Britons Waffle on the U.S. Elections

...But John Anderson whizzed through London recently and failed to arouse great excitement either...

...They have seen the French produce a separate assessment of priorities in dealing with the wilderness of Iranian affairs...

...The Western alliance remains the cornerstone of British international policy, of course, but Foreign Office mandarins have seen themselves evolve their own policy on the Arab-Israeli dispute...

...They had a yardstick all their own, they noted, by which to measure one of the candidates...

...It seemed almost an act of reckless heroism, in fact, when a prominent Washington-based British political writer, Henry Fairlie, suggested in the London Spectator recently that Carter not only should be re-elected but hasn't done badly as president up to now...

...Norman Gelb, a frequent New Leader contributor, reports from London for the Mutual Broadcasting System...

...And the Guardian, while deprecating the President's performance at the New York Democratic Convention, slipped in subdued praise for his shunning what it described as the Kennedy approach of "hyping-up expectations and offering inspiration without wherewithal...

...None of this fazes Mrs...

...They may have been correct, but there are lessons for them to learn from the British experience...

...Thatcher, at least outwardly...

...More to the point, the situation has reached a stage where a Reagan-like re-assertion of American muscle in the formulation of Western policies would find the British embarrassed, given their European Community commitments and their simultaneous efforts to cling to a "special relationship" with the United States...

...The Economist, in seeming anticipation of that eventuality, has noted that if Reagan appears "an implausible choice" for President, "Harry Truman was an implausible choice in his day, and he turned out well enough...

...The Sunday Observer, never one in the past to ignore or play down a Carter Administration bungle, has similarly come to the conclusion that "looking back over Carter's record, it is hard to resist the thought that he has sometimes been more sinned against than sinning...

...International economic considerations have received less attention in the British capital than those concerning diplomatic and military affairs, but they continue to be important...

...Ultimately, since they are overwhelmingly influenced by their correspondents in the States-who seem to base most of their analyses on opinions to be found in the Washington Post and the New York Times-the British share the American view that neither Carter nor Reagan are plausible...

...Her spokesmen endlessly recall her forecast that the introduction of measures to set the British economy back on the glory road would be painful at first...

...Greater weight is being attached to current political realities than to personality factors...

...And the feeling in The City (the nickname still used, perversely, for London's financial district) is that Reagan is much more likely than Carter to revitalize the American economy, the Thatcher experience to date notwithstanding...

...Moreover, business is in such distress that even the Tory-inclined Confederation of British Industry has discreetly cautioned the Prime Minister about the consequences so far of her monetarist dogmas...

...The gag that runs "If God had meant America to have a President, He would have given it a candidate," draws nods as well as laughs...

...Europe is placing ever greater stress on the North-South dialogue, largely because of its increased realization of how dependent it is on raw materials from the Third World...

...The London Times studied the field and concluded that the "established leadership of the two parties no longer represents and enjoys the confidence of the Americans in their present state of transition...

...As in the U.S., newspapers and magazines have incessantly focused on the blunders, gaffes and reversals of the Carter Administration in general and the President in particular...

...Apparently, she sees Britain as still trudging through the "at first" stage, and it may well take another year or so to determine whether she is right...

...Republican planners studying her style took much comfort from her election triumph, interpreting it as part of a general shuffle to the Right by voters throughout the Western world...

...Thatcher has now had 15 months at 10 Downing Street to put her economic policies into practice, and it has been a very difficult period for the country...

...Well, there is a profound gut feeling here that Reagan-albeit no longer a shoo-in-is destined to be elected...

...But the experience has inclined many Britons who would have enthusiastically spoken for a Republican victory in the States to be somewhat more subdued in stating their preference...

...Such a revitalization is viewed by many in London as necessary if European economies-all now in the doldrums-are to begin their recovery on a firm basis...

...Yet if there is merely a vestigial wish in London for the re-emergence of reliable American leadership, the British government has become reconciled to participating in the development of independent European foreign policies, without worrying about whether they accord with those of the State Department...

...The case of the press is especially revealing...

...All this has happened without the approval of Washington and without the world coming to an end...

...Mrs...

...Even when they approve of a White House decision, like the recently revealed change in nuclear deterrence strategy, they tend to issue a grudging welcome and dwell as much on the clumsiness of its disclosure as on its merits...

...It could happen again...

...They have seen the West Germans develop their own interpretations of detente with the Russians and Eastern Europe...

...After first soaring, inflation is now inching downward, but unemployment has reached alarming proportions...

...The Foreign Office looked on in horror, for example, as it became evident that the Carter Administration was casually abdicating its leadership of the Western world...

...A balancing factor influencing attitudes toward the American candidates, though, is the North-South dialogue...

...Consequently, it is not easy for any respectable journal to declare outright today that another four years of Jimmy Carter in the White House is just what the Western alliance needs...

...Reagan is thought to be unshak-ably convinced that charity begins (and possibly ends) at home...

...Weighing up the Carter-Reagan differences on international issues, one British journal concluded, "while Carter has looked for new solutions, Reagan is a backward-looking conservative, promising to restore such irretrievable glories of the past as unquestioned American military superiority over Russia on a global scale...

...She promised moves to balance the national budget, cut taxes and boost defense spending, and she issued warnings about the danger Communism poses to civilization...

...Elections BY NORMAN GELB London Though it goes against their grain to brag, for a while the British claimed an advantage over Americans in making up their minds about who should be elected President of the United States next November...

...In short, British pundits are trying to scramble out of the deep rut they dug for themselves by characterizing Carter as a very decent fellow with his heart in the right place and his brains in a part of the anatomy it is becoming increasingly permissible to mention in polite company...

...But what, you may by now be asking impatiently, do the British really think about the November contest...

...Others, too, are banking on Reagan not being as shallow and macho as he has been made out to be...

...Public opinion polls indicate that if elections were held now, rather than in 1984 as is probable, she would be sent packing and the Labor Party would be nudged back into office despite its current suicidal divisions...

...At the same time, the British press can't seem to break the habit of thinking of Carter's foreign affairs approach as a hodge-podge of inconsistencies, policy reversals and fiascos...

...There is no question who the British-and Europeans generally-prefer on this issue: Carter is seen as a compassionate man who would try to induce Congress to spend dollars and give trade advantages to Third World countries...

...Everyone seems braced for Carter to commit one last blunder, or to be "sinned against" one more time and thus smother what chance he has of another term in the White House...

...A cooler, more calculated approach to the Presidential race is shaping up on this side of the Atlantic...

...When campaigning for the Prime Ministership last year, Margaret Thatcher did indeed often sound like Ronald Reagan does today...