Just Bray It Again, Sam

For ABC's Donaldson, the White House beat is a volume business

When Jimmy Carter left the White House, he wished two enduring headaches on his successor: Israel's combative Prime Minister Menachem Begin and ABC News' abrasive White House correspondent Sam Donaldson. Last month, when Ronald Reagan spoke at a ceremony extolling the achievements of ABC News President Roone Arledge, Reagan added: "Sam Donaldson is a small price to pay." Not many people would cherish having provoked Chief Executives as diverse as Carter and Reagan. But Donaldson, 49, has gleefully made himself perhaps the best-known TV reporter in America by asking pertinent questions of Presidents in the most impertinent possible way. He gets the news by shouting.

To a public that often regards the White House press corps as a pack of hounds baying at whatever misfortunate occupies the Oval Office, Donaldson can seem the loudest and meanest coon dog of all. He asked Carter whether he was competent to be President. (Donaldson's judgment: no.) He suggested to Reagan that his presidency was "failing" and asked if it was true that he had to be "dragged back to making realistic decisions" by aides. To lesser officials Donaldson can be, if anything, ruder: at a press conference preceding an international economic summit, when Secretary of State George Shultz was brought in by White House officials for no apparent purpose, Donaldson demanded, "Mr. Secretary, why have you come here?"

Off-camera, Donaldson titillates and embarrasses the press corps by shouting out, often within earshot of public figures, the sort of tasteless jokes that other reporters only murmur. Says a former ABC colleague: "People often find him boorish and obnoxious." Admits Donaldson: "I cause myself a lot of trouble with my deportment, and I am less than thrilled about that." Yet Donaldson seems a mascot rather than an outcast among the White House-beat regulars. They are used to his Peck's Bad Boy manner and enjoy his outbursts against the White House staff for manipulating access to the President, though some reporters blame his antics for the recent ban on asking questions during "photo opportunities." With few exceptions, colleagues praise Donaldson for his nerve and enterprise. Says an NBC competitor: "There are so few opportunities to talk to the President that there is something to be said for leading the charge." Jody Powell, the Carter Administration press secretary who is now an ABC colleague of Donaldson, recalls, "When I got to the White House in the morning, there were usually two reporters there to greet me: Helen Thomas of U.P.I, and Sam." President Reagan's deputy press secretary, Larry Speakes, says, "I think he sets the agenda for other reporters. He can spot a story and get to the bottom of it quickly, and 99 times out of 100 he is right."