Presidential symbols

Henry Fairlie

Washington The most exciting news on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday was that James Callaghan is now regarded as a miracle man in Britain. This caused me several hours of reverie. Had I missed some clue in those lunches which I used to have with him, Paid for by the Spectator, when the Labour Party seemed to be eternally in opposition, and eternally driven from pillar to post between the Bevanites and the Gaitskellites? I decided that I had. Whenever there was a crisis, he did not so much have a foot in both camps, he simply managed not to be there. He did not actually go to the continent like Stanley Baldwin, whenever there was a Party crisis, to take the waters. He simply could not be found, not anywhere, until the Winning side was clear. Then he cast oil on the waters. He seems still to be doing it, and to have plenty of oil.

The reporter in the New York Times Made much of the parallel with Baldwin, and it was with this in mind that I turned to consider the still unfathomable performance of Jimmy Carter. If Callaghan is a Baldwin, is Carter then a Coolidge? But the Parallel will not do. If either Baldwin or Coolidge had found themselves to be temPorarily unpopular, the one thing which neither of them would have done would have been to let it be seen that they cared.

But here is Carter, although he has not been seriously under attack, launching into week of television appearances, to Improve his 'electronic image'. On Monday he gave a televised news conference — O n Wednesday night he gave a 'fireside chat' about the Panama Canal treaties — and next weekend television will come to him, as he welcomes Anwar Sadat to Washington. Whatever he gets out of the last occasion, he will gain little or nothing from the first two, so why does he do it?

With the help of very few devices, although he was sometimes heard on radio by those who could then afford sets, and certainly with little help from himself, Coolidge had one of the strongest images across the length and breadth of the country. Everyone knew of the oil lamps in the farmhouse at Plymouth, and everyone knew of 'fine old Colonel Coolidge' and his

antique grandeur. The image of him was visual, even if it was not video.

In his autobiography, a unique document in political annals, he gave almost more space to his days at Amherst College than to those in the White House. He suggested at the end that perhaps the United States should think of buying a car — just one car — for their President and reserve a private compartment or two for him on a train when he travelled. So short a time ago, the resources of the presidency were as primitive as that, yet his image everywhere was clear.

With all the magic of what we call communications at his disposal, why is the image of Carter so fuzzy in comparison?

The answer of his advisors has apparently been that he must make more and better use of television. This is rather like going on rubbing what one thought was Aladin's lamp even after it turns out to be something that was picked up in a flea market. Yet submissively the President obeys their commands.

It has for a long time seemed to me that one of the weaknesses of American Pres idents in recent years is that they carry into the White House, as a bodyguard of centurions, those who were successful in con ducting their election campaign for them.

But being a President is not the same as being a candidate — and what is even more important, elections are won today, not by people acting as politicians, but by people acting as media stars.

But in the White House, the President must be a politician, not a media star, and what served to get him elected, not only is of little use to him there, but may not even serve to get him elected again, when the people have his performance to judge.

'Television may not be too deep', said his press secretary, Jody Powell the other day, 'But it's broad as hell', a not uncharacteristic remark of gratuitous stupidity. What's wrong with Carter's image is precisely that it has not struck deep.

A former public relations adviser of Carter, Jerry Rafshoon, now described as a political marketing expert, also said of the day-to-day news coverage of the President: 'Everyone else goes on taped or like Bar bara Walters and Walter Cronkite with a script on teleprompters. Jimmy Carter is almost alone in doing live spontaneous television today.' Here is a formerly close adviser of the President talking of him as nothing but a television performer.

'Carter doesn't use television enough', he went on to say, whereas there are many who think that he has used it too much. But the thinking behind it all was made clear: 'The public is not getting enough clear symbols from the White House.' Always it is symbols. Or is it cymbals? But one might say of symbols what Jody Powell said of television: 'Symbols may not be too deep, but they're broad as hell.' Yet it is depth that is needed.

I am told that one of Carter's young assistants sent to another of his young assistants, no doubt carried between them by two more young assistants, a memorandum a few days ago suggesting that a phrase must be found to symbolise or encapsulate the President's ideas and attitudes about the country. Roosevelt had the new deal, Truman had the fair deal, Kennedy had the new frontier, Johnson had the great society, and so on. Carter at the moment has no such catchphrase. What did the first young assistant propose to the second young assistant? Wait for it. Do not despair of the capacity of young presidential assistants for flights of idiocy. He seriously proposes that Jimmy Carter should talk of the beloved community. All one can say is, that if Carter begins to talk of the beloved community, his image will become firmer at once, because people will decide that he has finally gone off his rocker.

Such a proposal — which has not yet seen the light of day, and one must believe never will — comes only from the obsession with symbols. Yet the ablest of Carter's speech

writers, Jim Fallows, at the same time as his colleagues were forcing the President back into generalised statements on television — not too deep, but broad as hell — put his finger on what is the cause of the persistent fuzziness of Carter's image in the country. When you have a specific important policy to present, Fallows said, 'You should have a formal speech.' He then made the crucial point: 'It makes sure that all bases in the policy empire are touched.' In other words, the President would speak as a politician, and one does not touch such bases with symbols, or by an electronic image. If the President made full-scale policy statements, his image in the country would at once deepen.

The American people may not read such policy statements, but it is from them in a way that is underestimated because it is not understood, it is from such genuinely political actions that they form their genuinely lasting impression of a President. What is more they have had enough talk of the beloved community in these times of born again evangelists, domestic and foreign. MalcolmMuggeridge was here last week, after all, talking to born-again religious broadcasters.