As Jimmy Carter labored over his Cabinet choices, TIME National Political Correspondent Robert Ajemian followed the selection process by watching Carter's two top transition aides, Vice President-elect Walter Mondale and Hamilton Jordan, at work. Ajemian's report:
Jimmy Carter was in a talking mood. Sitting in the wood-paneled den of his house in Plains, wearing a long, yellow, velour sweater and white sneakers, Carter had his feet crossed on top of his desk. Beside him, balancing thick black notebooks full of Cabinet profiles on his lap, was his young aide, Hamilton Jordan, in a sports shirt and safari jacket, looking just as casual as his boss. Jordan slid his red canvas chair next to Carter and handed over one of the books, reading along with him so closely that his head was almost touching Carter's shoulder. For two hours, looking a little like a father and son discussing homework problems, the two of them ran through the list of candidates for every top Cabinet job in the Government. From time to time Carter raised some worries: they still had too few top women, too few good names on the Treasury list. Carter pulled out his own log, a red notebook in which he had recorded all his telephone calls and interview notes. He read some of them aloud to Jordan.
Outside, darkness had fallen fast. Rosalynn Carter, in slacks and a white ribbed sweater, stood over the sink in the nearby kitchen, peeling some squash for dinner. Several times she stepped back inside the den just to hear the names. Amy Carter burst into her father's study at one point, and Carter, with great delight, showed her his new white speaker telephone that plugged directly into the White House switchboard. She immediately called a neighborhood friend on the phone, and Carter and Jordan watched with amusement as she pretended she needed a school assignment.
Rosalynn brought in some tea, and as Carter began chewing on the lemon at the bottom of his mug, he told Jordan that after all these months he still didn't really have any idea whether Congressman Andy Young wanted a Cabinet job.
Did Jordan know? No, Jordan didn't either. Carter talked about Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. On the symbolic level she was an outstanding choice, but was she a good manager? He agreed with the suggestion that a select dozen prospects, most of them candidates for Defense and Treasury, come to Atlanta that Tuesday for personal interviews. As Jordan finally prepared to leave, Carter called to him, "I'll phone Fritz tonight and see if he agrees with our list."
Though Carter was calling all the shots himself, he was keeping Fritz Mondale and Jordan with him at the center of the selection process. The three men had started their work just before Thanksgiving, when they sat alone for three hours in one of the huge formal living rooms of Blair House. Each man ticked off names for various departments. When Jordan declared at one point that a certain businessman would make a good No. 2 man in a big department, Carter broke in: "No, let me decide that." He would obviously keep tight control.