Just a year ago, he was walking up to men and women who did not know he existed, shaking their hands and drawling, "I'm Jimmy Carter, and I'm going to be your next President." The notion seemed preposterous, and most political professionals were dead sure he did not have a chance—but none of the voters laughed in his face. He was such an engaging man—a trifle shy, for all his gall, and there was that sunburst of a smile that people would always remember. Right from the start, he was perceived as being a rather different kind of politician compared with the rest of the field—as different on philosophy and tactics, it was to turn out, as in personal style. He not only knew what he wanted; he also sensed, at least in the primary elections, what the American people wanted. [an error occurred while processing this directive]

The result was something of a political miracle.

On Jan. 20 he will place his left palm on the Bible and raise his right hand. Then, in the now familiar soft and even tones of south Georgia, Jimmy Carter, 52, will take the oath that will make him—just as he was saying all along—the 39th President of the U.S.

After all that has been said and written about him during a long campaign, he is still an enigma to millions of Americans, including many who voted for him. He is complex and sometimes contradictory. His creed combines traditionally antithetical elements of help-the-deprived populism and deny-thyself fiscal conservatism. A Harris poll last month reported that 61% of those surveyed expect Carter to be a good or excellent President. Despite that hope, the people are waiting to be shown by Jimmy Cater, to see if he really has the wisdom and judgment and balance needed to succeed in the job that he so eagerly sought for two exhausting years.

There are many reasons why Carter's rise stands as such a remarkable political feat. When he was walking the icy streets of New Hampshire last January, as many as 40% of the local people did not even know who he was. He occupied no political office; his one term as Georgia's Governor had ended in January 1975, and state law kept him from running again. He was the typical outsider, and it was an axiom of politics that outsiders—particularly those from the South—went nowhere nationally.

All the axioms were demolished by Carter's flinty willpower, his almost arrogant self-confidence, his instinct to ask his listeners to "trust me" and his fetching promise to give them "a Government as good and as competent and as compassionate as are the American people." The talk about trust and love sounded too vague to many. But he was a candidate of the 1970s, and he knew that the voters were more concerned about the overriding issue of moral leadership than about the big-spending liberal programs of the 1960s. He did more than just defeat a dozen other Democrats, most of them Senators and Governors, who were better known and had bigger power bases. He also destroyed forever the hopes of Alabama's George Wallace of rising to national power—a possibility already dimmed by the bullet of a would-be assassin. By showing that a nonracist Southerner could win a major party nomination, Carter gave new pride to his region and went far to heal ancient wounds.

The triumphs of spring nearly turned into defeat in the fall. Matched against President Ford, Carter's touch was uncertain, his demeanor occasionally strident, and his 33-point lead in the polls melted to nothing. Fighting courageously, Ford came close to pulling a Trumanesque upset. But all along Carter had said calmly, "I do not intend to lose." In the end, of course, he won by 51% to 48%; his plurality of 1,681,417 in the popular vote was far greater than the winning margins of John Kennedy in 1960 and Richard Nixon in 1968. The Democratic Party was Carter's, as well as the White House. Because of his impressive rise to power, because of the new phase he marks in American life, and because of the great anticipations that surround him, James Earl Carter Jr. is TIME's Man of the Year.

The new President takes over at a particularly challenging time, one of those turning points in U.S. history that seem to be occurring at shorter and shorter intervals. After the banishment of Richard Nixon, the decent, solid and forthright Gerald Ford—to his everlasting credit—did much to restore faith and confidence in Government and to curb inflation. But he did little to grapple with the nation's other problems. The U.S. is still moving into the post-Viet Nam and post-Watergate era, still struggling to recover from a deep recession. Revitalizing the economy, of course, will be Carter's immediate problem, but there are others—racial relations, Government reorganization, energy, welfare, health care—demanding fresh and strong leadership. To provide that, Carter will have to surmount the continuing doubts about himself, arbitrate the increasingly insistent demands of competing constituencies and establish himself as a President who can inspire Americans to be as good as he maintains they really are.

While Carter has a long was to go to prove himself, his coming to power overshadowed all other developments in 1976, the year of the Bicentennial. The U.S. gave itself a glorious birthday party—climaxed forever in the mind's eye by the vision of the tall ships ghosting up New York Harbor. There was also a valid occasion for some old-fashioned Yankee Doodle pride. For the first time in the 75-year history of the honors, all of the Nobel Prizes went to Americans—six men won or shared the science awards, and Saul Bellow capped a distinguished career of 32 years by winning the nomination for literature.

In the world at large, China's Hua Kuo-feng, a moderate, aborted a prospective coup by radicals and succeeded Chairman Mao Tse-tung, whose death at 82 posed the classic problem of power transfer in a totalitarian nation. In the Middle East, Syrian President Hafez Assad gained new stature by forcibly bringing to a halt the civil war in Lebanon involving rightist Christians, left-wing Moslems, and their Palestinian allies. Seriously set back, and at least temporarily under control of Arab moderates, the Palestine Liberation Organization seemed more amenable to making compromises at a new Geneva conference to end the age-old feuds between Arab and Jew.

There remains bitter opposition, but the year saw the beginning of the end of white dominance in southern Africa. Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, 57, finally bowed to the inevitable and agreed in principle to transfer power in two years to the blacks, who outnumber the whites 22 to 1. Smith would never have given in without the pressure of Henry Kissinger, who made a valiant mission to a continent that he had long neglected. As the colorful and controversial Kissinger cleared out his office, he seemed already to rank among the greatest Secretaries of State.

For most of Europe, 1976 was a year of disappointment and frustration. As Britain and its once proud pound continued to slump, Labor Prime Minister James Callaghan began talking like a Tory; he urged the trade unions to ease off on wage demands and ordered cuts in costly social services. Italy's Communists under Enrico Berlinguer came closer to entering the government by increasing their vote from 27% to 34%, while the tired Christian Democrats held steady at 39%.

Despite all the gloomy news from Europe, West Germany—by hard work and sensible policies of free enterprise—widened its lead as the Continent's dominant economic power. Spain held its first free vote in 40 years; encouraged by popular King Juan Carlos, 94% of the voters approved a reform bill calling for the election of a bicameral legislature this spring. In Northern Ireland, Betty Williams, 33, and Mairead Corrigan, 32, both Catholics, won the admiration of the world by ignoring death threats and leading thousands of women, Protestants and Catholics alike, in massive demonstrations for peace.

Struggling with their own problems, world leaders watched closely—and occasionally with understandable bewilderment—to see what manner of man they would have to deal with when the exhausting and uniquely American rite of choosing a President was finally over. As he often points out, Carter has had a richly varied career: Annapolis graduate, Navy officer, nuclear engineer, successful farmer, businessman. Those experiences may have given him, as he insists, some feeling for the variety of problems facing the nation. But no President since Calvin Coolidge has entered the White House with a briefer public record. (Eisenhower had never held political office, but he had been a commanding world figure for a decade.) Carter has never served in any capital larger than Atlanta; four years in the Georgia Senate, four years as Governor of the nation's 14th largest state. The questions about him, however, go much deeper than what he has done or not done: they focus on what kind of man he really is. It is no longer "Jimmy who?" but "Jimmy what?"

The doubts persist, although he is remarkably open and has been unusually accessible to journalists. Asked why people still have trouble figuring him out, Carter says, "I don't know. Sometimes I think people look too hard. They're looking for something that isn't there. I don't really think I'm that complex. I'm pretty much what I seem to be."

Still, Carter is fond of quoting Danish Theologian Soren Kierkegaard that "every man is an exception," a view that certainly fits him. He has been described with a catalogue of contradictions: liberal, moderate, conservative, compassionate, ruthless, soft, tough, a charlatan, a true believer, a defender of the status quo, a populist Hamlet.

The continuing concern about Carter stems from the growing realization that the basic character of the man who sits in the Oval Office is more important than his views on SALT talks or any other specific issue. The evidence about Carter is often perplexing.

HIS FEELING FOR PEOPLE. Vice President-elect Walter Mondale admires—and wishes he could emulate—Carter's ability to express warm affection. Carter and his wife hold hands as naturally in public as though they were on a high school date. The Georgian has extraordinary empathy with children. During the campaign, he took time out to talk to grade school kids—about civics, peanut butter, civil liberties—and never talked down to them. Once Carter asked a correspondent about his family. The reporter mentioned that one of his children was suffering from an incurable disease—and turned to see tears running down Carter's cheeks.

Yet he can be cool, even with the people who are closest to him. "Jimmy's a hard person to get to know," admits Top Aide Hamilton Jordan. Says another: "His insides are made of twisted steel cable." He is notorious for not thanking staffers for their 18-hour days, and a harsh streak occasionally surfaces. When Hubert Humphrey was thinking of jumping into the primaries, Carter said that the Senator, then 64, was too old to be President, and, besides, he was a "loser." Later, Carter apologized for that tasteless crack.

HIS DRIVE FOR POWER. Carter's charmingly modest demeanor contrasts sharply with a lifetime of superachieving and his single-minded drive to reach the presidency. Even Congressman Andrew Young, a friend and Carter's chosen Ambassador to the U.N., has been put off at times by the cold way his fellow Georgian stalked power.

Carter's determination not only to better but to perfect himself was instilled by his taskmaster father, known as Mr. Earl, who put him in the fields at 4 a.m., and whipped him on six occasions with such thoroughness that Carter vividly recalls every one. Says he: "My father was very strict with me. But I loved him very much."

While still a boy, Carter began planning to escape Plains by going to Annapolis—one place where a farm lad with little cash could get a free education. Afraid that flat feet might rule him out, he used to stand on Coke bottles and roll back and forth to strengthen his arches. His mother—the formidable Miss Lillian—opened his mind to the world of books and ideas, and a schoolteacher named Julia Coleman saw the promise in the youngster and had him struggling gamely through War and Peace at the age of twelve.

At Annapolis, Plebe Carter was resolute enough not to sing Marching Through Georgia as part of the hazing process, no matter how often or hard his rear end was pummeled. Trying to reassure one campaign audience that he did not always want to be President, Carter said, "When I was at Annapolis, the only thing I wanted to be was Chief of Naval Operations."

As a young officer, he would not let his sea-sickness prevent him from standing watch: he simply carried along his vomit bucket to the bridge of the submarine. He fell under the spell of Admiral (then Captain) Hyman Rickover, and that celebrated authoritarian became the second most important male influence in his life. It was Rickover who provided the model of the perfectionist leader, one who seldom handed out compliments.

Carter's tenacity is extraordinary. Apparently defeated in his first try for the state senate in 1962, he fought to prove ballot-stuffing by the boss of Quitman County, Joe Hurst. Governor-elect Carl Sanders, among other officials, was indifferent to Carter's righteous demands, thus fanning his suspicion of the "vested interests." After Carter won his case in court, John Pope—one of his biggest supporters in the fight—tried to get his help to land some state insurance business. Pope recalls, "Jimmy told me in the politest possible way to get lost." Carter helped send Boss Hurst to jail on a moonshining charge, and settling another personal score, defeated Sanders for the governorship in 1970 after a particularly bitter campaign.

Even the President-elect's mother was surprised by the scope of his ambition. Miss Lillian recalls teasingly asking him one day on 1973, "Whatcha gonna do when you're not Governor?

"And he said, `I'm going to run for President.'

"So I said, `President of what?'

"And then," she says, "I realized he wasn't joking. That little curtain came down over his face, and he said, `Momma, I'm going to run for the President of the U.S., and I'm going to win.'"

HIS STUBBORNNESS. The obvious danger of such self- confidence is that President Carter may be unwilling to listen to advice or compromise when thwarted, as he will inevitably be. As Governor, Carter condemned his state's legislature as "the worst in the history of the state" when it refused to pass a consumer-protection bill that he favored. Although there have been charges to the contrary, he was a good Governor—pushing through government reorganization, establishing a zero-based budgeting and sensible environmental controls, improving the prisons, expanding mental health services, greatly increasing the state's budget surplus with no real rise in taxes. But his steady scrapping with the legislature hindered him from accomplishing even more. His stubborn streak also showed during the primaries, when he refused for two days to apologize for his notorious "ethnic purity" remark—and finally did so under intense pressure from black leaders.

"I am pretty rigid," Carter admits. "It's been very difficult for me to compromise when I believe in something deeply. I generally prefer to take it to the public, to fight it out to the last vote, and if I go down, I go down in flames."

HIS USE OF RELIGION. During the primaries, Scoop Jackson criticized the Baptist deacon for "wearing his religion on his sleeve." The attack was unfair. Despite jokes that he was taking his initials too seriously, Carter usually talked about his personal beliefs only when asked. But he did so with a candor and self-assurance that was unnerving to some, including Protestants, who were unfamiliar with the forthright traditions of Southern evangelicalism.

After losing the 1966 election for the governorship of Georgia, he reassessed his life and became a "born-again" Christian. "The presence of my belief in Christ is the most important thing in my life," says Carter. "I'm not ashamed of it." But he stresses that he feels no "special relationship" with God in politics: "I don't pray to God to let me win an election. I pray to ask God to let me do the right thing." There is no evidence that Carter has ever forced his religious views on anyone. In fact, he does not much care about the religious affiliations of the people closest to him.

In the celebrated Playboy interview, when he admitted that he had "lusted in my heart" after other women, Carter was explaining that he did not judge other people because he had felt sinful impulses himself. (Earlier he had said, "I have never been unfaithful to my wife.") By discussing such a touchy subject with Playboy, however, Carter was showing judgment that was at best naive.

HIS HEDGING ON ISSUES. When Carter proclaimed, "I'll never tell a lie," he was setting himself up to be measured by a stiffer standard than any other politician. In fact, he trimmed or fuzzed no more than other candidates—including Ford—but not much less either. He equivocated on which was the most important priority in dealing with the economy: first it was creating new jobs, then it was fighting inflation, then it was a kind of balance between the two. After meeting with a group of Catholic bishops, Carter hedged his outright opposition to any anti-abortion amendment, then quickly switched back again.

He often states positions in a manner intended to give the least possible offense to his audience. To a conservative audience: "We should not withdraw our troops from South Korea, except on a phased basis." He also has a way of seeming to agree with an argument—he smiles, he says, "I understand"—that leads people to think he is agreeing with them, thereby raising false expectations. One of the serious problems of Carter's presidency may be a tendency to raise expectations too high, to promise more than he can deliver.

HIS HYBRID POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Carter is a Democrat who often talks and thinks like a Republican. The former Navy officer and nuclear engineer is an efficiency expert who values long-range planning and prides himself on his managerial ability ("I like to run things"). He also considers himself to be a fiscal conservative, a businessman who has had to meet a payroll, and he pledges to produce a balanced budget by the end of his first term. (Carter plans to place his holdings in the family farm, warehousing and land business in a trust, though its nature has not yet been decided. In 1975 the firm grossed $2.5 million, and Carter said his net worth was $811,982.09.)

But if his mind is set on the conservative goals of efficiency and solvency, his heart belongs to the vibrant populism that he acquired—as naturally as his accent—while growing up on a south Georgia farm during the Depression. He stems from 240 years of Southern yeomanry whose natural enemies were bankers and big landlords. The President-elect recalls the day in the '30s when Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal brought electricity to his farmhouse outside Plains. Although the Carters were not poor, they saw the moment as a telling example of what the Federal Government can do for the needy.

After the nomination was won, Carter stood beaming in Madison Square Garden while the band blared out Happy Days Are Here Again, the same tune he used to hear in the '30s when Mr. Earl would hitch up a radio to the car battery and the family would huddle around to listen to F.D.R.'s triumphs. In his acceptance speech, Carter returned to the themes of populism, soothing liberals who had doubted him and jarring moderates who had started to support him. The key passage:

"Too many have had to suffer at the hands of a political and economic elite who have shaped decisions and never had to account for mistakes nor to suffer from injustice. When unemployment prevails, they never stand in line looking for a job. When deprivation results from a confused and bewildering welfare system, they never do without food or clothing or a place to sleep. When the public schools are inferior or torn by strife, their children go to exclusive private schools. And when the bureaucracy is bloated and confused, the powerful always manage to discover and occupy niches of special influence and privilege. An unfair tax structure serves their needs. And tight secrecy always seems to prevent reform."

That speech pushed Carter too far to the left, and he later tried to move back toward the middle. But his position in the political spectrum remained unclear, and he alienated many of the independents. On Nov. 2 Ford carried white America by a narrow margin. The Georgian was saved by the Americans who trusted him most: the blacks. They felt at ease with the white Southerner who had fought, though vainly, to integrate his hometown church, and who had put so many blacks into government at all levels in Georgia. Indeed, they had more faith in Carter than in white Northern liberals who had taken no risks on their behalf. Because 87% of the black voters backed him, Carter carried the election.

Five weeks later, caught up in the demanding swirl of the transition, he was asked if the job he was taking on occasionally seemed overwhelming. "Yes," answered the President- elect, "but not so much that I would want someone else to do it."

The economists and businessmen who have been summoned to brief him about the economy have been impressed by his cold concentration. Last month in Plains, he listened to 16 of them for five hours straight—with one five-minute bathroom break. Only water was served. "Before we won, we served Cokes," said Carter, the closest he came to humor. Reports one participant, Economist Arthur Okun: "He is totally able to banish anything, any mortal concerns, like a crick in the backside or thirst or hunger or anything else." Adds Economist Walter Heller: "We call him `Iron Pants.'"

Discoursing economists are resigned to seeing the eyes of politicians glaze over, but Carter stayed so alert that he caught the experts in a couple of minor mistakes and raised questions about them. In terms of intelligence, Heller estimates Carter would rank among the upper 5% or 10% of graduate students in top universities. Says Okun: "What struck me is you really see an engineer's mind at work, not a peanut farmer, not a Baptist preacher, not a standard politician, but the engineering and management-science approach."

As a sound manager, Carter plans to restore the powers of the Cabinet Secretaries, so badly eroded by Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. In addition to regular Cabinet meetings, Carter intends to have smaller groups of Secretaries confer on issues that cut across departmental lines, such as urban development. "I'll use the Cabinet very aggressively," he says. "I don't intend to run the departments from the White House. I'm going to have a relatively small staff, and I'll trust my Cabinet members to manage their own departments." Press Secretary Jody Powell, 33, explains that Carter's organization chart does not have the White House at the top and everything else below in descending tiers. "It looks more like a wheel," says Powell, "with Carter at the hub, the various departments as spokes and his personal staff around the rim, making contact with the entire circle and keeping people informed." How this will work, given Carter's intention to be a "strong, aggressive" President and his record of making decisions on his own, remains to be seen.

It seems more certain that Carter will make good on his promise of a more modest presidential style. He plans to wear a blue business suit to his Inaugural, instead of the customary morning clothes, and, when no formal guests are expected, to don jeans from time to time while working in the White House. He may also continue to stay overnight occasionally in private homes as he travels the U.S. He wants to minimize the use of Air Force One and to ride in an armored Ford LTD instead of the bigger and fancier Continental limousine most Presidents have used.

Whenever he can, Carter will return to Plains. The change that sweeps over him when he gets home is actually physical. As he strides the fields that he knew as a boy, his shoulders slump as though he were carrying buckets of water, and he walks with the weary, plodding stride of a plowman.

His first important act after the Inaugural will be to pardon all Viet Nam draft resisters. Then he will turn his attention to the major goals for his Administration, which he discusses in depth with TIME in an exclusive interview. An analysis of the nation's problems and Carter's policies:

THE ECONOMY. Though Carter has decided that the economy needs both a tax cut and more spending for job-creating programs, focused on areas of chronic unemployment, he has not yet determined the size of the package. But it will probably be about $20 billion, mostly in tax cuts for individuals. He also may invite corporate and labor leaders to the White House and urge voluntary restraint, without setting numerical guidelines, on wage and price increases.

With tax-cut and spending stimuli, the economy is expected to grow in 1977 at a moderate rate of just under 5%, moving up to a fairly brisk 6% or so in the latter part of the year. At that pace, unemployment would drop from the current 8.1% to just under 7% at year's end. That would still be far above Carter's ultimate goal—he hopes to cut unemployment to 6.5% in 1977 and to 4.5% by 1980. But the economy would certainly be moving fairly well and starting to generate the extra tax revenues that Carter says he will need to finance his package of social benefits.

GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION. While Carter can look ahead to fairly good times in the economy, he faces a tough time fulfilling his promise to reorganize the Government and reduce the bureaucracy. As a start, he plans to ask Congress for a somewhat stronger version of the power to make limited changes—subject to veto by the Hill—that was granted to every President from Truman to Nixon. Says Carter: "I don't desire to abolish or create entire departments or to eliminate any members of the Cabinet without going to Congress for permanent legislation. But I've got to have the authority to transfer programs back and forth and to consolidate the control of programs under one entity in the Government." He is already considering plans—which he can carry out without congressional approval—to reduce the size of the 485-person White House staff and to disband superfluous advisory commissions.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Detente remains the keystone policy, and Carter intends to try to drive a harder bargain than either Nixon or Ford. He does not want to continue to give the Russians the benefits of trade with the U.S. unless they give more on the political front to ease international tensions. The first test of the Soviets' intentions will be their performance when the SALT II talks are resumed (no date has been set up as yet). Carter hopes to conclude a 10% reduction in the current ceilings for strategic missiles and heavy bombers. Though the Soviets publicly insist that they will not make political concessions in order to increase trade, one Carter adviser says, "Every indication he's got so far—mostly indirectly—is that the Soviets are very interested in cooperating."

The President-elect vows to pay much attention to strengthening ties to traditional U.S. allies—Western Europe, Japan, Latin America. Europeans are worried by his on-again, off-again statements about pulling some U.S. troops out of the Continent. Not only must he assure a skeptical Europe that he is firmly committed to NATO, but he must also work to strengthen the alliance against the continuing and ominous buildup of Soviet bloc forces. Far more important, he has to face a Western Europe racked by economic problems and political unrest, with the left rising fast.

DEFENSE. Former Submariner Carter is pledged to reducing defense costs by $5 billion to $7 billion without specifying how or where, though he has often spoken of "tighter management and elimination of waste." He probably can safely pare some $5 billion from Ford's proposed defense budget for fiscal 1978, which is expected to be about $125 billion, v. the $108.8 billion appropriated by Congress for the current year. Half of that total is in personnel costs, and the President-elect most probably will trim away at them.

These savings are Pentagon nickels and dimes compared with the sums involved in one of the key decisions immediately facing Carter: whether or not to build the supersonic B-1 bomber, at a projected cost of $22.9 billion for a fleet of 244. Ford has ordered production to start on the first three, but Carter can scrap that plan any time in the first half of 1977. During the campaign he opposed production of the B-1 "at this time" but wanted R. and D. to continue while he rethought the future need for manned bombers. His decision will shape the U.S. deterrent mix—bombers, missiles, submarines—until close to the end of the century.

THE ENVIRONMENT. A dedicated conservationist, Carter advocates stricter controls on strip mining and nuclear power plants, as well as on air and water pollution. He has promised to speak out against new industrial developments if they significantly damage the environment. Sample: "If there is ever a conflict, I will go for beauty, clean air, water and landscape." Trouble is, Carter's fervor on these points will conflict in part with his goal of developing U.S. energy sources, and he will have to make some tough choices.

SOCIAL WELFARE. Carter insists that he will meet all of his campaign promises and initiate at least the beginnings of plans to reform the welfare system, stimulate housing and create a comprehensive national health insurance program. In addition, he talks confidently of getting Congress to pass a tax reform bill that would make the code, in his view, fairer and simpler.

He is not yet willing to spell out the details of his proposals, nor does he elaborate on how he will finance them without endangering his goal of working toward a balanced budget by 1980. Indeed, Carter gave congressional leaders the distinct impression last month that he would not be pushing for expensive new programs in his first year, a prospect that cheered the conservatives and dismayed the liberals. After the sessions, House Speaker Tip O'Neill, a liberal who has pledged Carter his support, was already sounding protective toward the new President. Said he: "We'll have to give him time."

Once again, Carter may have confused his listeners—or talked in such general terms that they heard what they wanted to hear.

To woo Congress, Carter is considering setting up an office in the Capitol and dropping by from time to time. And, very politely, he has threatened to go over their heads and put pressure on them back home if they do not cooperate with him. "I can get to your constituents quicker than you can by going on television," he said last month—with a smile, of course.

The split in Carter's basic creed—liberal or conservative?—is causing problems that were foreshadowed months ago. When he begins his presidency, Carter will have "the shortest honeymoon on record," in the view of Henry Graff, professor of American history at Columbia. Explains Graff: "He comes to the White House with more commitments publicly uttered than any recent President. He's going to be attacked for not doing the things he promised."

He has already disappointed many of the constituents to whom he owes the most: the blacks. In particular, they were upset by his appointment of Atlanta's Griffin Bell as Attorney General. While not as angry, some prominent white liberals were also worried. "I don't see any of the freshness he kept talking about during the campaign," says George Reedy, who was press secretary to L.B.J. "I get the feeling that we're going to get Government as usual." Another liberal critic, Yale Historian C. Vann Woodward, declares: "It is still too early for pessimism, but it is already too late for optimism."

On the other side, moderates and conservatives seemed reassured, pleased by the very acts that unsettled Ralph Nader and Gloria Steinem. Particularly on Wall Street, bankers and businessmen were heartened by Carter's selection of well-known Democratic moderates to the top economic jobs. Says Dallas Oilman Ray Hunt, son of the late archconservative H.L. Hunt: "If Carter is willing to take the flack, he can accomplish more than any Republican on business questions, just like Johnson, the Southerner, accomplished a lot on civil rights, and Nixon the conservative, accomplished a lot in dealing with the Communists."

The actions of the Democratic President-elect have not alarmed Ronald Reagan. "Sometimes," he concedes, "I've heard some familiar-sounding phrases." But, he adds, "I don't know what to think. I'm just waiting to see which Carter stands up." It is conceivable that Carter will be able to rise above the conventional left-right categories, somewhat like California's Governor Jerry Brown, and run a pragmatic Administration with a liberal-conservative mix. But the burden of proof is very much on him.

As he searched for Cabinet appointees, Carter seemed at times hesitant and frustrated—disconcertingly out of character. His lack of ties to Washington and the party establishment—qualities that helped raise him to the White House—carry potential dangers. He does not know the Federal Government or the pressures it creates. He does not really know the politicians whom he will need to help him run the country, and it is far from clear how his temper and his ego will stand up under probable battles with Congress, the clamorous interest groups and the press.

But Carter also begins with many factors in his favor, beyond his intelligence and tenacity. Reports TIME's Washington bureau chief, Hugh Sidey: "He does not come to power shaded by a folk hero, as John Kennedy did, and there is no immediate international or national crisis to make or break him in his first few months. He is not the result of back-room manipulation at the convention. He wanted to be President, and he won it with desperately hard work and excellent planning."

Washington is eagerly—and anxiously—waiting for the arrival of Jimmy Carter. "This is going to be the most interesting presidency I have ever witnessed," says Clark Clifford, 70, the Washington lawyer who has been a confidant of Presidents since Harry Truman's day. Clifford claims to see the definite possibility of greatness in Carter because he is unquestionably brainy, determined and dedicated. Another Washington figure professes he is not dismayed by the Georgian's uncertain transition. "I will give President Carter the benefit of every doubt until we see the performance," says President Gerald Ford.

After following Carter for 16 months, TIME Correspondent Cloud is still fascinated by his complexities: "My own view is that he will either be one of the greatest Presidents of the modern era, or that he will be a complete failure. I see no middle ground for him, no mediocrity. He often described his vision of America as a `beautiful mosaic' of almost infinite colors and facets. Presidents don't normally talk that way. They don't normally cry in front of reporters. They don't normally blast some political opponent one day and apologize publicly the next. Presidents don't normally do a lot of things Jimmy Carter does. Therein lies his mystery. Therein lies his potential for greatness—or the possibility of disaster."

In November the American people stilled the doubts that they had about Jimmy Carter and picked him over a decent and capable man because, essentially, he stood for change and a fresh beginning. "I'll try never to disappoint you," he used to say on the campaign trail, smiling confidently and looking ahead to the day he would be in the White House. That may be the hardest of all his promises to fulfill.

COVERS GALLERY: Click here to see the cover image from 1976

Previous	Next