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Page 2 THE BATTALION WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1977 Opinion/Commentary/Letters Presidential hide-and-seek not needed PLAINS, Ga. — There is every reason to take seriously Jimmy Car ter’s desire to escape from the “strange and unnatural world” in which past Presidents have moved. The quoted phrase is not Carter’s. It came from his press secretary, Jody Powell, in describing Carter’s desire to avoid being trapped inside the ring of “stalf, press and politi cians” that surrounds a Chief Execu tive and bars him from meaningful contact with most citizens. But if the phrase was Powell’s, the sentiments were unmistakably Car ter’s. Veterans of the Plains press corps can regale newcomers with endless stories of Carter’s efforts to outwit the hovering reporters and continue his normal pattern of life in his hometown. According to these accounts. Car ter on occasion has gone so far as to order his Secret Service drivers to keep off the headlights on his car when leaving his house in the dark, in order to gain a precious few min utes’ head start on the pursuing press. At other times, the Secret Service using Carter’s car has led the press on a high-speed chase in one direction, while he heads off in the opposite direction in a different car. The stratagems have worked, on occasion. He was able to attend a funeral in nearby Americus, unde tected by the press, and to slip away on a few other short trips. But, inevitably, his evasive tactics have produced counter-measures in the press — monitoring of Secret David S. Broder Service frequencies for clues to Car ter’s movements, and efforts to out guess his plans and await his arrival at likely destinations. This almost childish cat-and- mouse game is compounded by the difficulties created for the press by the fact that Carter’s staff is not al ways well-briefed and up-to-date on his plans for activities that unques-’ tionably are of public interest. Part of this confusion is the inevit able result of operating in the im provised environment of Plains, a town which was surely never de signed to serve as a presidential tran sition headquarters. But part of it stems also from Carter’s overly casual attitude toward keeping his own press aides briefed on his plans. The result has been a largely un necessary and unhealthy increase in the tensions between Carter and the resident press corps — a snappish ness on both sides that seems unjus tified. At the root of the problem are two quite legitimate but conflicting de mands. A President is entitled to a private life. And Carter, more than most recent Presidents, really re quires frequent contact with the or dinary, everyday world in order to maintain a healthy perspective. The small talk of Main Street, the peanut warehouse and the Baptist Church are important to him. On a larger scale, regular visits with a variety of citizens are seen by Carter as a safeguard against the traps of the “closed world” of Wash ington insiders. But legitimate as that desire is, it does not negate the equally legiti mate duty of the press to monitor the activities of a President, And, sadly, ' the press cannot ignore the possibil ity of an accident or tragedy involv ing a President at any moment of public exposure — whether he is quail hunting or chatting on the street. As a practical matter, a President cannot just wander loose, as most of us can do, uninhibited by a protec tive circle of security agents and a pack of pursuing reporters and cameramen. But that does not mean he has to be entirely confined to a “strange and unnatural world.” What is needed is some neutral ground, on which the President can visit infor mally with anyone he wishes, with the press outside but aware of where he is and what he’s doing. Certainly, no one objects to his doing that indoors, at his home here in Plains or, in a couple weeks, at the White House. The guest list for White House dinners or receptions can be made just as democratic as Carter pleases. But there’s also a useful model in a meeting Carter held during the campaign in Scranton, Pa. He ar ranged with local Democratic and union officials to have an hour-long discussion of unemployment prob lems with about a dozen jobless workers from the area. The meeting was held in a hotel ballroom, with Carter and his guests seated around a table, and reporters and camera men at a distance where they could listen and film without being obtru sive. It struck me at the time that Car ter was exceptionally skillful at put ting the workers at ease, drawing out their stories and their suggestions, responding directly to them — and helping them ignore the watching press corps. The exchange was interesting, not momentous. But it seemed to satisfy Carter’s own needs and gave some real meaning to his later comment, during the first debate, that unem ployment was not a statistical prob lem but a tragedy for individual lives. With some imagination. Carter can have that kind of contact with citizens as President, without play ing the game of hide-and-seek that has marred the coverage of his ac tivities here. © 1977, The Washington Post British seem to be happy despite economic plight By FRANCES CAIRNCROSS LONDON — Britain is plagued by unemployment, inflation, grow ing racial strife, a depreciating cur rency and the threat of a political crisis. Its standard of living, once the world’s highest, has dropped pre cipitously within recent years. French have administrative continuity By ANDRE CHAMBRAUD PARIS — One of the more puzzl ing aspects of the American political scene, at least in French eyes, is the selection of a new administration. For we cannot quite understand how the U.S. government, with all its complexities, can afford to replace so many of its senior civil servants with fresh and often untested officials whose main, qualification is loyalty to the incoming chief executive. Here in France, the bureaucracy remains intact whichever party takes office, and this has the distinct ad vantage of providing the country with continuity. But the French system, it seems to me, also has its drawbacks, since it tends to encourage excessively cen tralized government and it fre quently shuts out the imaginative and original ideas that can only emerge with a periodic turnover of administrative personnel. Thus the United States may gain benefits by adopting features of the French bureaucratic structure, and perhaps it would be in our interest to borrow something from the Ameri can experience. An apparent difference between American and French civil servants is that the Americans give their al legiance to the government while the French pledge fidelity to the state. As a consequence, bureaucrats in France stay on the job regardless of the regime in power. This was dramatized in 1940, when France was overrun by the Germans, who set up a puppet gov ernment in Vichy under Marshall Philippe Petain. Rather than join the resistance movement, most French officials went along with Petain, on the grounds that he represented “legitimacy.” The same thing happened in 1958, when the Fourth Republic crumbled and General de Gaulle became Pres ident of the Republic. Many old politicians disappeared, but the bureaucrats who had formerly served them continued to work for de Gaulle, and he welcomed their support. to develop the backward economies of certain French regions. Most important, they have guaranteed France’s stability, par ticularly during periods when the political situations have been turbu lent. The Fourth Republic, which finally collapsed in 1958, could not have held toghether as long as it did without the solid French bureau- Yet a Gallup survey conducted in 70 countries not long ago found that, with the exception of the Australians and the Scandinavians, the British regard themselves to be the happiest people on earth. The poll also found the British more satisfied with their economic lot than any other Euro peans except the West Germans. The French civil service again threw its weight behind Valery Gis- card d’Estaing, when he captured the presidency from the Gaullists in May 1974. The prospect now is that a leftist coalition of Socialists and Com munists may come to power within the next year or so. But this is not likely to change the bureaucratic structure here. peNPWTS' TOZfe! ^ A NEW TITLE! ,/v$52,000 A LIMOUSINE* IV A NEW TITLE! ^V$52,0OO ☆ A LIMOUSINE! Senior French civil servants are more than a professional group. They are virtually a caste, most of whose members have been trained at the National School of Administra tion, a state institution especially created to educate top bureaucrats. These men and women are high calibre figures who have come through rigorous competitive exam inations, both to enter and be graduated from the School of Admin istration. They know each other from their school days, and hence their sense of solidarity is strong. Their ethics are above reproach, their am bition being to exercise authority rather than to earn fat salaries. cracy. Lately, however, many civil ser vants here have begun to move out of the bureaucracy into politics. Gis- card himself is a former finance offi cial, and Jacques Chirac, who re cently resigned as prime minister, also once was a bureaucrat. Similarly several graduates of the School of Administration are currently work ing for the Socialist Party. If this trend continues, France could gradually start to resemble the United States to the extent that the invisible government of bureauc rats, which has functioned so effi ciently until now, may become a more visible government of politi cians. Should this occur, France will have lost its impartial adminis trators, whose skill at keeping the country on an even keel has been useful. At the same time, though, the government may become more sensitive to the attitudes of the people, and this would be a step in the right direction. These attitudes betray the statis tics, which show the British on the average to be half as affluent as Americans and not much wealthier than Italians. But perhaps we can get a bit closer to real conditions by look ing at three of my acquaintances. One of the best tests of the way a country’s income is distributed is re flected in the lives of its senior citi zens. Miss Violet Goldsmith, now 70 and retired, has little beyond a pen sion amounting to $31 per week, most of it from the government and the rest from the grocery store in which she worked. She owns her home, an 18th cen tury cottage in an Essex village. She presses her own wine and makes her own dresses. She cannot afford a television set, and her brother pays her telephone bills. She eats reason ably well, but her house, which lacks central heating, is chilly in winter. When Miss Goldsmith is ill, the National Health Service treats her free of charge. Her main complaint is that bus fares have gone up. Other wise, she says, the quality of her life has barely changed in three years. Chambraud writes on political af fairs for Le Point, the French weekly magazine. Bill Williams, a 35-year-old middle-level executive in a London firm, is having a harder time. He earns nearly $10,000 per year after They are responsible for many of the innovations that have been in troduced here within recent years, such as fiscal reform and the efforts Now Better Than Ever. You Will Be Pleased With These Carefully Prepared and Taste Tempting Foods. Each Daily Special Only $1.49 Plus Tax. “Open Daily” Dining: 11 AM to 1:30 PM — 4:30 PM to 7 PM . 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All pieces sub mitted to Readers’ forum should be: • Typed triple space • Limited to 60 characters per line • Limited to 100 lines Submit articles to Reed McDonald 217, College Sta tion, Texas, 77843. Author’s name and phone number must accompany all submissions. Top of the Tower Texas A&M University Pleasant Dining — Great View SERVING LUNCHEON BUFFET 11:00 A.M. - 1:30 P.M. Each day except Saturday $2.50 DAILY $3.00 SUNDAY Serving soup i? sandwich 11:00 A.M. - 1:30 P.M. Monday - Friday $1.50 plus drink Available Evenings For Special University Banquets Department of Food Service Texas A&M University “Quality First’’ taxes, and he finds it increasingly dif ficult to provide for his wife and two children. car, one-twelfth on alcohol ai bacco, and about the sameaj thing. Bill suffers from the flat British wage structure. An American execu tive in a big company earns about 11 times more than the average worker. Here in Britain, an executive earns about five times more. So Bill tries to maintain a managerial life style on a comparatively modest salary, and he has money troubles. He rents an apartment in London, and he has a vacation place in Wales. In a few years, he would like to send his children to a private school, but that would cost him roughly $2,800 per year. The only way he can make ends meet, he believes, is to per suade his wife to return to work. Roughly half the families country have an automobile« phone. About 65 per centk washing machine, and 75 pet have refrigerators. Virtually has a dishwasher, but 93 pe households have a televisio Miss Goldsmith being in adi minority. The few British who go skiing these days are young singles or older businessmen. My husband and I met Patrick Selkirk while skiing in Au stria. The director of a publishing house, he is in his mid-50’s and rich. He leads the good life. If this appears to be too mats tic an approach, consider some indicators. A third of Britisli spend their vacations at hoi third of Londoners who worl an average of 45 minutes pe commuting. Infant mortalih, guide to health care, is less hen it is in either ,the United Stal West Germany. Patrick earns the equivalent of $34,000 per year. His company provides him with one of the prime perquisites of top British executives, a chauffeur-driven car. He also has an expense account, and he takes his wife and three daughters on “busi ness” trips to Italy every year. Adding it up, I would venl say that the British enjoyastai of living that may be somewhatl than that of their American parts — but certainly not halfa; as the statistics suggest. SP* £ 1® Froi Fri To Fr< Cr Ft Bel- fS The Selkirk’s home, a lovely Victorian house overlooking the rol ling expanse of Hampstead Heath, is probably worth $150,000. They entertain frequently. Patrick esti mates that his wife and daughters spend almost $1,000 per year on clothes. In terms of the actual waytheifi rather than the cash incomet! ceive, Miss Goldsmith is not'; different from lonely Ameit grandmothers abandoned i while Patrick Selkirk s life! especially the chauffeur-dij limousine, might be enviei Madison Avenue. 1 Now, putting these three indi viduals aside, consider some naked figures that may add to our view of the overall picture. The typical British family spends one-quarter of its income on food, one-eighth on housing, the same on public transportation or running a The biggest gap, as I seeit,i| tween British lawyers, docf teachers and midd\e-\eve\ ’ gers, and their opposite numbl the United States. In short, tli| Williamses on both sides ofth( lantic. Here they represent i small fraction of the populatioij for the rest. Dr. Gallup is prol correct. They are poor but ha| i FI Y< Ms. Cairncross writes on and economic issues for TheGi ian, the British daily. 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