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Everywhere, loyalty had be come the watchword. A President who had entered office promising that associates could speak their minds freely, both in the privacy of the White House and in public forums, had clearly heard enough. With the exception of Bell, Carter removed non-Georgian dissenters and replaced them with men who had already demonstrated their loyalty to the Carter team. In any other terms, Carter's purge accomplished remarkably little. It brought no new faces of distinction into the Administration. In effect, the President and his men had done little more than try to shift blame for their troubles to the Cabinet and draw up the wagons in a circle for the 16-month political siege that will end with the 1980 election. According to Califano, Carter specifically said that he "had to get the Cabinet and the Administration ready for the 1980 election." The White House denied it, but Califano stuck to his account.
Perhaps the most unfortunate element of the housecleaning was that it provoked new doubts about Carter's understanding of the Federal Government and about his own leadership ability. He apparently intended the mass resignations as a dramatic symbol of a fresh start, as Nixon had done at the beginning of his second term. But Carter's coup de theatre looked more like amateur melodrama. He could have fired the subordinates who displeased him with less trauma and far better effect on his image as an executive. But he nonetheless sought everyone's resignation, apparently not anticipating how the act would be perceived at home and abroad.
The international financial markets responded as they usually do to uncertainty: the price of gold went up, passing $300 an ounce for the first time in history. Among many political experts and professional politicians, including those of his own party, there was a sense that instead of setting the Government on his promised "new course," Carter had blundered into a new crisis. Said Tim Hagen, the Cleveland area Democratic Party chairman: "In baseball, you fire the manager. Here they are asking the players to quit." Sniped the Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman, Chester Atkins: "The mouse that roared is still a rodent."
Congressmen and Senators of both parties were upset. Said a Democratic congressional leader: "The wholesale resignations smack of p.r. gimmickry, misplaced machismo. I thought that he had his ship pointed in the right direction, but..." Said House Republican Leader John Rhodes: "It's crazy. It's just like what Richard Nixon did in "72." Others were upset about the targets of Carter's purge. Said Democratic Congressman Charles Wilson of Texas: "Good grief! They're cutting down the biggest trees and keeping the monkeys."
In bitter jest, Richard Conlon, staff director of the moderate-liberal House Democratic Study Group, sent out forms asking for an evaluation of the President's staff. Sample questions: How confident are you of the White House staffs judgment? How mature is the White House staff? Within a day, 160 forms were returned, filled out by House members and aides. According to Conlon, more than two-thirds of the returns listed Jordan as the least effective of Carter's aides. Said Conlon: "We did it as a spoof. The idea of a questionnaire is sophomoric."