European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 05, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse Spokesman nodding Carter by Jim Anderson United press International be of Washington s better pieces of theater occurs each weekday just after noon when a Youthful dark haired Man whose words will be read and Analysed around the world Steps to a podium at the state department. Foreign governments have trembled political crises have developed Street riots have occurred because of words spoken by men at the state department podium. In this administration the Man at the podium is usually Hodding Carter Iii a Mississippi newspaper editor by Trade a self confident survivor of several other High pressure environments including the Marine corps and the civil rights Battles in the South Carter is Tail and usually tanned with a mop of hair thai make him look younger than nil 41 Yean. When he is in conversation he s either yelping with a raucous laugh or looking at the world with sceptical half closed eyes. Us Delta accent is intact and the state department transcript which becomes part of the historic record is sprinkled with a Carter who is not related to the Percsi Dent is an accurate representation of the administration in his life and in his style. Well educated Princeton and a year at Harvard and articulate Carter some times puts on the Good of boy act that the georgians at the White House also like to do. I Henry Dewhitt. A southerner and a Cor respondent for the Baltimore Sun says that s the time when the intelligent City Slicker will keep Bis hand on his the Folk leu is a Way of speaking but not a Way of thinking for Carter. He and the other Southern democrats came to Washington with the vow that they were not going to be devious and they weren t going to accept it from the govern ment machine that they now control Carter told Dpi i have no great commitment to the foreign service. I have no ambitions to go higher in the apparatus. If i Ever discovered that the United states was doing something and justifying it with spurious reasons i would just leave take a however almost from the Start the new boys in Washington ran into problems that forced them to accommodate to the Reali ties of the world. Secretary of state Cyrus Vance in his first set of Salt negotiations in Moscow in March 1977, held daily briefings in which he told newsmen everything that had gone on during the Day s talks. The soviets were stupefied and then furious Western european allies were amused and then contemptuous of such american naivete. The Salt negotiations collapsed and since then Vance has been so circumspect about the Salt negotiations that reporters learn Little or nothing from him or his spokesman Hodding Carter. Carter whose instincts and Previ Ous life led him to be As open and Hon est As possible. Is being shaped and changed by the powerful forces that focus on him in his Job As chief spokes Hodding Carter Iii still a Newspaperman by High noon at state Man for . Foreign policy and assistant Secretary of state for Public affairs. He still talks freely about himself and his beliefs and it usually is easy to identify the Strong influences which have folded him his family background in Greenville miss is Basic. My Granddaddy made some gestures for civil rights that seem tiny now but it required a lot More courage than i Ever had to show in the 60s." his father a pulitzer prize winning Edi Tor openly defied the Kun flux klan and vowed openly that any klansmen who threatened him or his family would be met by a gun and chased across the Border into his modern hero is Jimmy Carter and he was easily lured into the 1976 Campaign in Mississippi. It required him to be away from his wife and children Al most continuously and contributed heavily to the breakup of his marriage. Some Washington reporters now sneer at the Jimmy Carter Campaign rhetoric one reporter manages to get the phrase ill never lie to you into almost every daily briefing. For Hodding Carter that is not a slogan it is a commitment and he is not amused by the snickers. His most immediate daily influence is Cyrus r. Vance Secretary of state and chief foreign policy advisor to the presi Dent of the United Stales. Vance is Al most an exact opposite of Hodding car Ter Bland colourless and cautious. One of Hodding Carter s problems is that Vance tends to be a Chameleon blend ing into the background Carter is by nature a performer often expressing Vance s careful instructions in colourful forceful language. Carter constantly has to remind himself not to upstage his Boss. Another powerful influence is Patt Deri an assistant Secretary of state for human rights. She and Carter were both involved in democratic politics and the Jimmy Carter Campaign before both went to the state department. Patt Derian is a Tough minded self sufficient woman who has declared War on torture and deprivation of human rights around the world. Against considerable opposition from the state department establishment she has made human rights an important consideration in every foreign policy decision. She has raised the state department s consciousness and in the process made Hod Ding Carter a True believer. One astute observer of the Washington scene says the thing you the folks Ness is a Way of speaking but not a Way of thinking for Carter have to remember about both Carters Jar my and Hodding is that they Are redneck patriots with a love for the Flag that May seem corny by mod Ern standards. The danger of this level of emotion is that if they Ever feel betrayed or deceived they really Hodding Carter in a situation where he is daily ground Between an aggressive press corps and a Rock line Burc Cracy has maintained self control. One of his predecessors in the spokesman s Job John King said that he always Felt a close per Sonal identity with St. Sebastian the mar Tyr who was executed by being tied to a Post and shot at by a Bow and Arrow firing squad on March 14, 1977, Hodding Carter who was giving up cigarettes at the time blew his stack when a reporter suggested that Vance in effect had bullied Hubert Humphrey on his death bed and pressured him to write a letter to the Israel government asking for More flexibility in the negotiations. Carter replied his voice Low with rage listen there Are two things i Don t have to do. One accept that tone of voice from you and two accept that you have some goddamned particular handle on the another time the veracity of the president of the United states was brought into question by a reporter who reminded Hodding Carter times have changed Yon Carter answered yes and i think they have changed so much that it comes Down to whether you believe the denial of Cuba. Or believe your own Carter who was an Early opponent of . Involvement in Southeast Asia was asked at a briefing where he could make a distinction Between the cuban support of Katanga rebels going into Zaire and the United states sending South vietnamese troops into Cambodia and Laos. He said the fact that we have made mistakes that we have done things that we should not have done does not forever emasculate us in the conduct of foreign policy. The problem is of course that we Are not Able to operate Only on memory. We also have to operate on what is happening in the real world. We were Hung up first on Vietnam before that on Munich before that on the Long stalemate in world War i and before that about the Pax Brittania. The fact is that we Are talking about history As it is happening today and Carter who once threw a rubber Chick in at a Pesky reporter shows occasional signs of impatience with the Job which involves much travel with Vance and includes supervision of the department s Bureau of Public affairs. It seems natural for anyone with he Talent and contacts in Washington and in Mississippi to think about moving on to a career i National politics per haps the . Senate. But he told up there s no place for me in Mississippi politics and i m too old to Start All Over again someplace else. If 1 left this i d just go off for a year and write a Book he adds i m still a Newspaperman by saturday August 5, 1978 the stars and stripes Page 13
