Sadat, television hero
Nicholas von Hoffman
Washington Official Washington did not like it when it really got through that Anwar Sadat was using CBS's Walter Cronkite to talk to Menachem Begin. As America has become an imperial power, the friendly informality associated with it has vanished from its ruling circles. Back in Kokomo, Indiana, we'll still.sling our arm around you and call you Joe, but at the top of the pyramid, they hold that one of the prerogatives of power is a differential protocol that requires Sadat to do his talking through the auspices of the American State Department.
As seems to be the case at least half the time, the CIA again hadn't caught on that Sadat and Begin had apparently been doing hand signals and knees-under-the-table with each other through the Romanians and Iranians. Washington found out about the famous meeting by turning on its colour televisions. Foggy Bottom noses suffered further dislocations by needling, on-camera questions asking how it feels to be left out in the cold. Since our 'crisis managers,' as they've been known to call themselves, can't believe anyone else in the world can do anything without an official American directive, there has been much notfor-attribution worry here that Sadat may have gone too far. But it sounded more patronising than concerned.
One of the American television people asked Sad at if he worried about getting shot as a result of this trip. Anwar answered that, when he took over the job from Nasser seven years ago, most people didn't give him more than a few weeks. Win or lose, he is certainly as tough as he implies he is and very smart. He pulled an electronic coup d'etat and took over American television for two and a half days. The President said he was watching, and so were millions of others as all three networks went ape on the story, covering it live from Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and back to Cairo again.
The coverage wasn't like the newsreels of prime ministers in plug hats walking into the Palace to sign the Treaty of Versailles. No, we were getting intimate little talks with Sadat every mile of the way. How do you feel now, Mr President. Are you nervous? Is this your first trip to Jerusalem? How do you think your act is going over? On top of that, Anwar and Menachem did at least five joint television interviews. The United States has been talking about open diplomacy since Woodrow Wilson, but it took an Israeli Jew and an Egyptian to show them how to do it. At one point in the Anwar-Menachem vaudeville routine, the two of them began to haggle over a settlement of the Jerusalem question, when Anwar recalled they were both on live, via satellite to Seattle, Washington, and San Antonio, Texas. No wonder the reporters holding out microphones and commentating, as we now are calling it, spent most of the weekend exclaiming, 'This is incredible,' This is unbelievable.' Back at the White House, all you could get out of them was, 'We're watching too.'
The Egyptian President whom Carter saw walking down red carpets may be an inevitable development, an Arab leader who understands that all Middle East politicians have two publics, their own native one and us over here. Sadat has accepted that and learned how to manipulate our mass media with a skill approaching that of Golda Meir. Golda's so good at it that she has a play on Broadway called, of course, Golda. No other foreign leader has had the touch or the technique. Indeed, Sadat's technique is so good it would be interesting to know if he's getting help from an American public relations firm, or how it was he learned the idioms of the media.
Sadat's visit was the kind of dramatic surprise that can capture near-total television attention, but Sadat himself on American television is nothing new. He has been 'available' for several years now. Any of the big television shows have been able to call him up for a nice little exclusive on dull news days, so that you could say he's been practising in front of our very eyes. He is at ease calling Barbara Walters and the others by their first names. Whether or not his PR consultants put the pipe in his hands, he has demolished the stereotype of the hook-nosed greedy Arab. Instead we see the model television statesman, puffing on his briar, being charming, deeply softspoken, approachable but not obnoxiously humble. He did everything but take the family dog on his trip. Instead of an oil cartelist on a camel, the screens have shown a wise, restrained and thoughtfully responsible world leader — the seeker after peace, odds-on favorite for next year's Nobel.
How much of a new game he has made, no one knows. Perhaps that is why the big pro-Israeli Jewish groups aren't saying much. The likelihood is that Sadat will lose some of the sympathy he has at the moment. These things fade, especially in a society so dominated by television. But as long as Sadat lives, the Arabs have a spokesman of power and credibility such as they never had before. If the man is assassinated, however, then opinion here is likely to swing quite far the other way: then you will hear people say, 'See, they killed the only good guy they ever had.'
Our own good guy has been getting into difficulties recently. If President Carter has looked behind him recently and not seen anyone following, it's because it is hard to divine in what direction he's travelling. For weeks he and his advisers have been critical of Arthur Burns, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, that implausible institution we have instead of a normal central bank. Dr Burns, an old Nixon appointee, had been criticised for allegedly following an excessively anti-stimulative poiicy. Especially with interest rates. At a press conference a few weeks ago, Carter confirmed the rumours of disagreement and then volunteered that in private, the differences between him and the chairman are even greater than the known public ones. So far, so bad. The stock market, which swoons quicker than a Victorian lady in an overly-tight corset, went flat again. The talk everywhere was that Burns, whose term as chairman ends this year, would not be reappointed. From all sides one could hear the moans and trembles of businessmen, who are still transfixed with the idea they lost their last Washington friend when Bert Lance left town. But then at his next press conference, the world's best known peanut farmer told an astonished audience of reporters that he thought Dr Burns was a peachy fellow with whom he agrees practically all the time. The next day the Secretary of the Treasury told a Congressional committee the same thing. The stock market went bounding up and the press got busy either trying to reconcile the contradiction or to forget it.
The Burns case, no matter how it may end, can serve as lasting proof that symbol will always prevail over fact, Federal Reserve Board data shows that Burns has been executing exactly the expansionist poiicy Carter and his advisers are demanding. Interest rates haven't dropped as the administration wishes, but setting interest rates at politically pleasing levels is more difficult than it was once thought to be. Burns has tried, however, and perhaps the reason for Carter's switch is that somebodY explained that you are not to take the 0Id Doctor's conservative reputation seriouslY. Focus on what he's done. It's an impressive record for it not only includes recent moneY growth rates that some people think are ruinous, but also two disastrous inflationary surges under Nixon. To call Burns in the least bit restrictive is to calumniate him. Having dallied with the press, Carter went on to inflict himself on all the people. He usurped 'prime-time television t° whip everyone into a letter-writing froth to be directed toward making Congress pass the confounded energy legislation. The people refused to effervesce, perhaps because they had not heard a President speak so poorly since Calvin Coolidge set back the cause of euthanasia by anneanc" ing he would not seek a second term. They are beginning to say Carter will also be a one-term President. The more immediate question is, when is he going to start serving it?
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