy Establishment are beginning to wonder whether he is really up to the job. Nothing serious has been lost so far and much may yet be gained from Carter's obvious good intentions, his openness to new ideas and his ability to inspire those who see or hear him. But the general pattern of his foreign policy actions creates genuine cause for worry about troubles ahead.

Having boldly jumped into the world arena like a Daniel in the Lions' den, Carter is finding that the inhabitants have quite a bite. Soviet Communist Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev, deeply wounded by the human rights crusade, charges that Carter has launched "psychological warfare," and adds that "a normal development of relations on such a basis is, of course, unthinkable." French

President Valery Giscard d'Estaing says that Carter "has compromised the process of detente," while West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has complained that Carter "acts like a faith healer" and formulates "policy from the pulpit."

The impression is growing that Carter's overall strategy is flawed, that his sense of priorities is unrealistic and that some of his tactics are counterproductive. As he has often done in domestic affairs, he sometimes seems to think that enunciating a great goal is the same as doing something about it. Is Carter simply an idealist, applying Southern Baptist religiosity and New World populism to the complexities of diplomacy? Or is he shrewd, even Machiavellian, bobbing here and weaving there in order to camouflage his pursuit of some well-wrought global goals? Or is he, perhaps, merely inexperienced and naive?

No doubt the one-term Georgia Governor was much less experienced in foreign affairs than domestic matters. No doubt, much of his world view is rooted in the Sunday school gospel that he still teaches occasionally at Washington's First Baptist Church, his belief in the perfectibility of man, his deeply moving experience of witnessing Southern whites coming to terms with blacks, and his own triumph in surmounting enormous odds to reach the White House. He has called for the U.S. to "set a standard of morality" and to pursue policies based on "decency and optimism."

Carter's foreign policy is now being put to a stern test in the Middle East, the tortured area where tensions rose appreciably last week. The President's energy, perseverance and charm have impressed Arab and Israeli alike, but his confusing statements and missteps have dismayed them. Even before Carter took office, Kissinger's innovative step-by-step diplomacy had stalled. Carter has been unable to restore the momentum and the region is probably closer to war than when he came to power. This week Secretary of State Cyrus Vance departs for a ten-day swing through Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Israel. He was not optimistic as he left Washington, and there is growing apprehension that the Administration will fail to make good on Carter's vow to move significantly closer to peace "this year."

Israel's hawkish new Premier Menachem Begin appears less willing than his Labor Party predecessors to bend to U.S. pressures for compromise. The Israeli leader seemed to taunt Carter deliberately last week when, only a few hours after he returned home from an all-smiles meeting with the President in Washington, he approved the legalizing of three Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank (see box). Carter promptly endorsed a statement by Vance that the Israeli action created "an obstacle to the peacemaking process."

But he tempered this by cautioning that "it is not fair to overly criticize" Begin because prior Israeli governments had done similar things. Meanwhile, 20 Arab states demanded a U.N. investigation. Begin retorted that "we stand on the right of Jews to li ve in any part of the land of Israel" -- which in his view includes the West Bank.

The difficulty with Begin is just one of the problems Carter faces in his attempt to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Carter's strategy, drawn largely from a 1975 Brookings Institution study, has been to coax the Arabs and Israelis to an early Geneva conference at which a comprehensive (in contrast to a step-by-step) solution would be negotiated. A fair settlement, according to Carter's many statements on the subject, would resolve three fundamental issues: the nature of peace for Israel, the borders of the warring states, and the fate of the Palestinians. In his search for settlement, the President has met with Egypt's Anwar Sadat, Jordan's King Hussein, Saudi Arabia's Prince Fahd and Syria's Hafez Assad, in addition to Begin.

For a while the Arabs were ecstatic over Carter. An Egyptian official called him "more Arab than the Ar abs," while Palestine Liberation Organization Chief Yasser Arafat last month praised the President's position on the Palestinians as "a positive step."

But the Arabs are distressed by Carter's performance during the Begin visit to the U.S. Instead of acting tough and trying to pressure the Israeli Premier, Carter -- according to a participant at the talks -- was a "pussycat." As he admit ted at his press conference last week, through "an oversight" he had not asked Begin about his plans for changing the status of existing settlements in the occupied territories. For his part, the Israeli leader volunteered no hints of his intentions.

With the spectacle of Begin seeming to tame the U.S. President, Arab delight with Carter has begun to fade. Moaned a normally optimistic Egyptian official last week: "I am beginning to doubt that our generation will see peace between Israel and the Arabs." To the Arabs it is not enough that the State Department has criticized Israel for legalizing the West Bank settlements; what they are anxiously looking for is some sign that Carter is prepared to flex Yankee muscle to force Begin to be more accommodating. Asked Mahmoud Abu Zalaf, editor of the Jerusalem Arab newspaper Al Quds: "If the President could not restrain Begin on an issue like the settlements, which is not so complicated, what will happen when it comes to borders and to Jerusalem?"

The Israelis, however, feel that the

White House has been leaning on them too much as it is, despite Carter's reiteration of America's "special relationship with Israel." Such grand phrases, they believe, are contradicted by deeds like last week's Administration decision to transfer to Egypt $200 million in "nonlethal" military equipment.

Carter might be more effective in arranging a Middle East peace if he stopped confusing the issue. On the boundary question, he first enthused Israel by talking about its need for "defensible borders"; he did not realize that this was the Israeli code word for retaining much of the territory seized during the 1967 war. After recognizing his gaffe, he backpedaled, stating that Israel would be allowed merely "minor adjustments" in the 1967 borders. This infuriated the Israelis, elated the Arabs, and left both unsure about where the Administration stood.

There is greater confusion on the question of the Palestinians. At the famous town meeting in Clinton, Mass., in early spring, the President asserted offhandedly that the Palestinians were entitled to a "homeland." The delighted Arabs interpreted this code word as a presidential endorsement of a separate Palestinian state. In fact Carter does not favor absolute independence for the Palestinians, although he continued to cloud the issue later when he said that negotiations would determine that homeland's "degree of independence." The idea of a Palestinian state on its border terrifies Israel, which promptly mobilized its powerful lobby in the U.S. Apparently bending to its pressures, Carter again revised his rhetoric, dropping "homeland" in favor of "entity." Observes Harvard Middle East Expert Nadav Safran: "Ford and Kissinger believed that a Palestinian homeland would come about, and they said it in private. But they took no position in public. They wanted to get the parties used to the idea, yet keep their public position flexible."

All this makes Vance's Middle East trip extraordinarily important. To nudge the Arabs and Israelis toward a conference, Vance is taking with him some "suggestions." Among them:

>Proposals for Israeli "security lines" that would actually be beyond Israel's future political borders;

>Ideas on the timing of phased withdrawals by Israeli forces to the "security lines" and later, possibly back to the political borders;

>Options aimed at eliciting an Arab consensus on how the Palestinians should be represented at Geneva;

>Proposed definitions of "real peace" for Israel.

Carter once insisted on "substantial achievements" before convening a Geneva conference and said that a poorly prepared meeting would be worse than none. He has reversed this view, and a certain desperation underlies the comments of some of his policy planners. Says one: "It is more risky to do nothing." Some officials feel that without a conference, war is likely. But as other officials admit, there is the opposite danger: the collapse of a Geneva conference would sharply increase the chances of a fifth Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Middle East is the most urgent of many areas in which the Carter foreign policy is in trouble. Among the others:

HUMAN RIGHTS

The foreign policy issues to which Carter has contributed most are those with a distinct moral tone, and his nearly evangelical championing of human rights has become his hallmark. Seldom does he hold a press conference, offer a banquet toast or make a speech without mentioning it. At times Carter has been more direct, as when he delayed the sale of small arms and police weapons to the authoritarian governments of Argentina, El Salvador and Uruguay because they violate the human rights of their own dissident citizens. Aware of the controversy the issue has stirred abroad, Carter said to TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott: "We have a real problem. We don't want to interfere in other countries, but at the same time there are basic principles and values we must continue to support."

How successful has Carter's human rights policy been? If its aim is to burnish the U.S. image abroad, the policy has been a great triumph in many regions. From Latin America, TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand reports that among the people--but not the officials--Carter is fast becoming as admired as the much venerated John Kennedy. Notes a leading opposition politician in Chile: "The U.S. is now in the forefront of the fight for freedom and has once again assumed moral and spiritual leadership."

Much the same is true in Eastern Europe, reports TIME Correspondent David Aikman. The human rights campaign is cheered not only by the active opponents of the harsh Communist regimes but also by most of the people, who fondly associate the policy with the kind of American evangelical fervor that prompted Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. As Soviet Dissident Andrei Amalrik told Aikman: "The morality of the West is human rights."

But the assessment of the policy is no better than mixed if Carter's aim is to ease the plight of those suffering rights abuses. In some nations--South Korea, the Philippines, Benin, Chile, Iran and Argentina--a number of dissenters have begun receiving slightly fairer treatment. But elsewhere there has been either no relaxation or--as in the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Rumania--there have been new repressive crackdowns.

Whatever his aim, Carter has been paying a considerable price for pursuing his human rights policy with such fervor.

He is winning many of the common folk, but he has been straining Washington's relations with their leaders. Notes former senior U.S. diplomat George Ball: "I think the Administration is pursuing the human rights business without fully taking all implications into account. To some extent it has become a stuck needle, getting in the way of a lot of things which might be more important in the long term." Others point to the selective morality of Carter's stand; he sharply assails some repressive countries, but he goes easier on those that the U.S. considers vital to its own interests. Chile is excoriated, but little is said about the Shah of Iran's heavy-handed rule. Moreover, much of Carter's policy appears contradictory. He wants to develop better, closer relations with Third World countries, yet, if he were to be honest and consistent, he would chastise and penalize most of them for their human rights abuses. He wants to ban the sale of conventional arms to a country if the purchase would mean introducing new technology into a region, yet is willing to sell the F-15 fighter jet to Saudi Arabia. He wants to soften the anti-Communist fervor in the U.S., yet he sharply and steadily criticizes the Soviets where they are most vulnerable.

SOVIET UNION

Although Carter rehabilitated the term detente, which Ford had tried to expunge, U.S.-Soviet relations are at their lowest point in years. The SALT stalemate results, in part, from military advances, such as America's development of the cruise missile and the Soviets' deployment of the Backfire bomber and SS-18 monster-size rockets. But the Carter Administration may bear some blame for the impasse because it badly miscalculated the response that both its human rights campaign and its sweeping arms-reduction proposals last March would trigger from the Russians. The Administration, says Veteran Kremlin-watcher George Kennan, "made just about every mistake it could make in these Moscow talks and has defied all the lessons we have learned in dealing with the Soviets since the last World War."

To the U.S., that call for a more than 20% cut in both superpowers' strategic arsenals reflected Carter's determination, as National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says, "not merely to put a hold on the arms race, but to obtain increasingly significant reductions." The Soviets, however, viewed Carter's proposal for drastic cuts as one-sided, as a threat to their military security and as a violation of the established mode of U.S.-Soviet diplomacy. It was a mistake for Vance to spring a sharp revision of the weapons ceilings, which had been approved by Ford and Brezhnev at the 1974 Vladivostok summit, on Soviet leaders whose basic conservatism and advancing age (Politburo average: 67) make them unable to respond quickly to changes. Carter and Vance also gave the press details of the new proposals; the Soviet leaders are accustomed to the kind of confidential diplomacy skillfully practiced by Henry Kissinger, and they especially resent being embarrassed or put on the defensive before the world.

The President emphatically rejects the notion that progress on arms control might be "linked" to human rights. This breaks sharply from Kissinger's strategy of dealing with the Soviets; he held that all U.S.-U.S.S.R. ties were interwoven, meaning that progress on one front, like SALT, would lead eventually to advances in other areas like human rights. Vowing to continue speaking out on human rights, Carter nonetheless has repeatedly assured Moscow that he has no "inclination to single out the Soviet Union as the only place where human rights are being abridged," and that he is "not trying to overthrow the Soviet government nor to intrude ourselves into their affairs." But the Kremlin keeps on fuming.

In a remarkable admission, Carter said that he was "surprised" by the Soviets' bitter reaction. His own inexperience might account for his rude shock, but why did not his seasoned foreign policy aides forewarn him? Perhaps because they figure, as one top White House foreign policy aide says, that the Kremlin's fulminations are "80% Soviet propaganda" intended to force the U.S. to dilute its comprehensive, tough position on arms control. Carter has thus vowed to "hang tough." He feels that there is nothing wrong with making the Soviets squirm occasionally, and that the U.S. public has been getting fed up with what has appeared (often erroneously) to be Moscow's taking advantage of detente.

WESTERN EUROPE

The Administration jumped off to an excellent start with its allies. Within days of the Inauguration, Vice President Walter Mondale was visiting West European and Japanese leaders, assuring them that Washington would weigh their opinions when formulating policy; a few months later, Carter was charming and impressing fellow heads of government at the London summit. The allies have also been heartened by Washington's pledge to bolster NATO's conventional forces, and they generally favor Carter's rather relaxed, flexible approach to Eurocommunism. Now many allied governments are troubled by Carter. European Community leaders have sent him a message warning that he may be seriously endangering detente by the way he has been dealing with the Soviet Union. At an intimate Franco-German summit, Giscard and Schmidt discussed increasing their cooperation in foreign affairs, in view of their mounting dissatisfaction with Carter.

Washington's most serious problem is with its strongest ally, West Germany. Schmidt regards Carter as some kind of misguided zealot. The Chancellor has charged that the President was much too categorical in his SALT proposals, leaving Brezhnev little room for negotiation. Schmidt further feels that Washington's grapeshot human rights drive may be less effective in helping dissenters in Communist countries than would quiet diplomatic pressure in the Kissinger fashion. What deeply concerns him among other things is that deterioration in East-West relations could jeopardize the continuing emigration of ethnic Germans from Poland and the U.S.S.R.

The Administration tends to dismiss European complaints about U.S. policy, and some White House officials are openly contemptuous about the West European leaders' criticisms. Groans one White House aide: "It's a classic pattern. Whenever West European leaders are under political pressure at home, they get vocally nationalistic, carping at the ever available Americans." To be sure, Giscard's outbursts have been motivated partly by his desire to court his countrymen's Gaullist sentiments. Yet the Carter team is making a mistake if it ignores the discontent of its allies. Warns Ian Smart, director of studies at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs: "There is a pronounced inclination for Europeans to interpret Carter's mistakes as inadvertent. Thus there is a potential credit balance for him to exploit. But there is also a Limit to it."

ASIA

Fulfilling his campaign promise, Carter has begun the controversial process of withdrawing most of the 33,000 U.S. ground troops now based in South Korea. During his tour last week of U.S. outposts on the divided peninsula, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown announced a timetable that will take out the first 6,000 G.I.s by the end of next year and about 6,000 more in 1980. The rest are to depart by 1982.

Brown defended the withdrawal by emphasizing the strength of the South Korean economy, the combat readiness that Seoul's forces will reach with U.S. help, and the fact that U.S. Air Force units will remain behind, as will noncombat ground troops, such as intelligence and logistics units. Yet the pullout is causing considerable consternation among South Koreans and Japanese, who fear that it may encourage the bellicose North Korean regime to test Seoul militarily once the G.I.s are gone. This concern is shared by many U.S. diplomats and military officials, who feel that Carter paid little attention to their arguments against the withdrawal from Korea. Observes an Asia-based senior U.S. diplomat: "The U.S. keeps saying, 'We'll live up to our commitments. We're an Asian Pacific power.' A lot of Asians are now saying, 'If you mean it, why the hell are you pulling your troops out of South Korea?' "

Extremely sensitive to any shift in the military balance in East Asia, Japanese Premier Takeo Fukuda is especially upset because his government was only informed of the withdrawal, not consulted. Tokyo is particularly surprised because Carter often stresses that he frequently wants to confer with America's allies. The Japanese are also upset by Carter's nuclear nonproliferation policy; it could impede energy-starved Japan's conversion to atomic power. Says a ranking Japanese diplomat: "We have not done much lobbying in public, but we have been shaken by this policy. Sometimes I wish we had a Helmut Schmidt in Tokyo."

Dwarfing all immediate U.S. concerns in the Far East is the problem of how quickly and in what way relations with China are to be normalized--a commitment made by Washington in 1972, when Richard Nixon and Chou En-lai signed the Shanghai Communique. The stumbling block has been Taiwan, which the communique states is an organic part of the mainland. The U.S. understandably refuses to abandon its 23-year-old defense treaty with the Taipei regime. Insists Carter: "We don't want to see the Taiwanese people punished or attacked."

Although Carter inherited the China-Taiwan dilemma, a number of experts fault the new Administration for ignoring Hua Kuo-feng's government and not moving quicker to find a solution. Harvard's John K. Fairbank, the doyen of U.S. China scholars, charges: "We don't have a China policy; China is not even on the front burner. A lot of preparation is required [to resolve the Taiwan problem], but none of this has been done."

The Administration now seems aware that it has let relations with China slip. Part of the problem has been that it made little sense for the U.S. to launch new initiatives as long as China's domestic politics were unsettled; the recent re-emergence of Teng Hsiaop'ing as a top leader indicates that relative calm is returning. Even so, it is very unlikely that there will be an early breakthrough on the Taiwan issue. But warns Fairbank, "One of these days we may be asking, 'What the hell hit us?' We could be in for unpleasant surprises." Though Secretary Vance will visit China later this month, he expects to concentrate on "global issues" rather than bilateral relations.

DEVELOPING NATIONS

Black Africa, more than any other area of the world, showers praise on the Carter Administration. Typically, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda says: "That man [Carter] has brought a breath of fresh air to our troubled world." What so delights black Africans is Washington's nearly 180DEG shift in dealing with the white-dominated regimes. Carter has called strongly for black majority rule in Rhodesia and South West Africa--countries that he refers to as Zimbabwe and Namibia, their black nationalist names. He has criticized apartheid in South Africa, calling on Pretoria to adopt, among other things, "equality of hiring practices, equality of pay for the same kind of work."

The approach is sound, even though it could cause problems. Even moderate whites in South Africa would feel threatened and resist moves for greater racial justice if the U.S. was perceived to be making unreasonable demands on behalf of the blacks--as when Vice President Mondale stated that every South African should have "the right to vote, every vote equally weighted." And if Carter has encouraged Africa's black leaders to expect too much from U.S. policy, their eventual disappointment could turn them against Washington. Zambia's Kaunda warns: "Neither the American people nor their President have got much time to play with."

In Latin America, Carter's boldest moves are the steps toward normalizing relations with Cuba; the ban on U.S. citizens' traveling there has been allowed to lapse, and next month, for the first time in 16 years, U.S. diplomats will take up residence in Havana. Nearly all Latin American regimes approve of these developments, as they do of the signs of progress in the Panama Canal talks. Negotiations are bogged down over the size of the fees the U.S. will pay Panama, but it is expected that by the end of summer the two countries will have completed a draft treaty calling for the Panamanians to assume control of the canal by the year 2000.

Other aspects of the Carter foreign policy have been less successful in Latin America. Most serious is the cooling of U.S. relations with Brazil; President Ernesto Geisel's regime was already incensed by Washington's efforts to prevent it from getting full-cycle nuclear plants when a congressional report cited Brazil for human rights violations. This was too much for the proud Brazilians, who scrapped a 25-year friendship treaty with the.U.S.

NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

Halting the spread of nuclear materials and techniques is a moral policy that especially appeals to Carter. President Ford and Henry Kissinger were also worried about nuclear proliferation and, in an attempt to find a means to stem it, were conducting complicated and protracted negotiations with more than a dozen countries. Carter insists on banning the sale of the reprocessing and enrichment plants that might be used to provide materials for nuclear weapons. But the President's style of pursuing the policy has enraged several of America's most important allies. Admitting that he is ready to "risk some friction with our friends," he has publicly and privately tried to stop Brazil from buying the full-cycle plants from West Germany, France from concluding a similar deal with Pakistan, and Japan from building its own reprocessing facility.

The policy has enjoyed some success. While going ahead with the Brazilian transaction, the West Germans, although furious at Washington's interference, have agreed to suspend future sales temporarily; Paris has used the turbulent political situation inside Pakistan as an excuse to delay the French deal with that country. Problems remain, however, for the Administration is convinced that only a ban on the transfer of full-cycle nuclear plants can prevent the spread of weapons-grade material. Bonn disagrees, fearing that such a ban by Western countries would only encourage potential customers to turn to less scrupulous suppliers, like the U.S.S.R. The Germans thus insist that strict regulation of the operation of the plants is the best means to prevent diversion of nuclear materials to arms. -

What accounts for this catalogue of foreign policy difficulties encountered by Carter? To a great extent, Carter--and he knows it. On the Oval Office desk stands Harry Truman's original sign: THE BUCK STOPS HERE--borrowed by the President from the Truman Library in Independence, Mo. The President unquestionably is the man in charge of foreign policy, and he has stamped his distinctive style on it. As a close associate describes him, Carter "is a man in a hurry, in a hurry to identify a problem and in a hurry to solve it." Adds another aide: "He should have cooled it for a while and given the Russians more time to get used to him. But that runs against his temperament."

This impatience, as well as his self-confidence, often prompts him to make policy on the wing and off the cuff. When he advocated a "Palestinian homeland," for example, even his closest aides were surprised; the President had not been briefed on the question for that evening. At the recent Yazoo City, Miss., town meeting, he probably set back the Panama Canal talks by claiming that the U.S. would retain "partial sovereignty" over the waterway until the year 2000; the definition of "sovereignty" has been one of the most delicate issues confronted by the negotiators.

Some of his admirers are concerned about Carter's lack of historical perspective in international affairs. Notes one staffer who has briefed him: "He's a quick study for sure, but it's remarkable sometimes what he doesn't know--what he has to learn hi a helluva hurry instead of just recognizing as familiar."

His inexperience probably also explains why some diplomatic opportunities may have been missed. Observes William Bundy, an Assistant Secretary of State under Lyndon Johnson and now editor of Foreign Affairs: "We should have tried to use the American troop withdrawal from South Korea as a lever to get something from the North Koreans--to get them talking with the South--or to get the Russians to recognize Seoul." Some of the experience the President does possess is less relevant to international affairs than he suggests. There are great differences, for example, between the civil rights movement of the American South and the drive by blacks in southern Africa for political rights, though both Carter and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young frequently talk as if they do not see those differences.

Carter's generally optimistic outlook also gets him into diplomatic trouble. His penchant for reading hope into almost everything may be a bit of a relief after Kissinger's lapses into Spenglerian gloom. Yet it is very misleading for the President to come out of separate meetings with enemies like Egypt's Sadat and Israel's Begin and each time beam effusively that things could not have gone better. Complains Harvard's Safran: "Everyone knows this couldn't be true. The impression it conveys is that Carter does not have firm footing, that he is not aware of the complexities of the situation. It's the style of positive thinking: establish personal rapport with your interlocutors and somehow they will become amiable. Both sides in the Middle East conflict now believe the American President is either extremely naive or devilishly clever. But they are not sure."

The talented foreign affairs advisers Carter has brought into the Administration (see box) have not yet established an effective means of charting the course of the nation's foreign policy. It still seems like an ad hoc operation. Observes Pierre Hassner, senior research associate at Paris' Centre a"Etude des Relations Internationales: "The Carter Administration started shooting in every direction at once without having really sorted out their priorities. They put too much stress on big principles and not enough on actual bargaining. They have some grand view of how the world should look, but they don't have intermediate priorities."

Carter seems reluctant to heed history. Its lesson, as Hassner suggests, might be that "many good things can contradict each other, that you must strike a balance with them." There are tradeoffs, for example, that the White

House has not been willing to acknowledge. If Moscow stubbornly links human rights to nuclear arms reductions, then Carter may have to go much slower on one of the two issues. If Washington intends to get tough with the Kremlin, then it might begin mending a few fences with Peking. If Carter, in order to obtain a lasting Middle East peace, is determined to nudge Israel toward making concessions to the Arabs, then he may have to be willing to offend America's pro-Israel lobby and to infuriate Israeli public opinion.

By tackling all problems and all areas at once, Carter has startled --and alienated--many countries at the same time. His defenders feel that many of his troubles stem simply from overreaction by conservative, entrenched diplomats and experts to his bold, unconventional approaches. Those approaches may yet be vindicated, and his new vision of international affairs may yet be proven right. But the merciless reality of international relations on this tough, Hobbesian planet will undoubtedly force him to scrap or change some concepts and modify some of his methods--if a serious mishap is to be avoided. Perhaps the world, given the pull of American power no matter who is President, may yet accommodate itself to Jimmy Carter. But Carter will also have to accommodate himself to the world.

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