Nixon Tightening His Grip

...Ronald Ziegler, the President's news secretary, checked out a day before the main party and I just happened to get his room—and his telephone...

...While in residence there on November 27, he prepared a brief homily that was piped into the White House press room...

...Being a traditionalist, though, Nixon views the Presidency as in some respects akin to a monarchy...

...That is why oftentimes it [brings] change—which is very helpful to the country and progress...

...Subsequently, the Russians were informed of this arrangement but the public was never told...

...The Chinese, who have no spy satellites of their own, were of course glad to have the pictures...

...The Johnson staff and the reporters covering him all stayed under the same Texas roof...

...These days, assistant secretaries are being picked by Nixon or by his major-domo, H. R. (Bob) Halderaan...

...Maybe our FBI check missed something big...

...That excludes most citizens who, for one reason or another, pulled down the lever for George McGovern, not to mention the 46.5 per cent of the eligible voters who did not cast their ballots altogether...

...So we are apt to see a good deal of the monarchial Nixon next year as he celebrates American disengagement from Vietnam by touring Europe and Japan and by playing host to Russia's Leonid Brezhnev...

...Its institutional aspects, he believes, transcend the man who occupies the office...

...Washington-USA NIXON TIGHTENING HIS GRIP BY ANDREW J. GLASS Washington In the wake of a national election, a political low-pressure system usually glides through the country, creating for a time an improved climate in which to view the Presidency...

...Only the circle of power will shrink...

...This, in turn, has fed his sense of privacy?perhaps even more than his feeling that the Presidency is invariably debased by easy access and familiarity...

...As his Presidency has evolved, Nixon has come increasingly to admire Benjamin Disraeli?not so much for Disraeli's prowess, literary and otherwise, as for being a fellow conservative destined by his times to preside over broad social reforms...

...Not the least of them is the undying mockery of that nebulous but nonetheless recognizable entity known as the Establishment...

...These days, reporters assigned to Richard Nixon in Florida remain behind in Miami...

...Both men sustained more than their fair share of disappointments in politics...

...Four years later, Nixon's dream of serving as a unifier remains unfulfilled...

...he was capable of yanking back a nomination just to spite the press...

...Yet the process must be carried out with some finesse, to avoid destroying departmental morale in a manner that might do incalculable long-term damage...

...But the Nixon-induced leaks comply with the utilitarian spirit of his Administration...

...this naturally resulted in a good deal of informal mixing between the two groups...

...He openly envisioned his coming role as that of a healer of people he described as "ragged in spirit...

...Nixon can be expected, therefore, to oppose Federal taxes on the middle class, oppose busing of school children to achieve racial integration and oppose amnesty for Vietnam draft evaders...

...Johnson would not abide such leaks...

...An earlier public request for mass resignations turned out to be a simple ploy—a means of firing some second-level people without putting the finger on them directly...

...Thus, by early December, he had filled out his entire 11-member Cabinet by adding only three new faces: a student-baiting union leader from New York City (for the Labor Department), a textile manufacturer from South Carolina (for Commerce) and a California oil company man (for Transportation...

...Except the married state, there is none in which so great a confidence is involved, in which more forebearance ought to be exercised or more sympathy ought to exist...

...The parallels between the British statesman's life a century ago and the American President's today are very nearly trite...

...In 1968, Cabinet nominees got to select their own assistant secretaries, with only nominal clearance from the White House...

...In a way this is a shame, for there is a subtle quality to the Nixon Presidency that rarely surfaces...

...Generally, we work in a 24-hour time frame because we don't want to allow a backlash [against a prospective appointment] to emerge...

...Were reporters allowed to pitch pup tents on the lawn of Nixon's Florida home, they would gain little additional insight into the workings of the President's mind...

...What I am suggesting here," he said, "is that when a new administration comes in, it comes in with new ideas, new people, new programs...

...Nixon defined his central problem with great precision...

...Why, Richard Nixon might ask himself, should he expect any more or less from his own age...

...That is why it has vitality and excitement...

...We've done it [the leaking] to protect ourselves," a Nixon aide confided after we had returned separately from Key Biscayne...

...Yet, as is often the case with Nixon, a keen sense of the problem is no guarantee of a genuine solution...

...The chilling effect of having to live nearly his whole adult life in a political fishbowl has bred a deep insecurity within Nixon...

...There is no reason to believe that these White House alumni will become the least bit confused in their loyalties...

...Then it's pretty certain that people with [unfavorable] information will get the word to us before we're openly committed...

...When Disraeli delivered a foolish maiden speech in the House of Commons, however, he shouted in a voice heard high above the hubbub: "I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me...

...Ziegler or a deputy is driven over daily to brief them, so to speak, on events...

...None of these policies is likely to make Nixon a less remote or more inspirational political leader, even to his natural constituency...

...Nixon, who does not read novels, let alone write them, is nevertheless fond of a passage in En-dymion, Disraeli's last novel, that expresses his feelings toward Hal-deman: "The relations between a Minister and his secretary are, or at least should be, among the finest that can subsist between two individuals...

...For example, an interesting aspect of the Nixon visit to China earlier this year was his offer to provide Peking with timely photographs of Soviet troop concentrations along Chinese frontiers...

...The President has said that henceforth he would invest more power in members of his Cabinet, while chopping away at the bloated White House staff...

...Of course, one cannot fault the President for seeking to make the government machinery more responsive to his ideas...

...The President spent most of the two weeks immediately following the election at Camp David, a secluded retreat in the Maryland foothills...

...It makes little difference to the White House press on which side of the causeway Nixon chooses to deposit them...

...After the 1964 elections, Lyndon B. Johnson invited me and a colleague to the ranch on Christmas Day...

...The President is simply unwilling to shake the political tree, either by hiring dynamic associates or by advocating bold changes in public policy...

...Neither Nixon nor his major deputies confide in reporters except when they have a specific purpose in mind...

...he refused to be kicked around anymore...

...Flush with victory and eager to plan his next moves, the winner normally decamps to more congenial surroundings and the Washington press corps trails along—to Warm Springs, to Key West, to the golf course at Augusta, to Palm Beach or Hyannis Port or wherever else the President may chose to go...

...He will come out for aid to parochial schools, but resist job quotas for minorities and all income-redistribution plans...

...On the other hand, he will support a general holddown on Federal spending, whatever sums the Congress might vote, and at the same time keep the military hardware lobby happy...

...In his first Inaugural Address, the President asked Americans to join him in "a high adventure...

...They will, if anything, permit him to pursue his deep sense of privacy and to continue to surround himself with assistants cherished more for their sense of loyalty than for their judgment...

...The Texas sojourn came to mind recently when I arrived at a plush resort hotel on Key Biscayne to find a special White House telephone in my room...

...Richard Nixon, it will be remembered, promised us just the reverse after losing the governor's race in California: We had heard the last of him...

...Nixon is trimming his staff by spiking government agencies at the sub-Cabinet level with his own men...

...In reality, things will continue to be run from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...

...And one can still legitimately question Nixon's ideas...

...Lately, Nixon has permitted subordinates to tip reporters to high-level nominations a day or so ahead of the formal announcements...

...It turned out that the Nixon entourage stays there whenever "the old man," as he is known to those who work for him, is at his Florida retreat...

...The Victorian aristocrats never quite accepted Disraeli's sincerity, but that did not prevent the Prime Minister from pursuing his crafty and slightly cynical brand of statesmanship...

...Now he has trimmed his goal to unifying what he calls "the new American majority...

...We sipped eggnog laced with bourbon on the front porch in the hot Texas sun and, having sworn us to secrecy, Johnson told us that he had already sanctioned several air raids over North Vietnam...

...The hustle and bustle should salve his various hurts...

...Nixon, as Disraeli, has known what it is like to humiliate oneself in public...