Sense of change

Press, 30 December 1976, Page 5

Sense of change

Bv JAMES RESTON, of the. New York Times News Ser- : vice, through NZPA Washingtonj Most new Administrations come to Washington proclaiming great changes, and leave regretting the stubborn resistance of the human race to all their noble plans; but as the “Carterisation" of Washington proceeds, and the idea is getting around that it may really be a New Year after all. There is alreadv a new emphasis on the home front; on the problems of the American family; on the importance of Vice-President-elect Mondale; who has been appointed “chief of staff,” and on collective Cabinet responsibility, particularly in the fields of economics, fin-j ance, and military and for- ( eign affairs. All this, of course, we have heard before in other transi- ! tions from intentions to realities, but while these are still personal tendencies refecting Mr Carter’s naval ■nd managerial techniques,

.the difference now is that the (President-elect is acting on i them. I Senator Mondale has been given a larger role in the selection of the Cabinet and the preliminary discussions on policy priorities than any other Vice President-elect in memory. He was in on the first pre-Cabinet meeting with the economic subcommittee of the President’s first team; and will preside over the National Security Council in the absence of the President. This has happened before, too. but Mr Carter apparently means to assign to Senator Mondale, as the only other official elected by the people, the hard and critical task of seeing to it that Presidential decisions are implemented by Ithe departments and agenicies — a result often evaded I down below. | Every American President ■elected in the last 36 years has been pre-occupied with foreign affairs, with the preliminaries, the operations, and the consequences of the Second World War. the Kor-

ean and Vietnam War. and the Cold War. Mr Carter is apparently persuaded that a strong nation, — economically, and morally — is the first priority for the new world stability he has been talking about.

Maybe he will be diverted, like so many of his predecessors, because he will quickly face many urgent world economic and political problems, but he is taking over responsibility in a country with almost 8 million unemployed, and a capital city which, according to the latest figures, now has as many abortions a year as live births, and as many illegitimate births as legitimate.

We have not beard much from the President-elect lately about the physical, mental, and moral health of the American people, or about policies at home and abroad that will reflect the moral integrity of the nation, but once the clatter of Cabinetmaking is over, his deep personal concern over these matters will undoubtedly receive a high priority. He has been talking vaguely about seeing Mr Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet t T nion. whoever succeeds Mr Rabin in Israel, President Sadat, of Egypt, and other Middle East leaders —but much later in the New Year. and probably in America, rather than overseas. In fact, he is being urged in some quarters to ground Dr Henrv Kissinger s shuttle technique and avoid the crisis-oriented, glamourised diplomacy of the Kissinger era.

For example. Mr Robert Schaetzel. former United States Ambassador to the European Common Market, has recently written a paper urging him to give foreign policy a low priority for a time, in order to master the intricacies of energy availability and pricing. the Middle East tangles, the strategic arms talks, richpoor relations, and the international economic crisis. The world, of course, may not accommodate itself to Washington’s desires — it never has particularly as Italy, Britain, and Panama, among others, are clamouring for attention. Nevertheless. Mr Schaetzel argues, now is the time for more reliance on American ambassadors abroad, and for a calculated pause before rushing at problems, so that the President can concentrate, at the beginning, on the domes tic economy. "The United States economy is precisely America's most critical foreign policy issue,” Mr Schaetzel says. ' I