Debits and Credits : After a Year in Washington, Former O.C. Couple Says Life There Has Ups and Downs

Even President Clinton is worried about the financial state of Orange County.

After a recent Saturday broadcast from the Oval Office, he asked Janice and Roger W. Johnson, formerly of Laguna Beach, what the outcome might be over the county’s bankruptcy filing and the $1.6-billion loss in the investment pool.

The Johnsons had attended the broadcast with about 30 other guests.

“I told him we’d make it--that there was a lot of finger-pointing going on at this point, a lot of blame that could go to a lot of people, but we’d make it,” said Janice Johnson last week during a two-day visit to Newport Beach, where she and her husband addressed a meeting of the Young Presidents Organization at the Four Seasons Hotel.

“Orange County is very resilient, and it will be OK,” offered Roger Johnson, the Fortune 500 businessman tapped by Clinton to head the General Services Administration with the goal of helping reinvent government by eliminating waste and trimming expenses. “What it needs to do is stop worrying about what happened, in my view, and get focused on what we’re going to do about it,” Johnson said.

With more than a year of life in Washington under their belts, the Johnsons--once mainstays on the local performing arts benefit circuit--look forward to their return to Laguna Beach, though they are unsure when that will be.

“When we come back, we’re going to want to sit and look at the ocean for quite a while,” said a wistful Roger Johnson, “then head out to enjoy our favorite restaurants.”

Yes, they’re homesick. And a little heartsick. They left it all behind--prominent social positions, family, friendships--because they thought they could make a difference.

But amid threats about his cost-cutting tactics and allegations that Johnson--the administration’s highest-ranking Republican--has misused tax-supported travel funds, the Johnsons feel they have not been able to make the contribution they had hoped to make.

“In the long run, when we look back, we’ll both be better people for having gone,” said Janice Johnson, who has been appointed by the Clintons to serve on the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.

The problem, according to Roger Johnson, is that “the institution is incapable of changing because it is institutionally inbred.

“We kid a lot that this town (Washington) is full of lawyers. And that’s true,” he said. “But that isn’t the main issue, at all. The issue is the people of Washington, D.C., have never done anything but work in government. Therefore, they have no other frame of reference.

“It’s not that they aren’t smart or well-intended,” he said. “If they weren’t it would be a lot easier. But you know, there’s nothing more dangerous than a person who doesn’t know he doesn’t know. And that’s what we’ve got.”

During his tenure with the GSA, Johnson said, he has “saved billions,” but “to really make a difference we need to have the country continue with what they did” when they elected Clinton. “The country gets excited, encouraged, with a new President, then they just disappear, and the system, the infrastructure, takes over and eats us alive back there.”

Roger Johnson agreed to speak before members of the YPO--an association of young corporate presidents and chief executives who run multimillion-dollar companies--because “they are the kind of people we need involved in government,” he said, earnestly. “They are young, bright, aggressive executives. What I’m trying to do is tell people they better get involved.”

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Saying you’re from Orange County has gotten a little embarrassing in Washington, now that it’s suffering the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

“The East Coast has always had a superiority complex that I have found, and still find, hard to tolerate,” said Janice Johnson, who once lived in New York with her husband.

“And now, not only are we from California, we’re from Orange County!” she said, laughing. “The first thing people say is, ‘Oh, my God! Aren’t you glad you’re here ?’ I just smile. I’m happy to be there, but not to live, not to stay.”

During her time in Washington, Johnson will continue to serve on the Committee for the Preservation of the White House and the executive committee of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Recently, she was invited to view the Blue Room, which is undergoing renovation. It was fascinating, Johnson said, to view this historic room stripped of its trappings, awaiting a new look.

“And to think the committee was part of the vote on the decision to do that,” she said, proudly.

One of her happiest accomplishments, one that has given her a new confidence, is her ability to sit in a meeting with the First Lady and “say something,” she said.

“I think Hillary Clinton is the smartest First Lady our country has had. And if anyone ever said to me that I would be able to carry on a conversation with a First Lady or a President, and feel comfortable, I’d have said, ‘you’re out of your mind.’

“But I can. When we go to receptions, I can get the words out.”