Who Are the Nation's Leaders Today?

TIME asked a variety of historians, writers, businessmen and others in public life, "What living American leaders have been most effective in changing things for the better?" Reflecting the continuing problem of leadership in the White House, no one named Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter. The great diversity of the people chosen mirrors the fragmentation of American society, one of the problems for leaders. The nominees ranged from relatively predictable to almost shocking:

WILLIAM BUCKLEY, conservative columnist and editor (National Review): There's no one that I know of who has the potential grip on the imagination of the American people that would be conclusive enough to cause everybody to say "there is a leader" in the sense, for instance, that F.D.R. was, like him or loathe him. There is no American leader of anything like the stature or potential influence of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Now there are a lot of mini-leaders. Irving Kristol is the acknowledged godfather of the [neoconservative] movement. But he probably couldn't persuade a Boy Scout troop to make a right turn, even if you gave him quadraphonic sound. So in that sense he's not a leader at all.

JAMES MacGREGOR BURNS, historian (Williams College): Very few widely known living Americans meet my rather exacting criteria of leaders who transform. John Sawyer was such a leader as president of Williams College during the 1960s, when he led the college in achieving badly needed social and educational reforms. Nationally, Cesar Chavez may be such a leader today.

KENNETH CLARK, educator: There are no transcendent leaders, but on a lower level there is Gloria Steinem, an articulate and thoughtful representative of the women's movement. Andy Young has stirred up controversy; if you're not getting into trouble, you're not breaking new ground or asking people to rethink old notions.

HENRY STEELE COMMAGER, historian (Amherst College): Linus Pauling has provided leadership in an almost 18th century fashion by combining great distinction in scientific inquiry and in the moral arena. The second figure who has steadily, over a long and distinguished career, held up to our people a spectacle of greatness is Archibald MacLeish. He has inspired generations of Americans to a love of literature and of philosophy.

LEE A. DuBRIDGE, former president of Caltech: Carl Sagan has an influence on science far beyond the television tube. He is introducing people to the many aspects of science. Frank Press (scientific adviser to Carter) has persuaded the President of the importance of basic research, developed some of the technical aspects of SALT II, and remains an important link in explaining the treaty to the scientific community. Bruce Murray, director of the Jet Propulsion Lab, reflects and influences the objectives and hopes of the entire scientific community.

FRANCES FITZGERALD, writer (Fire in the Lake): Barry Commoner, Ralph Nader and Cesar Chavez are possibilities. Nader and Chavez are leaders on a grand scale. Their thinking is original and they have the ability to make things happen. It is characteristic of American society today that the antiwar movement, women's movement, antinukes have a collective leadership.

JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN, historian: We are too much inclined to view history from the standpoint of great men. This I think is a dangerous exercise. Blacks, in particular, have been caught up in what I call the Booker T. Washington syndrome, the idea that there is someone who speaks for the black man.

DOUGLAS FRASER, U.A.W. president: I can't think of any leaders. Isn't this sad? God, that's what's wrong with this country! That's exactly what's wrong.

J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT, former Senator: Anybody who takes issue with the government of Israel is taking his life in his own hands. The one man who has done this and written very well is George Ball. He has advocated an equitable or balanced policy toward Israel and her neighbors that I think is very constructive.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, economist: On health care, on industrial concentration, on foreign policy, arms control and refugee matters, I don't think anyone strikes as many sparks and brings along as many people as Edward Kennedy.

JAMES GAVIN, retired Army general and executive: I just can't find any outstanding leaders. Connally, but there's the milk scandal. Kennedy, but there's Chappaquiddick. The academic and business worlds are limited in their views. David Rockefeller is really good but strictly narrow in the application of his skills. There's George Ball, who has shown great versatility, but he doesn't have national stature.

BILLY GRAHAM, evangelist: I believe that the living American leaders who continue, year after year, to do the most to change things for the better are the countless mothers and fathers who have committed themselves to love and to train the next generation.

HOWARD JARVIS, tax-revolt crusader: Alexander Haig, for his understanding of Soviet and European military capabilities; William Clements the new Governor of Texas, for his program to try to rebuild free enterprise in his state; William Simon for his important book, A Time for Truth; and Comedian George Burns,, who at 83 is proving that all of the sugar in life is in the bottom of the cup.

CORETTA SCOTT KING, civil rights activist: In terms of impacting the crucial foreign policy issues we face, I believe Andrew Young deserves special recognition. For the first time in American history, the people of the developing nations have a highly committed spokesman to represent their interests to the President and the American people.

IRVING KRISTOL, neoconservative writer: There's no question that Henry Kissinger elevated the discussion of American foreign policy. There aren't many individuals--George Kennan in his prime was one--who apply mind to foreign policy as against just opinion, and Kissinger is certainly one.

LOUIS MASOTTI, political scientist (Northwestern): Ralph Nader. Recalls, product guarantees, truth in packaging, truth in lending, almost all these things were a spillover of the challenge of this one person. Another is Barry Commoner. He has raised our consciousness about the environment and ecological system. I might have chosen Jerry Brown, if he had turned out to be more consistent and positive.

DAVID RIESMAN, sociologist: Richard Lyman of Stanford University is one of the few college presidents who is a real leader. He had the courage to fire a radical professor at the cost of dividing his faculty. Dan Evans was an inventive Governor of Washington. He developed an independent VISTA program. Terry Sanford [former Governor of North Carolina] is really a great leader. He developed projects for multiracial groups that influenced the educational programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

DAVID ROCKEFELLER, chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank: John McCloy [lawyer and banker] and Henry Kissinger for their leadership in world affairs; Andrew Wyeth for his leadership in bringing the arts to a wider public; Rockefeller University President and Nobel Winner Joshua Lederberg for his leadership in the scientific community; General Electric's Reginald Jones for his business leadership; and Patrick Haggerty [general director of Texas Instruments] for his business leadership and his role in helping maintain America's technological leadership.

ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR., historian (City University of New York): I don't see around the kind of people who constituted leadership when I was younger. Everything looked better when people like Franklin Roosevelt, Reinhold Niebuhr and the like were alive.

GLORIA STEINEM, editor and feminist organizer: Bella Abzug and Andrew Young are the only two leaders of our time who have successfully transposed social movements into the electoral system. Cesar Chavez and Carolyn Reed [director of the National Committee on Household Employment] have redefined work and taken forward the movement to organize the lowest, least paid in the working force. And John Kenneth Galbraith is almost the only link between economic knowledge and the public.

EDWARD TELLER, scientist: Biologist Norman Borlaug, who with his colleagues developed a strain of wheat that is helping to feed the world. The most important man who brought refugees to this country, from Hungarians to Indochinese, is Leo Cherne, executive director of the Research Institute of America. Dixy Lee Ray, the Governor of Washington, is a politician and a scientist who pulled the Atomic Energy Commission out of a deep mire by reorganizing the agency. She made many enemies, and had no support, but became the Governor of a state.

THEODORE WHITE, author: Senator Pat Moynihan in the sense that he led an internal revolt against the dominant, the liberal tradition of the U.S. And Ralph Nader is a leader. He called the corporations to account. Ben Bradlee has been the supreme iconoclast of American journalists. He'd expose his own mother. He and Abe Rosenthal [executive editor of the New York Times] changed the course of American journalism. I'd also add CBS Producer Don Hewitt (60 Minutes) because he made reality exciting.

WILLIAM WINPISINGER, Machinists Union president: I think the country is crazy for a leader. That's the problem with the little fink we've got for a President now. It is still possible to call [AFL-CIO boss] George Meany a leader, but I happen to think he epitomizes negative leadership, characterized by inaction, immobility and stultified thinking. To me, Ted Kennedy has the skills to be a leader. He's charming; his staff has brains. Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich took on the utility company and the interlocking directorates. He told them baloney. So far no one has proved him wrong. Ralph Nader takes on issues intelligently and honestly.

HOWARD ZINN, historian: One of my criticisms of history, culture and education in the U.S. is the heavy emphasis on leaders and the lack of emphasis on social movements. But if I were to pick one or two who have had some impact on our society it would be people like Dick Gregory. He could have had a comfortable career as a comedian but he has shown a willingness to sacrifice himself in his fight on racism, war, the nuclear questions.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.