The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

A First Lady rides the roller coaster of her husband's politics, takes the buffeting of uncontrollable world events and suffers the brickbats of detractors in frustrated silence. She is damned if she tries to influence policy and damned if she doesn't. In some ways, her job is tougher than the President's.

We have been served well in these past years by our First Ladies, each with her own style and goals. John Kennedy acknowledged that his wife could be difficult. Jackie Kennedy sometimes spent too much money, and her moods were mercurial. She loved the power, but hated the fishbowl life, once even thumbing her nose at tourists. But she had an idea: to make the White House a living museum. She planted that idea, and it flourishes today. She furnished the class we came to call Camelot. The Kennedy men too often were boors.

If any First Lady paid heavy dues it was Pat Nixon. Now out of sight and in fragile health, she never got the credit she deserved for her White House years. She took on Mrs. Kennedy's idea and enriched the public rooms more than any other First Lady. Her achievements were lost in the black hole of Watergate. Even in that grim episode, there was something admirable about her. She kept the dignity of her office, neither condoning the events nor deserting her husband.

Off on her own, Pat Nixon seemed more at ease, almost liberated. When she went on a good-will tour to Liberia in 1972, her personality changed almost as soon as her plane crossed the continental shelf. She glowed, laughed and lofted tiny barbs of irreverence. When native dancers appeared barebreasted, White House aides were aghast. But she watched admiringly and applauded. TIME's Bonnie Angelo, who accompanied Mrs. Nixon, recalled last week, "I saw Pat Ryan, the pretty schoolteacher from Whittier, Calif., emerge from another era and flower for a few precious days."

Betty Ford's irrepressible honesty startled the nation. She was in her way the housemother of the laid-back '70s. Her children got mixed up in the naughtiness of the era. Mrs. Ford said she did not approve of premarital sex but would not be surprised if it happened in her family. When breast cancer struck, she became the world's gentle tutor on how to face down the tragedy. The price of public life was a dangerous dependence on alcohol and medication. After leaving the White House, she bravely took the cure. A woman who neither wanted nor sought the world stage, she faltered before her audience, righted herself and won acclaim.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were a couple with shared goals, philosophies, values, tastes and, once a week, on the presidential schedule, a working lunch. Some say she should have been President because she was more realistic about the world than her husband was. There is little doubt that she was the President's No. 1 adviser, confidante and source of encouragement.

If there is a standard-bearer among living former First Ladies, it is surely Lady Bird Johnson. She was on the cutting edge of the ecological movement, though White House protocol demanded a name like beautification. But her constant pacification of the beast in her husband was her greatest achievement. She wanted a life of art and literature, and on the few times she dragged her young husband into that world he either walked out, sulked or drank too much. He caressed other women in front of her. She shamed him with restraint. He made outrageous requests, like the instant removal of a whole reception from the banks of the Pedernales River to the shores of Lake L.B.J. She briefly argued against this arrogant display, then airlifted guests, barbecue and bars 25 miles in time.

What the nation is awakening to is the fact that First Ladies know Presidents better, and sometimes influence them more than anyone else. As pressures build and critics carp, the President and his wife tend to grow closer. The intriguing thing is that their personal chemistry is virtually unknown to outsiders. A First Lady's warm embrace, cold stare or worried brow can affect her husband's mind and mood, and maybe even shake nations.

No First Lady ever brags of moments when her intervention changed the course of events. But surely these moments occur. A First Lady is at least half of every presidency and on some days more.