Fallows did not jump at the chance to work for Carter, mulling over the late June offer for five or six days. He had to drop his writing projects--a piece for The New Yorker about the military and a book for Random House about class divisions in the United States--and survey friends to see whether he would have difficulty crossing back into journalism afterwards. And he studied the charges of Robert Shrum, an ex-McGovern speechwriter who left his position with Carter with a blast about the Georgian's alleged two-facedness. After three months working for Carter, Fallows has concluded that Shrum's reaction was understandable but wrong. "Carter can be a curt, cold man," Fallows says. "But if you accept this character trait and balance off the times the candidate has not said certain things to certain audiences with "the times he does say things to audiences which are not politic," then you don't emerge with the image of a Nixonesque, calculating Carter that Shrum offered.

So since the Democratic convention in mid-July Fallows has served under chief speechwriter and novelist Patrick Anderson, who says he cannot think of anyone who has joined the staff since the New York nomination "who has gotten to have more access to the governor than Jim has." Fallows and Anderson travel with Carter in his plane, Peanut One. They work on speeches in their shared hotel room and on the typewriters at the back of the plane during flights and campaign stops. Fallows also attends Carter's major issues speeches and appearances at rallies. At these "Roman gladiator type events," as Fallows calls them, Carter delivers his well-wornstump speech with some additional material Fallows or Anderson has developed. Fallows tags along for these in case Carter says something new that might "get us in trouble," to get inspiration for new speech material and to tune up Carter's talk and delivery in case it lags, Fallows says.

Fallows hardly speaks of speechwriting with great enthusiasm. "If you've written speeches," he says, "then you understand both what a different form they are from real writing and how you get used to venting all your own prejudices under your name. It feels a little frustrating to tone them down." Along with this suppression of "the luxury of being able to deliver your own opinions," the speechwriter can't devote any space to evidence or explanations, Fallows says. "You have to string together conclusions and assertions one after another and try to make little rhetorical patterns with them."

While he longs for journalistic freedom, Anderson has encouraged him to leave his options open. "It might be that a year or two there (in the White House) would help his writing rather than hurt it," Anderson said last week Anderson believes that Fallows has the proper mixture of abilities to serve as a speechwriter--a mixture that has steadily increased Carter's trust in the Harvard graduate. "We need people," Anderson says, "with talent, people who can stand the physical game and basic insanity of campaigning, and who can deal with the candidate." Fallows, he adds, can do all this.

Fallows also senses that he has broken down some of Carter's reserve. "He's very slow to extend trust, and I feel he's extended some tentacles of it towards me. As far as an inner circle would imply somebody who is called in and asked 'Well, Jim, what do you think about the way the campaign's going,' that's not the case at all."

But Fallows quickly adds that while he does not have the entree of Carter faithful like Jody Powell, the candidate's press secretary and arguably his closest aide, he does have written access to Carter. "I've sent him some things giving churlish advice...write it out, he'll read it and respond one way or the other. There's not a bar to ideas as ideas."

Along with the frustration of adjusting to a new form Fallows has faced the frustration of overcoming what he sees as the issue-less campaign bias of the press. "You hear complaints about an issue-less campaign, and then you try to get an issue past these reporters. It's like driving through the Notre Dame front line. You just can't do it." Fallows recalls the press reception of a speech Anderson wrote a few months earlier, "the most reasoned and eloquent discourse you'd want to find" about how liberalism and conservatism have changed in recent years. "The reporters were bored to tears by it. The only thing they were interested in was the attack on President Ford's vetoes. It's the same with every speech. They rush through to find a paragraph about Ford. It's as if they're sports reporters."

*****

Fallows is coasting through the final days of the campaign now. Only a couple of major issues speeches remain, and the speechwriter is only a shadowy presence on the road, more quiet and less stern than most of the Carter staffers. His calm demeanor is a striking contrast to his unsettling memories of the past, of a turbulent war against a war that so forcefully shaped his world outlook. And his politics have mellowed similarly. He has shelved an impressive career in journalism to labor for a candidate whose prospective administration is--like any challenger's--full of question marks and hypotheticals. He may be a candidate who might, like John F. Kennedy '40, "sounds like he is doing a lot more than he is"; a candidate who might not be able to move his reform legislation through a suspicious Congress. But he also may be a candidate who, Fallows says, "has a potential of being a president that has an impact similar to FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt)'s, in making a momentous difference in the way government is run."