Haynes Johnson is a columnist for the Washington Post. This interview conducted by Scott A. Rosenberg. we've ever had, he may be pretty terrible, but he's trying hard. He's a good man, he's decent, and so forth. I think that's what's happening, I don't know. But it's eerie, it's extraordinary.

Crimson: What about Carter's opportunity when the hostages were first taken to rally the country around a solid energy conservation program?

Johnson: Yes, with all of those things happening it gave him this opportunity, and he didn't take it again.

Crimson: Carter had already presented "his" energy program the year before. Was that it?

Johnson: I asked him this question. It seemed to me he had an historic opportunity to take all of these things, go to the nation and really keep reaching them. I think that Carter came back with the answer, "Well, I've already laid it all out, I laid it all out--you remember--three years ago, and you made fun of me, calling it 'meow,' and it turns out I was right." This is where the self-righteousness, the belief in self, and a certain...edginess, a certain tension came over. Defensiveness. He somehow thinks that, if he lays it all out, they'll understand and they'll act--that that's the way a public leader leads. Well, that's not what the instinct of a public educator would say: you've got to keep trying to reach them.

That's what Carter has not done. And I think that's tragic. There was another absolutely magnificent opportunity at a time when we were united--and he became the personification of the country in a way he had not been. The Ayatollah made him. It wasn't just those fists being waved every night on television, it wasn't just the chants, and it wasn't just the American flag being burned--it was Jimmy Carter being burned in effigy, it was the face of Jimmy Carter being taunted and torched and hung, and the crowds were chanting "Death to Jimmy Carter" and "Death to America," and it was the Ayatollah who said, "Reject this--Carter is the great Satan," or whatever. So he became out of all of this the personification of the country in a time of trouble. He could have taken that moment and reached beyond the day-to-day political apparatus.

Crimson: You devote much of the beginning of your book to describing the sense of promise in the nation in 1976. Today, it seems to me, there's much more an atmosphere of fear. Do you think the fear of governmental collapse--I don't even mean through war, but just structurally--is well-grounded?

Johnson: I hope I haven't suggested that it's hopeless for us. I don't believe that. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and naive, but I do believe there's a mature side of our society that I think is very positive. There's structural reforms we can make--a six-year presidency, a regional primary system, more discussion, celebrating the public servants--there are a lot of things that are there to be done, and we aren't doing them. I think that's a way out. And the energy question; we can be more self-sufficient. Our life will be different--that doesn't mean it's going to be worse. That's the point. It's a tragedy that we are not getting a clear voice and picture and vision and discussion about these things