On the Right

Gstaad, Mar. 10—Six weeks in Europe, where necessarily much of the talk is about the declining dollar, suggests the reputation of President Carter is declining pari passu. The dollar’s slippage has gone beyond those little lubricating adjustments envisioned by the free-floaters. This is not to say that the central banks should suddenly reverse their policy and attempt to peg the dollar. It is to say that something is very wrong. And that President Carter, as chief spokesman for the United States, can hardly be said to have diagnosed it.

What one hears about Mr. Carter from anonymous men of affairs, in business, in diplomacy, in letters, was said rather straightforwardly by no less than the Shah of Iran, himself a friend of Mr. Carter, although whether he is also an admirer is another question. The interview was with Jonathan Randal of the Washington Post, and the Shah was going on about submarines he had ordered from European countries, and frigates, and this and that, when apropos of a question about the U.S. policy toward the Horn of Africa, which policy was only describable by Art Buchwald or Rube Goldberg, the Shah made “a series of pessimistic remarks about the U.S. world role since what he called the ‘trauma of Vietnam and Watergate.’ ”

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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Gstaad, Mar. 10—Six weeks in Europe, where necessarily much of the talk is about the declining dollar, suggests the reputation of President Carter is declining pari passu. The dollar’s slippage has gone beyond those little lubricating adjustments envisioned by the free-floaters. This is not to say that the central banks should suddenly reverse their policy and attempt to peg the dollar. It is to say that something is very wrong. And that President Carter, as chief spokesman for the United States, can hardly be said to have diagnosed it.

What one hears about Mr. Carter from anonymous men of affairs, in business, in diplomacy, in letters, was said rather straightforwardly by no less than the Shah of Iran, himself a friend of Mr. Carter, although whether he is also an admirer is another question. The interview was with Jonathan Randal of the Washington Post, and the Shah was going on about submarines he had ordered from European countries, and frigates, and this and that, when apropos of a question about the U.S. policy toward the Horn of Africa, which policy was only describable by Art Buchwald or Rube Goldberg, the Shah made “a series of pessimistic remarks about the U.S. world role since what he called the ‘trauma of Vietnam and Watergate.’ ”