The Burden of Billy

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disserved the President by bringing it up." It was clearly just as inappropriate for the President to ask the Attorney General what might happen to Billy. Suddenly next month's Democratic Convention had the potential of turning into a roiling party brawl.

Bold and sassy as ever, Billy went on WABC-TV's Good Morning, New York last week to maintain he had done nothing wrong. As for the President's statement that Billy's activities had not been "appropriate" for "a close relative of the President," Billy snapped: "I'm not going to argue with my brother. I might argue with him when I get him home. But I'm not going to argue with him on the air."

And there it was, at the heart of the matter, the old frictions between two brothers who had caused each other so much discomfort over the years. Inevitably, and painfully, the investigation will have to examine the strained relationship between two brothers from Plains, Ga., who rose to nation al prominence, or notoriety, in such separate ways. Yet the brotherly feelings are relevant to understanding how a President could let his kid brother get into such a fix. Said a senior White House aide last week: "There was no shortage of top people here telling the President he had to do something about Billy. But he wouldn't even talk about it. When it was brought up, he would shut it off with that icy stare."

For all their blood ties, the deep differences between Jimmy and Billy Carter helped to escalate what should have been a minor problem, easily solved in its early stages, into a major political up roar. In a year of political troubles that threaten to drive him from the White House, the President last week faced the most ironic threat of all — one posed by a kid brother who used to tag along after him on the farm back home in Plains.