(2 of 2)
Loan Problem? If, as expected, Carter does choose Lance to run the OMB or fill a Cabinet post such as Treasury or Transportation, the appointment will have to be confirmed by the Senate. Hoping to head off trouble on the Hill, Carter let it be known last week that his family peanut business owed $4.5 million to Lance's bank. Carter and his advisers do not feel that the loans pose any conflict-of-interest problems, arguing that such transactions are perfectly routine. The President-elect has already promised that on taking office he will give up any interest in the family business, and this week he plans to decide the kind of divestiture requirements he will impose on the people he chooses to run his Administration.
Lance is a workaholic with his own down-to-earth view of human nature. One favorite saying: "Folks are serious about three things—their religion, their family and, most of all, their money." The father of four sons, Lance lives with his family in a Gatsby-like mansion in Atlanta that was once on the market for $700,000. He got it for less than half that sum. If he can manage OMB or a federal department with similar shrewdness. Jimmy Carter's country banker should do very well indeed in Washington.