Nation: Unsinkable Ham Jordan

• Share

There's more to his new look than just those suits

Elders in Congress and the Cabinet delight in deriding him as the symbol of what ails the Carter Administration. Gossip columnists depict him as oafish, lecherous or both. His marriage has ended in divorce. Yet, having absorbed enough torpedoes to sink the most buoyant of careers, Hamilton Jordan has done more than merely stay afloat as Jimmy Carter's most trusted aide. He has expanded his range in both administrative and policy matters and is now even scrubbing up his image. White House Correspondent Laurence I. Barrett reports:

Jordan likes to list the things at which he fails to excel. Administrative detail? "I'm not that good at it." Economic policy? "Lucky for the American people I don't make it." The Middle East negotiations, perhaps? "I'm just an observer."

For all of Jordan's self-deprecation, however, the traffic in and out of his office in the White House's West Wing testifies to the growing range of his involvements. When Alfred Kahn is being coaxed away from the Civil Aeronautics Board to head the Administration's anti-inflation effort, that office is Kahn's last stop before visiting Carter. Another day, a visitor finds Jordan closeted with Charles Kirbo, the President's Atlanta-based confidant and troubleshooter, and Jay Solomon, head of the troubled General Services Administration. Yet another day, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski shows up to remind Jordan that a foreign affairs meeting awaits his presence.

Jordan bridles at suggestions that he has at last become Carter's chief of staff. He does not want the job, and the notion of a Haldemanesque executive officer through whom other aides report is anathema to the President. But since last spring, Jordan has with increasing frequency taken charge of important situations. Says an associate: "There was a vacuum. You would sit in a meeting to hash out a problem. Everyone would speak his piece and then go off and do what he intended to do in the first place. Now Hamilton makes assignments and we all recognize that he is the hub of the staff wheel."

Jordan orchestrated the campaign for ratification of the Panama Canal treaties. Last month, as the White House was preparing to announce Stage II of the anti-inflation program, an assortment of advisers seemed unable to square away the final details. Jordan got everyone marching. Usually his fingerprints are harder to detect. "Most people don't know what I ad vise the President," Jordan boasts. "When I do a memo, I type it myself and usually don't make copies."