Zbig and Wolfgang at Dawn

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

Perhaps the most secret document of the Carter Administration is locked away in Zbigniew Brzezinski's files in his corner office at the White House.

There are just two copies. As far as anyone knows, only four men have thoroughly studied the roughly 30 single-spaced typed pages.

The paper was written by Brzezinski back in the early days of the Administration. It is a finely honed reflection of Jimmy Carter's innermost thinking on the goals of U.S. foreign policy. None of the men who helped develop the Carter paper-- Brzezinski, Vice President Walter Mondale, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance -- will reveal its contents, other than to suggest that it is a distant vision of the world progress and tranquillity we all share. It is noteworthy that there is such a plan, but even more important that the men who have read it believe the Administration is moving in the right direction, and is even on schedule.

There is the first glimmering of a feeling in Washington now that maybe through hard knocks and good luck, U.S. foreign policy is indeed about to move ahead. It is time. Carter thinks so too.

Early every morning he tends to the world. The sun has not yet climbed above the trees when he pulls on his cardigan sweater in his small study and greets Brzezinski, who arrives with a sheaf of overnight cables summarizing the hopes and despairs of 4 billion people. Three presences fill the study -- Carter, Brzezinski and Wolf gang Amadeus Mozart.

Occasionally Mozart is replaced by Franz Schubert or Ludwig van Beethoven. (God help us if Richard Wagner ever creeps in at that hour.) Brzezinski rum mages through the CIA reports and the diplomatic dispatches. It is usually pretty serious stuff, but now and then there is some humor.

Brzezinski read aloud to Carter one ambassador's pompously self-congratulatory account of how he had wowed an audience with a speech. Both men broke up.

Carter has found the world tougher than he thought -- but the men and women who run it better than he thought. He likes what he has going with Israel's Begin and Egypt's Sadat. Last week progress reports on Begin's stomach upset figured prominently on the President's secret agenda. At one point Carter took up his felt-tipped pen and scribbled a note to Sadat on azure White House stationery.

Leonid Brezhnev remains enigmatic, refusing a meeting. Carter wants to look at Brezhnev, feel his grip, watch his eyes. It is Carter's view that the Soviet threat has diminished this year. Carter has been gratified, even frightened a little, by the narrative of American technological achievement and potential that has come across his desk. The Soviets cannot match us. There is not only better technical know-how in the U.S.; the inability of the Soviet system to induce uniform excellence is a drag on its effort to catch up. Carter is the first modern President to appreciate how technology can alter the balance of power overnight.

One ingenious innovation, like the cruise missile, can render masses of tanks, even other missiles, almost helpless.

Carter is not very curious about China. Maybe that is because he thinks China is not very curious about him. India, on the other hand, is one of his favorites because the President's mother went there in the Peace Corps.

Carter has a way to go as a world leader. But when the first rays of the sun finally reach his high windows over the South Lawn and it is time to put on his suit jacket, there is an awareness that the U.S. stands more than ever in this difficult world as the country of hope.

If Carter's vision of foreign affairs is borne out, maybe some day we will all be able to read that secret paper from Brzezinski's file cabinet. Book publishers are already marking it down as a key chapter in Jimmy Carter's memoirs.

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