For the Record

■ How serious will the fall-out be from the disastrous rescue mission? So serious, says David Broder, the chief Washington Post political analyst, that he thinks Carter should pull out of the presidential race. “[Carter] may find that only by ending his status as a candidate can he gain the freedom of action and credibility of motive he needs to deal with the deepening crisis in Iran.” . . . The initial response of the man on the street was that we were right to undertake the rescue mission, and that the U.S. should try again (70 per cent), but 61 per cent faulted Carter’s own performance. . . . Abroad, the leader who has come out most forcefully in favor of the U.S. is French Socialist leader François Mitterrand: “A country has the right to try and rescue its citizens who are being held hostage. … I can’t criticize someone for wanting to save his brother.” . . . Rep. Les Aspin (D., Wis.), a longtime critic of U.S. defense spending, is mad: he’s introduced legislation to exact a $ 10-million-a-day fine on Iran (to be taken from blocked Iranian assets in the U.S.) for every day the hostages are held, starting ten days after the bill is enacted.

■ A couple of things about Muskie. In 1972, when Muskie campaigned for the Presidency, Cyrus Vance was his chief foreign policy advisor. Muskie at that time was liberal and dovish: for ending the Vietnam War, for boycotting South Africa, for cuts in defense spending. He has been a powerful supporter of detente and particularly of SALT II and, like Jimmy Carter, was stunned by Afghanistan. In a January Washington Post interview he said he had felt “betrayed,” “used,” by the Soviets. “We thought it [detente] was in this country’s best interests. She [the Soviet Union] ran out on us. . . .” Muskie sees his appointment as short-lived not more than eight months—as he told Brzezinski and several members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the day he was nominated to be Secretary of State—a statement at which, it is said, Jimmy Carter “blanched.”

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Presidential Election

■ How serious will the fall-out be from the disastrous rescue mission? So serious, says David Broder, the chief Washington Post political analyst, that he thinks Carter should pull out of the presidential race. “[Carter] may find that only by ending his status as a candidate can he gain the freedom of action and credibility of motive he needs to deal with the deepening crisis in Iran.” . . . The initial response of the man on the street was that we were right to undertake the rescue mission, and that the U.S. should try again (70 per cent), but 61 per cent faulted Carter’s own performance. . . . Abroad, the leader who has come out most forcefully in favor of the U.S. is French Socialist leader François Mitterrand: “A country has the right to try and rescue its citizens who are being held hostage. … I can’t criticize someone for wanting to save his brother.” . . . Rep. Les Aspin (D., Wis.), a longtime critic of U.S. defense spending, is mad: he’s introduced legislation to exact a $ 10-million-a-day fine on Iran (to be taken from blocked Iranian assets in the U.S.) for every day the hostages are held, starting ten days after the bill is enacted.

■ A couple of things about Muskie. In 1972, when Muskie campaigned for the Presidency, Cyrus Vance was his chief foreign policy advisor. Muskie at that time was liberal and dovish: for ending the Vietnam War, for boycotting South Africa, for cuts in defense spending. He has been a powerful supporter of detente and particularly of SALT II and, like Jimmy Carter, was stunned by Afghanistan. In a January Washington Post interview he said he had felt “betrayed,” “used,” by the Soviets. “We thought it [detente] was in this country’s best interests. She [the Soviet Union] ran out on us. . . .” Muskie sees his appointment as short-lived not more than eight months—as he told Brzezinski and several members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the day he was nominated to be Secretary of State—a statement at which, it is said, Jimmy Carter “blanched.”