Mr. Outside Is Moving In

It was a setting straight out of Gone With the Wind--literally. Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge's 143-year-old columned plantation house, set in a 2,500-acre pine forest and graced with magnolias, actually appeared in the film. Last week the place was the scene of a more modern drama as 16 Democratic leaders of Congress came calling to share grits and harmony with the first Deep Southerner to be elected President since the Civil War.

Not Humble. Rather than drag the whole group to remote Plains, Ga., Jimmy Carter instead deferentially flew up to the appropriately named town of Lovejoy, near Atlanta, braving heavy rains in a small Cessna 310. But Carter was far from a humble supplicant awed by his visitors. "Gentlemen," he told the legislators, "I want you to know that I'm going to be a good President. I have confidence in my own ability. I can run this nation." At another point in the private three-hour discussion, Carter declared: "I want no wars while I am President. I want to turn the economy around and I want a balanced budget in four years."

Meanwhile, however, the Carter takeover was moving slowly. He let it be known that he may make no decision on high-level posts until mid-December--rather than early December, as previously suggested. That slippage seemed to indicate that the Carter transition was running no more smoothly than have previous changeovers, despite earlier claims of an unusually fast and sure-footed start. Indeed, an aide conceded that "we are essentially starting over on personnel." The reason, TIME has learned, is that Carter was unhappy with Atlanta Lawyer Jack Watson's work on personnel selection. Campaign Director Hamilton Jordan and his predominantly Georgia-oriented campaign team seem to have won a significant round in the fight for influence with Watson and the Ivy League, Northeastern Establishment types who dominate his transition staff.

Despite his self-confident assertiveness, it was clear back on the Talmadge estate that the President-elect was soliciting help and advice. Among those present were the men vying for the job of majority leader of the Senate--Favorite Robert Byrd and Hubert Humphrey --and the retiring leader, Mike Mansfield, plus the influential Edmund Muskie. Thomas ("Tip") O'Neill, certain to be House Speaker, was there with four key chairmen: Appropriations' George H. Mahon, Ways and Means' Al Ullman, Budget's Brock Adams and James J. Delaney, probable new Rules head.

Some System. Carter stressed three topics: Government reorganization. White House liaison with Capitol Hill and the role of Congress in foreign affairs. Of the last, he asked: "How am I going to handle it? When I travel overseas, should I take Congressmen and Senators with me? I've got to come up with some kind of system where Congress is a part of this." Though he got no clear answer, he promised to go even beyond the kind of cooperation that existed in the late '40s and early '50s, when Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg and Democratic Senator Walter George helped shape White House decisions.

As Carter moved to end the meeting, O'Neill broke in. "Wait a minute, Mr. President," he said. "I think we'd be terribly remiss if we don't talk about some package to stimulate the economy." "You're right," Carter said cautiously. "We've got to have some kind of action to give confidence to the people." But he did not endorse either a jobs program or a tax cut.

Noting that he would meet with President Ford in the White House early this week, Carter said he also hopes to talk with a number of ranking Republican Congressmen. "I'm bitterly opposed to" that," protested O'Neill. "I think that's a terrible mistake. All the Republicans have done is obstruct. They are our opposition. It's the worst thing you can do." Muskie agreed with Tip. But Carter would not yield entirely. Said he: "I'm interested in meeting with Rhodes, Anderson and Michel [respectively, the House minority leader, the head of the House Republican Conference and the minority whip]."

As Carter conferred through the week with Washington officialdom, the onetime "Mr. Outsider" noted with a grin: "I'm beginning to feel more like a Washington insider." He was briefed in Plains by CIA Chief George Bush, and met with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Asked what he planned to tell Carter, Kissinger quipped: "I have spent so much time finding Plains on a map, I haven't had much time to think about what I would say."

Earlier, in his second full-scale press conference in two weeks, Carter appeared as controlled and presidential as in his meeting with the congressional Democrats. Speaking in the auditorium of the Georgia Agriculture Experiment Station in Plains, he announced only one appointment--an expected one: Jody Powell, 33, will continue as his press secretary in the White House.

Powell got a taste of what the job can do to its holder's temperament when he paid a courtesy call on Presidential Press Secretary Ron Nessen at the White House last week. Though Nessen asked reporters not to question Powell, they did so anyway. "This is my office!" Nessen erupted. "This is the taxpayers' office!" a reporter shouted back. "Call the E.P.S.!" Nessen ordered his secretary. Tempers cooled before the White House's Executive Protective Service was summoned, but, as Powell observed dryly, "I thought it was auspicious that in my first visit to the White House, I could watch the press secretary tell a reporter to f-- off."

Just Fluff. Carter made it clear that Vice President-elect Walter Mondale and Jordan would be his two closest advisers when the final decisions are made on the key appointments. Jordan retracted an earlier statement that to have familiar figures like former Deputy Defense Secretary Cyrus Vance in the Cabinet would represent a failure for the President-elect. At the same time, he emphasized, "If, however, everyone in the Carter Government had been here before, I think we would have failed." Jordan added that for every major position, Carter wants at least one minority figure and one woman to be listed.

In trying to locate talent, Transition Chief Watson, who had reserved a $ 150,000 budget out of campaign funds, disappointed the Carter camp. Said one aide: "The transition just wasn't happening." Some of Watson's papers on the transition were described as "just fluff" by this aide. "They're about what you'd expect from a group of graduate students with several months and $150,000 to spend," he said. Much of the criticism centered on Watson's personnel lists, which one aide described as unfocused and deficient in political judgment. The lists were apparently computerized to the point of being almost useless. Said Jordan: "There's no point in cranking up the computer to spit out Cy Vance's name. We know who Cy Vance is." Some Carter campaign aides also criticized Watson's selection of Anthony Lake, a former aide to Henry Kissinger who claims his telephone was tapped at Kissinger's direction, as the Carter transition liaison with the State Department. Whether Carter shares that dissatisfaction is not known.

Take Charge. Jordan was assigned to take charge of the personnel hunt, although Watson was left in charge of preparing Carter's alternative budget for next year. Powell quickly downplayed the shake-up and its unfavorable implications for Watson. Carter is "always dissatisfied with some of the work everyone does, including me and Hamilton," said Powell. "Overall, he was pleased."

The outcome of the muted struggle may also say something important about the President-elect. He obviously liked and trusted Watson. Yet the moment Carter concluded that Watson's performance in a particular area was not up to his lofty expectations, he did not hesitate to move him out of that area. There may be as much steel in the new President of the U.S. as his detractors had suspected and his admirers had approvingly anticipated.

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