I came to Washington to work in the Carter administration

Celebrating a decent and honorable president

I had the honor of working in the Carter administration. It was not something I even thought about when he won the presidency in 1976.

Sen. Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson (D-Wash.) won the New York Democratic primary, but his campaign was faltering. Then-Mayor Abe Beame endorsed Jimmy Carter. Beame was the fourth big city mayor to do so, but his being Jewish made his endorsement all the more important. The year 1976 was also when Rep. Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.) was running in a Senate primary and I volunteered in her campaign. At the time, I was Citywide Coordinator Local Government in the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services. It was an interesting time. I attended the Democratic National Convention, held in New York, and saw Carter nominated. Abzug then lost her primary, in a close race, to Patrick Moynihan.

As the general election began, I was asked to be one of the liaisons to the Carter campaign from the mayor’s office. I spent many evenings, on my own time, in Carter’s New York campaign office. Even after he won, I never thought about serving in his administration and was very happy working in New York. But as anyone in politics can tell you, things often change quickly.

In 1977, Abzug decided to run for mayor. I ended up leaving the Beame administration to become her deputy campaign manager. It was the title she offered me to leave Beame, who was running for re-election. Bella and Beame both lost in the first round of the primary. The run-off was between Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch. My first and only mention on the front page of the New York Times, above the fold left hand column, was when I went to work as field director for Cuomo. When Koch won, he let me know through an intermediary I was persona non grata in city government as long as he was mayor.

Abzug invited me to go with her to the White House when she presented the final report from the Houston Women’s Conference to the president. Being unemployed, I walked around the White House handing out my resume; we still used paper in those days. Abzug kept whispering in my ear, “don’t you dare give it to the president.” Well not the president, but one of the people I gave it to, did respond. Six weeks later I was hired to be executive direc- tor of the White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals Implementation Unit. So I moved to Washington to begin an exciting two years. Turned out it was the beginning of a whole new life for me, including coming out. I never looked back.

During his campaign, Carter had promised to implement the recommendations of the White House Conference on the Handicapped held during the Ford administration. Carter, above all else, was a decent man. In so many ways his presidency is underrated and he doesn’t get the credit he should.

Kai Bird wrote in the New York Times about a host of Carter’s successes. “He delivered the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, the SALT II arms control agreement, normalization of diplomatic and trade relations with China and immigration reform. He made the principle of human rights a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, planting the seeds for the unraveling of the Cold War in Eastern Europe and Russia.” In addition, “He deregulated the airline industry, paving the way for middle-class Americans to fly for the first time in large numbers, and he deregulated natural gas, laying the groundwork for our current energy independence. He worked to require seatbelts or airbags, which would go on to save 9,000 American lives each year. He inaugurated the nation’s investment in research on solar energy and was one of the first presidents to warn us about the dangers of climate change. He rammed through the Alaska Land Act, tripling the size of the nation’s protected wilderness areas. He appointed more African Americans, Hispanics and women to the federal bench, substantially increasing their numbers.”

Jimmy Carter was only a one-term president. Today, he is known for having the most relevant post-presidency. He lost his reelection campaign for many reasons. One, Ted Kennedy ran against him in a primary and though losing, hurt Carter’s chances for reelection. Then the Iranian hostage crisis, which lasted for 444 days and Carter’s Rose Garden strategy, not going out and campaigning until the hostages were released. The Iranians didn’t release them until 12:01 on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Again, above all, Jimmy Carter will be remembered as a decent and honorable man.

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