Too Good a Samaritan

By Hugh Sidey

It may come to pass that the Bible will be recognized as a dubious guide to the exercise of power. The Bible is, of course, President Carter's basic manual. Were he more inclined to the thunder of the Old Testament, the U.S. might have a better global position. But Carter runs to the New Testament, wherein the meek inherit the world, turn the other cheek, love enemies, are first by being last, and find strength made perfect in weakness.

In personal terms, there is no better instruction. However, the Good Samaritan on the dangerous road of modern leadership who stops too long to minister to a few fallen persons (the hostages) may harm his nation--or never get to his destination. Turning away from evil (the Shah) may invite a greater evil (the Ayatullah Khomeini). Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri F. Ustinov seems to be inheriting more of the world than are the meek.

This is, in a profoundly real way, Jimmy Carter's problem. He is so personally and mercifully tied up with the small things and the individual people he meets at whatever level, from the street to the throne, that he cannot act when the larger realities of the world require him to risk lives and fortunes. For all the President's bluster and fuss over three years, he has not taken a single real step across that Rubicon of power, where there is risk, where the solution lies in moving determinedly ahead with no lines of retreat to the old comfortable campground of the status quo.

Some friends wonder if he is spiritually and intellectually capable of performing that tougher role. Carter clings to his conviction that there must be a way through prayer and good will to let the cup pass.

Letting the cup pass may be, as former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger insists, a greater risk than drinking from it.

Carter's own record in foreign affairs suggests the same: the more hesitant he has been, the more trouble has come his way.

The modern presidency certainly shows that everyone from Roosevelt to Ford has crossed that difficult line in varying degrees.

Roosevelt, of course, had World War II.

Truman's doctrine of aid for Greece and Turkey was not bellicose but bold. Kennedy directly confronted the Soviets in Cuba.

Nixon's ultimatum on the sub base in Cuba had the desired effect without a shot being fired. Ford sent the Marines after the Mayaguez pirates.

When Carter threatened in January to use force if the Soviets headed toward the Persian Gulf, he seemed at last to have entered the world of action. But his subsequent hesitations over acquiring bases in the area made it seem that he was again trying to avoid that world. Carter is obsessed by his claim that not a single American boy has died because of any of his orders. This attitude obscures the fact that his uncertain trumpet has surely encouraged the Cuban mercenaries in Africa, the Soviet dislocations in Ethiopia and the invasion of Afghanistan. All produced death and suffering for others. Now we are in danger of being pushed toward a conflict that could horribly mock Carter's self-righteousness.

The President's conviction that his personal grace could find a heart beneath Leonid Brezhnev's iron crust led to his massive miscalculation about Soviet intentions, as Carter has been frank to admit. But the conviction still inhibits him from devising a doctrine to counter the Soviets, and acting on it.

Last week, as he greeted Anwar Sadat on the White House lawn, the light in Carter's eyes showed that the President was again in the intimate dimensions he relishes. This week he will cozy up to Israel's Menachem Begin. By every measure, we head toward a tune when the U.S. and free world interests in the Middle East should be more clearly defined and asserted. The greater probability and danger is that Carter will not be able to do it.

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