United States

Her American Excellency

Leslie Finer

Washington Poor Senator Jacob Javits. His wife Marion has become a registered lobbyist — at 67,500 dollars a year, no less — for a public relations firm representing the interests of the Iranian Government and Iran Airlines. Cartoons and grave editorials point out that the job is improper for the wife of the Republican Senator for New York who sits on important foreign affairs committees. But it is obvious he can do nothing about it. In separate press conferences he lamely confesses that he does not like it, but will not let it affect his political actions while she thumbs a nose and says she will do as she damn well pleases.

Even among purest theorists of Women's Lib, the incident has aroused some doubts about its proper limits. Certainly it has dampened the sense of triumph with which the champions of feminine rights greeted the selection of Anne Armstrong as the next Ambassador of the United States in London — or, as Americans adore to say, at the Court of St James's.

The appointment (since we must assume that it will be duly confirmed by the Senate) was made, I understand, from among some ten possible candidates — all men except for Mrs Armstrong. No matter what its intrinsic importance (of which more later), it is still one of the most glamorous and sought-after positions in American public life. To that extent it undoubtedly represents another notch in the progress of women in public positions towards full equality with men.

That, at any rate, is one way of looking at it. Another way, less generous, would be to ruminate upon the circumstance that the posts held by the existing six female ambassadors of the US throughout the world include Luxembourg, Zambia, Togo, Ghana and Papua — and to ask oneself, perhaps, whether Mrs Armstrong's selection is less a recognition of women's place in world society than it is a hint at Britain's. That, however, is an unworthy thought. After all, we have President Ford's word for it that he picked Anne Armstrong partly in response to Betty Ford's nagging insistence that he should make more use of women in his team. And Mrs Armstrong herself is no slouch when it comes to promoting women's rights. As the only woman member of Nixon's Cabinet, she once declared that "Someday this country will have a woman president." She made no attempt to conceal the fact, when her appointment was announced, that she regarded it as a blow for the cause.

Yet she is being unfair to herself, and we are being unfair to her, so to regard her success. At forty-eight, a woman of obvious physical attraction and good taste, Anne Armstrong is one of the select but increasing number of successful women who for years have been exploding George Bernard Shaw's myth that some women are born beautiful and others go to college. She, undoubtedly attractive, not only went to college but did exceptionally well academically, achieving "Phi Beta Kappa" in her Junior year at Vassar after leaving her chic Virginia private school as Valedictorian of her Senior class. The fact that any rich girl from New Orleans (she is the daughter of Armand Legendre, a wealthy coffee importer there) should go to Vassar at all is rare enough to be significant.

It was after she graduated from Vassar, in 1949 when she was twenty-one, that she made her one and only visit to London — a three-week trip given by her parents, and one of the few she has ever made abroad. She expects to find things changed. But she insists that all Americans grow up with a sense of British history and regard for British qualities — a handsome enough confession in this year of the Bicentennial celebration of American Independence. She will know enough, certainly (and especially after the "refurbishing and rehabilitation" embarrassment of her predecessor Mr Annenberg), not to stumble into Queen Elizabeth's presence in her cowboy boots.

Riding is one of her chief relaxations (and one she indulges extremely well) down on the 50,000 acre ranch, with its 3,000 head of a fancy breed of cattle, at a place in Texas comfortingly known as Armstrong. She married Tobin Armstrong, universally reputed to be "an extremely nice man" with a genuine Zane Grey image, running a multi-national corporation in cattle, with strong AuStralian connections. That was very soon after her graduation trip to England, in 1950. Since then she has given birth to five children: three boys (including twins) and two girls.

But, from the very first, Anne Armstrong has managed to combine family duties with a strenuous career in or on the fringes of politics. It is believed that, after a little dabbling in journalism (some summer holiday work on her local New Orleans paper and six months with Harper's Bazaar), she actually began in politics on the Democratic side, helping Harry Truman. There is not much evidence for this. She soon came to think, in any case, that the Republican Party was the one which gave most scope for independent initiative. She began by licking stamps in a Texas district office of the party. Within a few years she was a national committeewoman; and by 1971 she was the first woman to be elected co-chairman of the national Republican Party.

A contemporary of Anne Armstrong's at Vassar, Frances Farenthold, became a prominent lady in democratic circles in Texas, and a candidate for Governor of the State. Politically, she and Anne Armstrong are a million miles apart. But, when I asked Mrs Farenthold her opinion of the next US Ambassador to Britain, she described her as "one of the most attractive and able" women of her acquaintance. Coming from a political enemy — and another woman, at that, . that is praise indeed.

But men are just as ungrudging in their praise. Listen to this from a hard-bitten Texas professional: "She's the best woman politican I've ever seen. She knows where the bodies are buried. She knows who's likely to be offended by what. She knows when to take a second look, and when to listen. She's sugar and steel."

There is no doubt that, had she wished, Anne Armstrong could have gone far and fast in elected political office. That she has not done so is for the most sympathetic of reasons: A

Spectator January 24, 1916 determination to respect her family's wishes, reiterated when election time comes around every two years, that she should not run for party office. She spoke engagingly of this problem in a radio interview about her appointment to Nixon's Cabinet in 1972, to take charge of a number of special areas including women's rights, youth, decentralisation of Government and the Bicentennial celebrations. Mrs Armstrong said then: "I explained to the President that we have five kids, my husband and I, and it's more difficult for a woman with a family — at least of my generation (I think some of the younger generation are working it out, so there's a shared responsibility). But ; made it clear — I told him something collo come up in my family that would make it necessary for me to leave. And he agreed with that. That responsibility should come first. 1° date the kids are getting along great, thY husband is marvellous about supporting olY efforts — and I don't see myself leaving anytime in the next few months." As it happened, Mrs Armstrong lasted longer than Nixon and went on to work in Get!)' Ford's cabinet till December 1974. It was then that family crises did intervene (an ailing mother had to be brought to Texas from NeW Orleans, and an attempted suicide by her brother) to make her resign. Now that those problems have been solved, she feels that t° become Ambassador in London is the best possible compensation for the years of political self-denial; the closest she can get to influeoring public affairs without actually seeking elected office. It was a week before last Christmas that President Ford (to whom she is much closer, personally, than she ever was t° Nixon) offered her the job. She took until New Year's Eve to reply, after long family discus' sion, in the affirmative. And Tobin Armstrong, separated most of the time from his wife duri°4 the years 1972-76 when she was boss of a sta of twenty-four at the White House, has decided this time to go with her — leaving their eldest son in charge at the ranch. What can she hope to accomplish? Before that question can be answered we need to know how easily she may be able to erase from her reputation the only black mark which stains it: the error of being among the very last a the White House brigade to accept the truth about Nixon. Long after others prominent in Republican politics had seen the impeachment or resignation of Nixon as just and inevitable, Anne Armstrong was still stumping the country proclaiming to all who would listen that her president was the innocent victim of a vendetta. As late as May of 1974, she was saying itnh aptu tbhl c ‘r. sdidoen't nttdhiidnka nhyatrhdinegviwdernocneg.isi ere v.el read every single page of the transcript and believe the President." When, after the revelation of the June 23 tape, Mrs Armstrong realised that she wit_ s wrong, and that she had been deliberate' s misled and crudely exploited by Nixon, she w,a,, very angry. Her bitterness is apparent in the resignation letter she wrote to Ford when s,7 resigned from his Cabinet at the end of 191 „ "After four years in Washington I have a _r profound appreciation of the duty of our leaders not only to protect the public interest but to safeguard the public trust." When learned of the tape, Anne Armstrong was in recovering from an operation on her foot She immediately sent word to Nixon's chief alu` General Haig to say that she urged Nixon to resign. Of that whole dismal chapter she now 5" says simply: "I don't know why I believed for long. I cannot defend myself on that." A confession so disarming, particularly at a time when so many are making sympathetic n_oises in Nixon's direction once again, cannot fail to charm and persuade us of Mrs Armstrong's credentials to be a good and useful Ambassador. The problem is whether she has ability to make a personal impact on the handling of the issues existing between the two countries. flAlready, and predictably, she is on record as Ying that she is much more interested in matters of substance than in being merely a PoPular hostess at Embassy parties. And, even if they are not always high on the list of the US Niministration's daily preoccupations, matters of substance indeed exist: Concorde; conveying a true picture of British economics; relations ,v'qh the Third World; the London angle on c-_,nropean relations; even such topics as global ?tente and Angola, where British experience, if not of current importance, could be relevant to American action. Unfortunately, the chances of Mrs Arm6 making such an impact do not seem very large. And it is not because of her own Confessed inexperience in international affairs. 1,1e Problem, much more realistically, is Henry ryssi riger — a Secretary of State for whom ',.tnbassadors, especially those whose views 'diverge from his own,

of messages. The difficulty has occurred to Mrs Arm strong. It is not the less troublesome for the fact that she is in no sense a State Department choice — but an appointee of the White House and her personal friends Gerald and Betty Ford. It is believed that Mrs Armstrong received little comfort when she discussed the problem with her predecessor Elliot Richardson, who confirmed her worst fears about the methods of Henry the K, his lack of receptivity to ambassadorial counsel (as, for instance, on the Concorde), and the essential emptiness of a job in which, on one particular day, the only official engagement on his diary was to attend a baseball match between an American and Japanese team (or, at least, so a member of his staff loves to say).

This will hardly satisfy the able and energetic Anne Armstrong. And, who knows, the fact of her womanhood might prove just the element needed to change all that. She may, in any case, outlive in office her boss Kissinger, whose hold on it becomes increasingly precarious:

Just the same, the new Ambassador had better hurry to get herself confirmed by the Senate and to pack her bags for London. The summer silly season:* approaching. And the presidential election is only ten months away. She may survive Kissinger. But, however touching her mea cuipa over her defence of Nixon, she will never survive the arrival of a Democratic President on January 1, 1977.