THE PRESIDENCY: The Forge of Leadership

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While Carter's steadiness in this crisis is outwardly apparent, what has happened inside him during these past days will have a profound effect on U.S. policy once we emerge from this trauma. Because Jimmy Carter, like all Presidents before him in recent years, has had to come back in the end to rely on plain old American military might. The men like John Foster Dulles, who restructured international relations after World War II, never had any doubts about the use of power, since they had seen how weakness invited aggression and defiance. President Carter, and a lot of others, thought he might modify that idea a bit. His notion that he could reduce our garrisons abroad, cut our defense spending and relax our vigilance over the world's troublemakers, like Fidel Castro, is surely being mocked by today's events. The betting here is that Carter is among those who have changed the most.

Indeed, the glimpses we have had of a creased brow and angry eyes may be some of the best news yet from the White House. For too long in this Administration and too often in the past, we have been given pictures of a President in crisis who was cool and collected standing at the helm. Now we see a man who is hurt and wrathful about what the world has dealt him and wondering about those he had counted on. Such flashes of truth can be the final forge of leadership.