What Is Jimmy Carter?

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George Meany. AFL-CIO leader has endorsed Carter The overwhelming victory of "poor" millionaire Jimmy Carter as the Democrat's PresiMential candidate ensures him the full support of his party in the coming campaign. But what implications does the South-North marriage between Carter and running mate Walter Mondale have for American polities?

First, if Carter is elected he will be the first President of the US from the Deep South since 1: 340, that is, since the little-rememb Tered Zach Taylor.

"ENLIGHTENED"

And despite Carter's "enlightened" views on Blacks ("there is no difference between the blood of a white and a black man"), his emphasis on the importance of apport from such Black political figures as Georgia Congressman Andy Young and his token considration of Black California Congressman Ron Dellums as his Vice-Presidential nominee - despite • this, Carter's overwhelming inage is that of the Old South.

His peanut farming and Souther-Baptist evangelism, his Donservatism on "liberal" issues ach as public spending and abortion. his reliance on "strong somen" behind him, and especially i indifference to the problems of traus-union dominated indusi di. sinzie out his Southern ESTABLISHMENT I x mis which made such mari- stahlichmart m lirinsupport to Carter as a candidate capable of beating George Wallace on his own ground in the primaries.

But after the nomination, Carter's redneck image has become a liability especially as he will probably have to compete for liberal votes with Eugene McCarthy who is likely to stand again as an independent.

Hence the nomination of Mondale, who is reputed to have strong links with organised labour (the AFL/CIO have now endorsed Carter's nomination) and also support from liberals. who are not canvinced he rarter has largely come trom those disillusioned Americans who espond to his anti-Washington, anti-big government line, hoping (vainly) that a new face and a new approach will cure America's ills. On this basis, Carter has also drawn support from the ranks of traditional Republican voters.

Although Carter has announced his intention, if elected, to give his Vice-President a major role and a big slice of authority, he has in practice already tempéred Mondale's 'liberalism', notably his support for abortion reform -Parter cannot afford to damhie from Catholics.

Neither Carter nor Mondiale has direct experience in foreign affairs, although both have opposed US intervention in Angola and hint that their government would use more subtle means of suppressing national liberation and communism, such as the application of economic pressure to Italy to keep the Italian Communist Party (PCI) out of the government!

But Carter has certainly not ignored international questions in his training programme for the presidency. Since 1972 he has been closely associated with an international political research and pressure group known as the Trilateral Commission (the . *trilateral' referring to its North American, Western European and Japanese membership).

HISTORIAN

The first director of the Commission was the well-informed historian of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe Zbigniew Brezezinski, known as "Carter's Kissinger" Among the members of the Commission are multi-millionaire David Rockefeller (president of the Chase Manhattan Bank) and Giovanni Agnelli (President of Fiat and until recently of the Italian bosses' federation, the Confindustria.

The Trilateral Commission has been campaigning for a less heavy-handed foreign policy by the US.

But what this might mean in pracțice is suggested by the personnel who do the detailed policy studies for the Commission on Latin America: Lincoln Gordon (US ambassador to Brazil at the tima of tha richt_uzina anim im sador to Bolivia at the time of the right-wing coup in Bolivia in 1964); Linowitz and others who helped to make the Latin American policy of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations which came up with the economic embargo on Cuba from 1961 and the invasion of the Dominican republic in 1965.

So in Latin American affairs and East European affairs at least the simple peanut farmer with the big grin has some sophisticated and experienced friends.

PRIMITIVE

But these connections are not widely publicised. It is with the simple and primitive image that the Carter camp expect to win. He offers to sweeten the dank atmosphere of Washington, where the stench of Watergate still lingers on the air, with a Southern breeze scented with "honesty", "decency" "trust" and de-centralisation.

There is every sign at present that this appeals to the traditional American voter to whom politics remains a question of personal committment rather than a struggle of classes for political power.

APPEARANCES

Despite the appearances of change it is plain that the class content of Carter's "programme" is no different from that of Johnson's Nixon's or Ford's. The Democratic convention made as clear as it ever was that no working class leadership can be found in the Democratic Party. It highlights the need to build in the United States a mass labour party to represent the indonmadnat ater dhaWedne Page S

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