The Bell Curve -- Joseph N. Bell

I’ve been following the adventures of former President Jimmy Carter in

Cuba with perhaps an extra edge of interest for two reasons in

particular.

First, because he has crossed my life in several small ways over the

years. And, second, because I think the public reactions to his visit

illustrate a problem that those of us who don’t form all of our opinions

from moral or political absolutes face in being heard these days.

That may seem odd in relation to Jimmy Carter who, on the surface, has

always seemed to wear his Baptist teachings in clear view. But there is

one absolutely fundamental difference -- and a great many smaller ones --

between his religious convictions and those of the Pat Robertson-Jerry

Falwell brand of Christians we hear from most loudly today.

Carter’s Christianity is inclusive, not exclusive. He doesn’t judge

his fellow men but rather opens his arms to them.

My principle evidence for that feeling is a Sunday morning in Plains,

Ga., that my wife, stepson and I spent in Carter’s Sunday school class

several years after his presidency. I don’t remember the subject of the

lesson that day, but it was delivered with warmth, historical and

intellectual shadings, and a completely open reception to challenges and

questions -- of which he got many.

The answers, always direct and to the point, were larded with examples

from his political life. He believed what he believed strongly, but he

just as strongly respected and considered the views of those with

different convictions.

Whether this can or did lead to a strong presidency can be debated.

What can’t be debated is the innate decency, humility and honesty Carter

brought to the office.

These qualities were underscored in the stories our friend, Joe

Pursch, has told us about his visits to the Carter White House. Dr.

Pursch -- an internationally acclaimed expert in substance abuse -- is

the psychiatrist who treated the president’s brother, Billy Carter, for

his alcoholism. Jimmy Carter’s appreciation for this help was boundless,

and Pursch was treated like family when he visited Carter at the White

House.

My third Carter connection was considerably more distant but critical

to Carter’s loss of the presidency to Ronald Reagan in 1980. A year

earlier, the shah of Iran had been overthrown in a domestic revolution,

and when he was admitted to the United States for medical care, a group

of angry Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held

hostage the 90 people inside.

Carter’s reaction had to be tempered with the need to save the lives

of the hostages. Economic and diplomatic pressure didn’t work, and when

an elaborate rescue mission had to be aborted, Carter was blamed for

doing too little too late, criticism that weighed heavily against him in

that year’s election.

Several months after the election, I interviewed the Air Force pilot

whose ascending helicopter in the Iranian desert slammed into the wing of

a transport jet on the ground. In the explosion and ball of fire that

followed, both the rescue attempt and Carter’s reelection went up in

flames. Although the details of the operation remained top secret, I

learned that the mission had been planned, volunteers selected and

training begun two weeks after the embassy had been taken, information

not made public during the campaign. Carter got the hostages back before

he left office -- but not before he lost the election.

All of these events came back to mind as I read about Carter’s recent

explorations in Cuba. What he accomplished there, the seeds he sowed for

change in a U.S. policy that was wrongheaded 20 years ago and has now

become absurd, has been pretty much negated by the hard-line rhetoric of

President Bush before an anti-Castro audience in Florida. Had the

conditions Bush laid on Cuba been required of China or Russia or a

half-dozen right-wing dictatorships in South and Central America, neither

the trade nor political reform that followed would have taken place.

So Jimmy Carter is taking heat from the Cuban government in countering

the case he made for increased democracy in a TV address to the Cuban

people, from his own government for raising doubts about U.S. claims that

Cuba was exporting biological weapons, and even from a growing group of

Cuban dissidents who told him that U.S. support would only undermine

their cause.

Carter makes his way calmly through this thicket, saying what he

believes without rancor. He makes no dramatic predictions about a list of

recommendations he has forwarded to President Bush, but he has clearly

opened up communications where there were almost none before.

This is vintage Carter, the same Carter I heard in a Sunday school

class and who Joe Pursch visited in the White House. The same Carter who

doesn’t hammer nails in Habitat for Humanity projects as a photo-op but

because he strongly believes it is a tangible way to help people who need

help.

Carter doesn’t win them all, but the personal qualities he brings to

building communication bridges all over the world -- and brought to

Washington -- may make him the most underappreciated president in our

history. Much of the reaction to his trip to Cuba unhappily followed that

same pattern.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.