First Ladies (57 page)

Although the act did not provide for a national health insurance program, it did outline three goals: to help move mental health patients with chronic problems to smaller community facilities, to incorporate mental health care into the nation's health care system, and to increase services to the poor. The Act finally passed in September 1980, but the Carter celebration was brief because within weeks Ronald Reagan had won election. “The funding for our legislation was killed,” Rosalynn wrote, “by the philosophy of a new President. It was a bitter loss.”
⁶⁴

Not all Rosalynn's White House time went to revising the mental health program. In addition to the average of two meetings per month that she attended on that subject, she also met with groups concerned about women's issues and with people working on problems of the elderly.
⁶⁵
In November 1979, she journeyed to Thailand to inspect refugee camps, and on her return to Washington, she added another cause to her agenda.

Comparisons of Rosalynn Carter and Eleanor Roosevelt arose inevitably. Jimmy occasionally pointed out that Rosalynn's long-forgotten first name was Eleanor and that he liked to call her his Eleanor.
⁶⁶
William Shannon, writing in the
New York Times,
judged her the “most influential First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt,”
⁶⁷
and Jimmy underlined this perception of Rosalynn's importance by pronouncing her a “political partner” with whom he discussed domestic and foreign policy issues.
⁶⁸

When President Carter invited Middle Eastern leaders to a meeting at Camp David in September 1978, he involved Rosalynn in a special way, thus demonstrating once more how the elasticity in the American presidency opens the way for including spouses in substantive decisions. Not since Theodore Roosevelt mediated between two foreign powers to end the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 had an American chief executive attempted quite what Jimmy Carter did. Theodore had absented himself, however, from much of the discussion while Jimmy insisted on participating in each segment of the bargaining process.
⁶⁹
His aim was not to settle all the disputes in the Middle East but to bring the two principal leaders of the opposing sides—Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat—to an agreement that could then be recommended to all parties in the conflict. It was a risky venture, not only for the American president, who stood to lose face if he failed, but also for Begin and Sadat who invited, by their participation, charges from home that they
had given up too much. Terrorist attacks threatened to undermine the talks and
Pravda
denounced the meeting.

In his invitations to both Middle Eastern leaders, Jimmy Carter had pointedly included their wives, telling Rosalynn: “There are going to be a lot of hard feelings and tough fights [and] the atmosphere will be more congenial if all of you are there.”
⁷⁰

Rosalynn's role at the Camp David summit extended, however, beyond providing a hospitable setting for the talks and companionship for the wives. Jimmy briefed Rosalynn, she later wrote, “[because] he wanted me to understand the issues as well as the nuances of certain words and phrases. What we called the West Bank, for example, was Judea and Samaria to Begin….”
⁷¹
Although she lost her chance to sit in on the first meeting of the three leaders because the other two wives were delayed in arriving, she began immediately to keep a record of what she observed and what her husband told her. By the end of the twelve-day meeting, she had “almost 200 pages of typed notes” which eventually became the basis for one chapter in her autobiography.
⁷²

Previous presidential wives had played down their influence—Helen Taft insisted her advice stopped when her husband became president; Edith Wilson maintained that she never made any decision; Eleanor Roosevelt patiently reiterated to dubious listeners that she never tried to steer Franklin to any particular course of action. Rosalynn Carter took no credit, of course, for conducting the Camp David talks but she did not minimize her role. It had been her enthusiastic support for the idea that had convinced Jimmy to try for the peace agreement, she wrote, and she went with him through a “seesaw” of emotions during the long negotiations.

Rosalynn played more than one role at the Camp David talks. Partly, she served as the president's cover, returning to the White House to substitute for him at events that had been previously scheduled. Nobody had expected the summit to continue so long, and the president had agreed to meet with leaders of the Italian-American and Hispanic communities and to host a concert for the world-famous cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich. “One of us had to be there,” Rosalynn explained, “and it was obviously going to be me,”
⁷³
so she helicoptered back to the White House, making every effort to give no premature indications of how the talks were going. Her subsequent description of the summit earned her high marks, and one reviewer wrote that Rosalynn was a better and franker writer “hands down” than her husband, and that in describing the Camp David summit and other events of the Carter administration, she had written “what may turn out to be the best human account … that we are likely to get.”
⁷⁴

Such a prominent First Lady exposed herself to many judgments. Some critics declared her too programmed and disciplined, while others noted that she lacked the eloquence of Lady Bird Johnson and the zaniness and candor of Betty Ford. Jimmy's aides frequently commented that her ambition exceeded his, but perhaps they would have found any evident ambition excessive in a woman. The
New York Times
reporter Judy Klemesrud had dubbed her a “steel magnolia blossom” early in the campaign and the term had stuck, rather to Rosalynn's chagrin.
⁷⁵
She gamely pointed out that she did not mind being thought strong because she admired strength but she objected to the calculating connotation in the characterization because it obscured her compassion and caring.

Although Rosalynn Carter has described as “considerable” the time she spent on ceremonial appearances,
⁷⁶
she gave the impression of being much more involved in the substantive aspects of her husband's administration than in the hostess part. She never selected a china pattern for the White House collection and did not even spend the full amount of money allotted for refurbishing the family's quarters in the mansion. The chapter in her autobiography entitled “People, Parties and Protocol” is one of the shortest in the book (twenty pages), and researchers who hope to find there descriptions of her clothing, menus, and flower arrangements will be disappointed. Julia Grant's
Memoirs,
which were written (but not published) almost exactly one century before Rosalynn's, contained little but social details on the White House years, but Rosalynn correctly realized that expectations for First Ladies had changed. “Cave dwellers” still influenced Washington's social life, but they held little sway in the Carter White House.

The preceding century had altered (among other things) women's chances for education, employment, and political participation, and Rosalynn Carter followed Betty Ford's example of using her influence to make further changes. She lobbied state legislators to vote for the Equal Rights Amendment and she attended the International Woman's Year meeting in Houston in November 1977. But while Betty spoke of the need for women to “feel liberated whatever their jobs or family situation,” Rosalynn emphasized the justice of equal pay for equal work. That kind of feminism showed a “working class bias,” one writer pointed out,
⁷⁷
but it was a bias that many Americans shared. Rosalynn proudly listed her husband's appointments of women to important positions: three cabinet secretaries (out of a total of six in history) and forty-one federal judges. “It was always understood between us,” she wrote, “that a woman would be appointed if a vacancy occurred [on the Supreme Court.]”
⁷⁸

Jimmy Carter's record with feminists was hardly duplicated in other areas, and he had to defend that record in the 1980 election. This time the Carters could not present themselves as Washington outsiders ready to do battle for efficiency and integrity—they had to account for what they had done. Double-digit inflation, an oil crisis, and the holding of American hostages in Iran contributed to feelings of national helplessness and to a demand for change. When Republican Ronald Reagan talked in soothing tones about tax cuts and strong defense, he had a winning combination. Rosalynn Carter returned to Plains just a few hours before the voting began, but she already knew that the election was lost.
⁷⁹

Rosalynn's partnership with her husband combined competence with unquestioned loyalty, but it never won her the popularity enjoyed by several of her less risk-taking predecessors. She failed to dominate the lists of “most admired women” (as had Mamie Eisenhower and Pat Nixon) or to inspire a following equal to that of the glamorous Jackie Kennedy. A natural reticence restrained her from engaging in the kind of candid interchange that had endeared Betty Ford to reporters, and because she had never developed many friendships with other powerful women, as had Eleanor Roosevelt, she lacked a supportive network outside her family to advise and promote her. The First Lady's staff, although large and competent, did not compensate for the lack of friendships with powerful women.

Yet her four years in the White House helped extend the job of president's wife beyond what it had ever been. Her husband was not physically disabled, as Eleanor Roosevelt's had been, and she did not have three terms in the White House or the double calamity of a great depression and a major war to push her into prominence. On her own, and with her husband's concurrence, she took a portion of his quest for her own—campaigning full-time and putting her best efforts into making the administration a success.

In the process, Rosalynn Carter joined that list or remarkable women generally judged more successful than their husbands in the White House. The same historians who ranked Jimmy Carter next to last among all twentieth-century presidents put Rosalynn in third place, behind Eleanor Roosevelt and Lady Bird Johnson.
⁸⁰
The disparity raises questions about how much a First Lady depends on her husband's success for her own place in history. Could Eleanor Roosevelt have fared so well had she been the spouse of Herbert Hoover? What if the highly ranked Lady Bird, Rosalynn, and Betty had been wives of more successful presidents? What kind of public careers might the women have compiled on their own, had they not
married at all? What differences in opportunities and expectations resulted in such different records within one presidential family?

For her part, Rosalynn was pleased with her demanding role. Once presidents' wives had been confined to “official hostess” and “private helpmeet,” she wrote, [but] “Nowadays, the public expectation is just the opposite, and there is a general presumption that the projects of a First Lady will be substantive, highly publicized, and closely scrutinized. I am thankful for the change.”
⁸¹

The success of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, emphasizing traditional values and smaller government, might have encouraged his wife to view the example of her outspokenly feminist predecessors as outdated models. Nancy Davis Reagan was old enough to remember the popularity of Mamie Eisenhower who had stuck with the “home-maker” image. Perhaps more to the point, Jackie Kennedy's emphasis on elegance and style, which had gained her so many permanent admirers, coincided with Nancy's own inclinations. She saw nothing wrong with putting “the best of everything” in the White House, and she underscored her point by inviting Letitia Baldrige, social secretary in the Kennedy years, to return to Washington to make sure things were done correctly.

This elitist approach to living in the executive mansion was not unique to the 1980s, but it contrasted markedly with the Carters' reputation for carrying their own luggage and entertaining informally. Although it would be difficult to calculate the amount of time each First Lady devoted to her own wardrobe and guests, Nancy Reagan gave every indication that she meant to develop a public image very different from that of Rosalynn Carter. While the First Lady from Georgia had projected herself as a full-time serious worker who chaired conferences on mental health and testified in front of Senate committees, Nancy Reagan appeared to concentrate her time on china patterns and luncheons for her glamorous friends. Both Rosalynn and Betty Ford had used their prominence to help solve important problems and improve the status of women, but a
Washington Monthly
reporter declared that the coterie surrounding Nancy Reagen considered it a “divine mission” to make such serious women “look tacky.”
⁸²

Old discussions about the proper role of a First Lady were revived. Traditionalists, who preferred the helpmate, voted solidly for Nancy Reagan. Washington caterers, whose business in caviar and other imported delicacies increased overnight, and dress designers, whose creations in the four-figure range became
de rigueur
at White House parties, applauded the change. But there were dissenters. Washington
reporters who had cooperated in making a heroine of Jackie Kennedy treated Nancy Reagan as though she bought her wardrobe out of public funds. Feminists and other women, who refused that label but shared the goals, entered that very old debate about what kind of model the country needed “at the head of female society.”

The alternatives had shifted considerably but were as hotly discussed as during the days of Rachel Jackson, and it was a contemporary of Nancy Reagan's at Smith College who received most credit for outlining the current situation. In 1963, Betty Friedan (who graduated from Smith College one year ahead of Nancy), had published
The Feminine Mystique
, which indicted wives who defined themselves entirely in terms of husbands and children.
⁸³
Friedan had set out to write about her Smith classmates and what had happened to them in the fifteen years following graduation so she may well have had women like Nancy Reagan in mind. When Friedan found many unhappy women, some so dissatisfied with their lives that they were seeking help in therapy or turning to alcohol and drugs, she enlarged her focus to include all American women. For Friedan, the problem was an outmoded model of femininity, one that severely limited women's options, and she termed this “feminine mystique” that kept women from developing as much as they might have, the “problem that has no name.”