Nation: I’ve Never Won an Argument with Her

She would be, some said, a sort of assistant President, a second Eleanor Roosevelt, a presidential wife of high purpose and influence. But after 18 months in the White House, Rosalynn Carter remains something of an enigma, her public statements rare, her public activities largely ignored. She seems to be the First Lady nobody knows.

On the Carters’ trip to Germany, Rosalynn delighted the burgomaster of Linz by grabbing his arms and rushing him into a polka-like Schunkeltanz in the street. She captivated Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s wife, Loki, who invited herself along on sightseeing tours in Bonn. But Mrs. Carter’s ambitions and influence in more substantial areas remain difficult to assess. “Rosalynn is still uncertain what to do and how to do it,” says Mary King, her friend and deputy director of ACTION. “She has not found the ideal mesh between her personality and her interests, and the institution of the First Lady.”

The Carters have strikingly similar backgrounds. She, too, was born and grew up in Plains, Ga., where her father was a mechanic. He died when she was 13, and she helped to oversee the three younger children while her mother worked. She married Jimmy when she was 18, and he, at 21, had just emerged from Annapolis to begin a seven-year naval career. When they returned to Plains, she kept the books for his peanut and fertilizer business, while raising four children. Throughout, her inner toughness was being strengthened.

At the White House, Mrs. Carter started out with some eclat, setting forth in June 1977 on a 13-day, seven-nation tour of Latin America. There was some criticism of a presidential wife’s playing diplomat, but she demonstrated considerable knowledge of the area and concern for its problems. “My talks saved Jimmy a lot of time,” she told Washington Correspondent Johanna McGeary last week, “because he can pick up where I left off.” There were other criticisms, though, of such foibles as her creation of a special seal for her trip. Says one longtime acquaintance: “Rosalynn revels in the servants and the service. She gets a thrill out of hobnobbing with celebrities.”

Back in Washington, Mrs. Carter got down to work on her major public project so far: her leadership of a presidential commission on mental health — and found that the press paid very little attention. She spent some 300 hours in meetings devoted to improving the care of mental patients, and she pains takingly studied and refined the commission’s 117 long-range recommendations, all designed to place a higher nation al priority on mental health and, at the same time, shift more patients from large state hospitals to smaller, less institutionalized community centers. She also persuaded the President to authorize $300 million for community mental health programs, over the strong opposition of the Office of Management and Budget. She professes unconcern about the lack of public attention to her efforts. Says she: “I haven’t worked on an image. My purpose is not so much to be visible as to do a good job,” In doing her job, Mrs. Carter is highly organized, self-disciplined and tireless. Every minute is made to count. She does her homework and she is persistent. She does not hesitate to telephone a reporter whose story has irritated her. She has worked quietly behind the scenes in behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment. She is now organizing a new program, inspired indirectly by an offhand remark by former Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns, to encourage more private volunteer efforts to tackle city problems. She wants to help organize and then publicize specific local projects in the hope that the best of them will be copied. Says she: “I can show that I care. And I can focus attention on these people who don’t think the Government cares.” The program will begin this week with a White House seminar on unemployment, chaired by Mrs. Carter.

Yet the results of all this energy have been almost negligible. It is with her influence as a wife, more than in her public role, that she has had the most impact. She serves, to an unusual degree, as a critical sounding board for the President’s views on public issues. She questions him about events and Carter holds back little at their lunches, or evening walks, or after tennis (they play frequently; she took up the game a year ago). Says Mrs. Carter: “We are close, and I do question the things he does. It’s important to question him, argue with him, about whether this is the right thing to do or not. I can agree with him when I agree and disagree when I disagree without hesitation, and that’s good.”

White House insiders are split as to whether Rosalynn actually influences her husband’s policy decisions. Most believe she simply raises questions from an intuitive, common-sense perspective, helping him to clarify his thinking. “She’s no intellectual,” says one friend, “but she has exceedingly strong feelings about things.” Another puts it more bluntly: “She is very opinionated.” Frequently consulted in the President’s speech drafting, Mrs. Carter says: “If I can’t understand something, then the American public is certainly not going to understand it either.” But she insists, “I don’t consider myself a chief adviser, and I don’t advise him on things I don’t know anything about.” One friend claims that Rosalynn never really offers specific policy advice. “She would not be so presumptuous,” says this source. “And he would cut her off at the knees if she were.”

Others are not so certain. Claims one occupant of the White House West Wing: “If you want Jimmy to do something, you’d better get Rosalynn on your side first.” And Carter has confided smilingly to at least one staffer: “I’ve never won an argument with her, and the only times I thought I had, I found out the argument wasn’t over yet.”

∙ Yet all agree that Rosalynn’s interests are dedicated in a very old-fashioned way to furthering her husband’s career. It was her idea to bring in Gerald Rafshoon as a staffer in an effort to reverse the decline in the President’s prestige. A sharp appraiser of people and their talents, she also urged the shift of Presidential Aide Tim Kraft from scheduling appointments to advising on political matters. Says Kraft: “Jimmy places the greatest stock in her judgments of people. Her word is gospel.” Adds Press Secretary Jody Powell: “Her political judgment is very good. She senses repercussions, impact, the way things come across, very well.” With characteristic candor, Powell admits to a reservation: “We respect her judgment, but we don’t always agree with her.”

There is, in fact, a bit of friction between presidential aides in the West Wing, where Powell and others now admit they have tended to underestimate Mrs. Carter’s considerable potential, and the East Wing, where Mrs. Carter’s staff would like her to get more attention, and yet, contrarily, overprotects her from the press, which she is quite capable of handling with a Southern combination of firmness and grace. Concedes Powell: “We just haven’t done the job we could have in utilizing her. We’ve been so caught up in other things, we neglected her.” One example: Domestic Affairs Adviser Stu Eizenstat was recently invited by Mrs. Carter to a meeting to help plan her new urban volunteer program; he sent a secretary instead.

Undaunted, Mrs. Carter keeps in touch with what goes on beyond her surprisingly bare desk in a small, unpretentious East Wing office. She slips into Cabinet meetings and high-level briefings, like the one held this month by Vice President Walter Mondale on his return from a Middle East trip. “I try to stay knowledgeable,” she explains. “I just try to keep up with what is happening.” Then, in her quiet way, she tells Carter what she thinks. And he listens.