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Whether Brzezinski, too, would be around that long is an underlying issue in the current controversy about him. Says Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington, a former colleague at the White House, and one of his few public defenders: "A lot of this criticism has erupted now because people who disagree with his views are trying to keep him out of a second Carter Administration." Certainly there are many people at the State Department who hope Brzezinski will go even if Carter stays. But there is a good chance that if Carter is reelected, Brzezinski will prevail over Edmund Muskie's State Department as decisively—and sometimes brutally—as he did over Cyrus Vance's.
For one thing, Muskie has been something of a disappointment to his own troops. He has the ego and the stature to compete with Brzezinski, but so far he has not shown the energy. He has complained about the amount of paperwork and the complexity of the problems, and he has tended to take off for long weekends at his seaside home in Maine. Brzezinski, by contrast, is an indefatigable, even exuberant worker. Between now and the election, Muskie can get his way by going public with his annoyance at Brzezinski's methods, as he did last July when the National Security Adviser completed plans for the Administration's revised nuclear targeting policy without consulting the new Secretary of State.
Despite the problems he causes, presidential political advisers are not likely to press for Brzezinski's ouster. The reason, according to a close aide: "Zbig may be feeling some heat, but Ronald Reagan is his best insulation. Carter is not going to dump the house hard-liner just as he is fighting to prove he is tough on defense."
By all accounts, the bond between the President and his adviser is still strong. Carter remains loyal to and dependent on Brzezinski as his mentor in foreign affairs, a role he acquired in 1973 when the Columbia professor met and hit it off with the Georgia Governor. Brzezinski's name is still the first on the President's daily calendar, and he is often the last adviser. Carter speaks to at night. Says Defender Huntington: "Brzezinski retains the President's confidence, and that is what is important." Leslie Gelb, who fought numerous battles with Brzezinski when he was a State Department official and has criticized him publicly since leaving the Government last year, says, "I think Brzezinski has been damaged irreparably everywhere except with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter."
As he demonstrated in his stubborn support for Bert Lance three years ago, Carter tends to reject even the most persistent and often justifiable criticisms of a close friend and trusted adviser. The President's loyalty is more commendable than his wisdom in Brzezinski's case, just as it was in Lance's.