The Virtues of Secrecy

By Hugh Sidey

The three most spectacular moves in Jimmy Carter's presidency thus far have been nurtured in a secrecy so deep as to be almost conspiratorial.

They have been thrust forward along clandestine channels by the sheer will of the President. They have been unveiled in high electronic drama.

It is a pattern of management that Carter himself decried when he ran for office. (He would "strip away the secrecy," he pledged back then, suggesting that to conduct state business that way was "amoral") But its emergence tells us about the next two years. Jimmy Carter is expected to turn away from the infuriating legislative brambles whenever he can and seek out those areas in which he is sovereign and can act by himself, quickly and cleanly.

The three special events in the Carter presidency were the Camp David summit meeting on the Middle East, last month's action to bolster the dollar and dampen inflation, and the normalization of relations with China. The public reaction to Carter's decisions is still uneven, but it is commonly believed around the capital that his decisiveness and the smooth execution of his plans have shored up his leadership, and that his new strength will soon be reflected in more public respect for the President.

This may not be the way prospective Presidents imagine they will lead; but on the job around the Oval Office, you pick up power any way you can.

Secrecy, for all its sinister implications and past abuses, is a device of Executive authority. Security on normalizing relations with China was maintained for six months, and one of the reasons was that Carter penned a marginal note on his early instructions to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, saying that the matter was to be limited to four people besides himself. The handful of men who worked out the scheme to buy dollars and raise interest rates were equally devoted to secrecy. When Secretary of the Treasury Michael Blumenthal heard that one of his assistants had picked up the scent, he phoned the man and ordered, "Stop snooping."

At the final moment, when the White House called the congressional leaders down to the Roosevelt Room to tell them about recognizing Communist China, House Speaker Tip O'Neill leaned over to Vice President Walter Mondale and complained, "You should have consulted us." In fact, several members of Congress were consulted in an ambiguous manner that did not reveal the negotiations. But the White House will draw further away from sharing its critical confidences because it has grown increasingly aware that surprise and drama can be important factors in presidential momentum.

The orchestration of the China move may be a textbook model for Carter as he picks his way through the difficult problems of the following months. While the details of the inner secret were known by only a few men, there were other layers of contact. The China experts in the State Department were asked to work out "hypothetical problems" that turned out to be not so hypothetical. And then key members of Congress were talked to in a general way about the same issues. Thus the Government "knew" without really knowing, and at the center the President moved along his chosen course with assistance but with no extraneous obstructions.

All Presidents have finally rested their cases for secrecy and surprise on their own good intentions and character. In most instances that proved to be enough, but not always, as we learned with Viet Nam and Watergate. Carter's moves, too, will be judged by what the man has in his heart. After two tough years the President's character remains his greatest resource.

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