Out of the Rose Garden

And into the heat of the presidential campaign

At least one hostage was freed by Jimmy Carter's aborted rescue raid: the one in the White House. Five days after the failed mission to save the 53 American captives in Tehran, the President jettisoned his six-month-old pledge not to campaign until the hostages were home. Speaking at an energy briefing in the East Room, Carter lamely explained that the nation's problems "are manageable enough for me to leave the White House for a limited travel schedule, including some campaigning if I choose."

Even Carter winced afterward over that statement, which was made in response to a question planted by a White House staffer. Returning to the Oval Office, the President said to a top aide: "Manageable was not a good choice of words, was it?" Indeed not, but the aide and Carter's other political strategists did not much care what excuse he used to leave the Rose Garden. For weeks, they had been telling him that both his standing with the public and his fund raising were suffering from his stay-at-home strategy. Then came the unsuccessful raid in Iran, followed three days later by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's resignation, which amounted to a stinging vote of no confidence that was only partly offset by Carter's choice of Senator Edmund Muskie as Secretary of State. The President decided that he had little choice but to begin campaigning. Said a top aide: "He's tired of getting dumped on for everything he does. He's ready to do battle."

In fact, the sands had barely settled in Iran's Dasht-e-Kavir desert before Carter took to the road. On Sunday he slipped away from the White House to an undisclosed location to meet with 150 of the commandos who participated in the raid. Afterward, the President made sure that Americans learned of the visit by emotionally describing to Democratic congressional leaders how Colonel Charlie Beckwith, commander of the assault force, had apologized for the failure. The teary-eyed President embraced Beckwith and replied: "You have nothing to apologize for. I thank you."

The next day, Carter flew to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he visited four of the men who were badly burned in the desert conflagration. It was his first trip outside the White House-Camp David axis since last Oct. 29, and though he avoided overt politicking, it was a well-photographed journey. It evidently did nothing to hurt him in the Texas primary, which he swept five days later. Senator Edward Kennedy, who spent a minimum of time campaigning in Texas, avoided any direct criticism of the hostage rescue attempt, though he tried to get political mileage out of the raid by visiting the wounded commandos in San Antonio. But Kennedy was less reticent about Carter's return to active campaigning. Said he: "We have had a failed military intrusion into Iran. [Carter] has lost five of the last seven primaries [and state caucuses] and now he is willing to come out of the White House. I think the decision is quite clearly a political judgment."