It was fitting that Hamilton Jordan was the first person I met when, almost 40 years ago, I volunteered for Jimmy Carter's gubernatorial campaign. I cannot imagine that any campaign staffer has ever played a larger role in the election of a governor or a president. There is no finer example of political genius than his November 1972 memo that spelled out, in eerily accurate detail, how a former governor from the Deep South could, in November 1976, be elected the next president of the United States.

Not long after meeting, we discovered that his ancestors and mine had known each other on other days and other fields more than a century past —- Lawton's Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia. The difference was, as he occasionally noted, his ancestor was Gen. A.R. Lawton and my kin were of more modest rank and station.

On a few occasions when times were tough and dark, we mused about how those kinfolk may have thought of what life had dealt them. I never got around to asking him if ever he thought of them again over the long 20-plus years that he fought cancer. I know they would have been proud of him, as were all of us who knew him.

The courage and cheerful irreverence and compassion of those last years were accurate reflections of the man I had known almost 20 years before.

When people now hear mostly of campaigns filled with ambition, ego and careerism, of hired guns eager to be anybody's dog, it is worth recalling and honoring a man who was none of those things.

Much like the man we both served, Hamilton was involved in politics for a reason —- for the good he hoped to do for a state, a country and people who had been dealt the hardest lot in life. Lord knows, he enjoyed the thrill of political combat, maybe because he was so good at it; but it was never all about the game.

The many young people who worked for him would tell you, as they have repeatedly told me, how they learned from him about how to treat peers and subordinates. He set an example of serving the common good rather than grabbing credit and ducking blame. Our daughter, Emily, came home to Georgia to work in Hamilton's 1986 campaign for the U.S. Senate and returned saying she now understood why her mother and I thought so much of him.

When I joined the Carter campaign those many years back, a year older than Ham though less experienced with both politics and Jimmy Carter, he was completely at ease with my occupying a position with much greater access to the candidate. I often ended up relaying advice, instructions and arguments between the two. Ham and I sometimes disagreed, sharply, but never, even once, did I doubt that his only purpose was to help our boss make the best possible decision.

He was, of course, congenitally incapable of taking himself or anyone else too seriously. His irrepressible, irreverent wit never failed him or us, even in the most difficult times. That was not always to his benefit in the nation's capital, where self-importance was a social disease. It still is; except worse.

As he fought for his life over these last two decades, the example of cheerful courage was exceeded only by his concern for others. He was a tireless advocate of more funding for cancer research, but he also spent countless hours counseling others fighting the same scourge —- not just friends or friends of friends but total strangers —- helping them and their families sort through the intricacies and emotions of treatment. I know of several who say they owe their lives to Hamilton.

As I think of Hamilton, I remember a friend and colleague whose devilish smile masked a brilliant mind and a huge heart. I hope he did think of those bloodied, starving ancestors of ours and particularly of words from their commander's farewell. They would, Robert E. Lee said, take with them "the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed."

So would we all say of Hamilton Jordan.

> Jody Powell, White House press secretary in the Carter administration, is chairman of Powell Tate, a Washington public relations firm.