"Can't You Do something?"

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency "Can't You Do Something?"

Almost everybody seems to have a story about the energy problem. Secretary of the Treasury Michael Blumenthal phoned his 90-year-old father in California on a Sunday night. "Can't you do something about gas?" the old gentleman asked. The secretary's sister, also living in California, had always made a weekly drive to see their father. That Sunday she had called to say she did not have gas enough for the trip. "Well, Dad," answered Mike, a little extra feeling in his voice, "it's a big problem."

Jimmy Carter had a story to tell his Cabinet a fortnight ago. He had been to New England, Carter said, and the people there, barely out of this year's heavy snow, were scared that they would run short of heating oil next winter. He promised them that there would be enough, that the refineries were beginning to build up winter reserves. He went to Iowa, the President went on, and he found that diesel-oil shortages had developed, and concerned farmers urged that some fuel priority be given for planting, cultivating and harvesting their crops. He promised them that food production would not be jeopardized. And then he landed in California, continued Carter. That line was self-explanatory. There was a rueful chuckle around the Cabinet table.

Bit by painful bit, the sense of impending crisis is building within the Carter Government. American society's vulnerability to energy shortages has been seriously underestimated.

But why? The data were all there. This question was being asked even within Carter's official family, and some of his aides told their own stories to make the points. Imagine what Lyndon Johnson would have-done when he saw on his office ticker that gasoline lines were forming in California, said one harried energy planner. L.B.J. would have called in the oil executives and demanded a firm production estimate within 24 hours. He would have grabbed their arms and cut a deal -- price decontrol for a reasonable tax on windfall profits. Then, the official continued, Johnson would have gathered a group of congressional leaders and had them help prepare an emergency rationing program. Meantime he would have assembled the Governors and filling-station operators and demanded a voluntary plan of restraint and allocation. Johnson might have overdone it, mused this fellow, but he would have been out ahead of the problem, leading the way. Such action in matters with a high psychological ingredient often staves off further complications. But it is an alien style for Carter, who still tries to lead by following.

There are many in and out of Washington who believe it is now impossible to overdramatize the energy shortage. Energy should be the top national priority. No other problem can devastate our society so thoroughly, so swiftly.

In fairness, Jimmy Carter has had an intellectual grasp of the energy problem since the day he walked into the Oval Office. He rightly declared the moral equivalent of war early in his term to cope with the impending crisis. He got little help from any other segment of American society. And transferring his statistical conclusions into leadership in such a hostile environment has been and remains an immense problem. Having formulated the energy plan and declared it publicly, he turned to other things. Energy slipped down his list.

Experts who warned him through the winter of the fragile condition of energy supplies found the President to be uncomprehending of the forces that could be unleashed by an energy crunch. He insisted in his best Sunday-school manner that U.S. citizens would voluntarily adjust to energy inconvenience. His uneventful weeks as Georgia Governor during the 1973 oil embargo further clouded his view. America could cope without a lot of shouting from above.

Maybe so, but it is suspected that this spring's energy troubles have outpaced Carter's comprehension, as well as that of most others. Now he may be in a catch-up race that could determine both bis future and that of the nation.

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