Confusing Show Biz with Substance

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

Was it President Carlton Rattigan, or maybe President Richard Monckton? Could it have been President Sven Ericson? No, it was President Jimmy Carter flickering across the screens of America from the tower of the United Nations to the burned-out South Bronx, then back in the Oval Office and preparing to thunder across America and then halfway around the world.

Once again the actions and antics of the real President seemed destined to dim the best creations of the novelists who gave us Rattigan, Monckton and Ericson. The 2:15 a.m. New York briefing by Press Secretary Jody Powell was the kind of breathless drama the White House used to reserve for wars, assassinations and summits. This one was to announce a tentative agreement about a Geneva conference that may or may not happen some day.

The drawn face of Powell recalled that of Monroe Stahr, the Hollywood producer in The Last Tycoon (played by Robert De Niro in the movie) who presided over a cosmos of exploding egos in order to produce celluloid fantasies. Powell was beset by a nervous President, a clamorous diplomatic gallery, shouting reporters, Israelis, Arabs and the usual indignities of just being in Gotham.

He and Jimmy Carter may not be able to handle things any other way, and that is an alarming thought. But the fact is that show business and politics are fused by electronics as never before. The men of power now play desperately for the gratification of the moment, toying with mood and emotion, giving us performances that all but instantly turn to mist as events roll on.

This all-the-world's-a-stage approach to affairs of state comes at a rather delicate time. We have just been assaulted not only by a cascade of Washington-power books but also by their movie and television adaptations. Fiction and truth seem to blend. Robert Chartrand, the Library of Congress's top information-systems scientist, says that even in his orderly mind, dedicated to quick retrieval of facts, there is difficulty sorting out what is real.

Jimmy Carter's idea of leadership may be founded to a disturbing degree on the impressions he picked up watching the Today show as Nixon walked along the Great Wall of China and dined in the Kremlin. Foreign policy critics of the Administration feel that much of the world uncertainty during Carter's first nine months has been brought about by his frenetic search for equally dramatic events that would spotlight his skill in international affairs. In some parts of the White House' there is, indeed, the brittle atmosphere of a script shop with people designing scenarios and writing memos on public postures. The selling of the Panama Canal treaty was the President's most ambitious staging so far. World and national leaders moved through an intricate and dazzling choreography before the cameras for the public's enlightenment. But the chances for the treaty are souring now because not enough work was done in the legislative boiler room to assure the early understanding and support of individual Senators. Imagery has not been enough.

There is no question that drama is a part of leadership. Perceptions, sometimes for the moment, can mean as much as reality. But if they are not rooted in a deeper purpose, then the picture that ultimately emerges is one of an erratic and uncertain President.

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