THE ADMINISTRATION: Going to Bat for Beleaguered Bert

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The financial and political troubles of former Georgia Banker Bert Lance reached the point last week where Jimmy Carter himself had to come to the rescue. The President recommended that the director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget be released from a promise that, if kept, could destroy Lance's already shaky financial position.

As first reported by TIME (May 23), in a story filed by Correspondents Rudolph Rauch and Philip Taubman, the state of Lance's finances has grown increasingly parlous. But in coming to the aid of a longtime friend, Carter was compelled to compromise the ultralofty ethical standards that he had set for members of his fledgling Administration.

Carter's charitable move must still be endorsed by members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which originally confirmed Lance in his job. At week's end the 17-member group had not reached a decision. But from the tenor of proceedings, there is little doubt that the Senators are strongly inclined to follow Carter's lead when they reconvene this week. Even if they do, however, some observers believe that Lance will still be in trouble because of a number of questionable judgments that he has made since taking office.

Undoubtedly, Lance's debts were the main thing. Last January, before he was confirmed as OMB chief, Lance looked prosperous enough. He filed a statement with the Senate committee listing his "direct liabilities" as $5,343,797, his assets as $7,968,354 and his net worth as $2,624,557.

The key to Lance's problem is his ownership of 200,767 shares in the National Bank of Georgia, where he presided before going to OMB. Lance, at

Carter's request, promised the President and the Senate that he would divest himself of his shares in the bank before Dec. 31. (Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal made a similar pledge to divest himself of Bendix Corp. stock by Oct. 31.)

Lance's shares, bought largely at a premium price, cost him more than $3.3 million in borrowed money. At one point last week their value had sunk to $1.7 million. One reason for the steep decline was that National Bank of Georgia officers decided earlier this month to write off $2.3 million in loan losses for the first half of 1977. Another was the prospect of Lance's promised divestiture. Since his shares amount to roughly 16% of the bank's stock, the anticipated sale has had an understandably dampening effect on the market value.

Making Do. The stock squeeze is not the only drain on Lance's resources. The genial Georgian, who made $450,000 the year before joining Carter's Administration but now must make do with his $57,500 Government salary (plus at least $150,000 in investment-related income), pays rent of $15,000 a year for a handsome town house in Georgetown. He owns an elegant 40-room mansion in Atlanta, a $100,000 house in Calhoun, Ga., and a vacation home on Georgia's exclusive Sea Island. Nor does Lance stint on entertaining. In June, with his financial position steadily decaying, Lance and his wife LaBelle threw a star-studded party at Washington's Georgetown Inn for members of the Carter Cabinet, plus such other guests as Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, Publisher Katharine Graham and Mr. and Mrs. Averell Harriman.