Presidential Trust and Political Circuses
GLASS, ANDREW J.
W^shington-USA PRESIDENTIAL TRUST AND POLITICAL CIRCUSES BY ANDREW J. GLASS WASHINGTON THE PHILISOPHER EpictetUS, who taught that man is born for mutual trust, encountered a once-powerful Roman...
...The question now is whether sufficient authority resides outside the White House—in Congress, in the courts, in the monetary system—to keep the economy going without outbreaks of panic until the current paralysis of leadership can be overcome...
...THE ADMINISTRATION'S weakness does nothing to instill a feeling of confidence in the public, and a major cause of the weakness is lack of public confidence...
...Yet, when asked how the Federal government affected their own lives, an even 50 per cent said through taxes...
...But the circuses will go on, and they will continue to involve the President as their main act...
...On vital matters, his counsel was either brushed aside or (as in the case of the decision to halt the bombing of Cambodia) accepted with grudging distaste...
...As the new year begins, the lesson of Epictetus remains unlearned at the White House...
...Yet it was not until 15 months had passed and a new President was at the helm that the responsibilities of government began to be fulfilled...
...In truth, Nixon's decision to inconvenience the reporters who cover him was a petty act of vengeance...
...No," said Laird, shaking his head...
...If a man sets aside the trust for which he is born and plots against his neighbor, Epictetus explained, he destroys himself as a formerly trusted, honored and pious man...
...The rich, less easily tricked, are merely appeased...
...Needless to say, the ensuing protests prompted the President to rescind the proposed order...
...When asked to explain their concern, one quarter of those sampled, the largest single segment, volunteered the belief that "government leaders are corrupt and immoral...
...Yet both Laird and Warren are, at bottom, decent men, which is perhaps why Nixon does not fullv trust them...
...recently paid Louis Harris $25,000 to study public attitudes in the U.S...
...Oh no...
...For another, the House Judiciary Committee is just beginning to burrow into a mountain of evidence, and it will bide its time until it can build an unchallengeable case for impeachment...
...In sum, Watergate and the Nixon Administration's related troubles have cast doubt upon all of the government's commitments...
...Your sting is such that you cause pain and trouble to anyone you strike with it...
...This is the vicious circle that is dragging Nixon down...
...Late the other night, the people who live along the right-of-way beside Washington's National Airport were startled to hear the whine of jets taking off into the moonless gloom...
...The answer is that he cannot, because the mean and narrow spirit now evident in the country is a reaction to the lack of straight dealing within his crippled Administration...
...I asked him whether this new policy had anything to do with the President's lack of enthusiasm for the press, evident now and then at his infrequent news conferences...
...so neighboring residents can sleep...
...Take the case of the independent truckers who became enraged about the effect on their earnings of rising fuel prices and reduced speed limits...
...With Watergate providing the context, economic conditions the motivation and Gerry Ford the instrument, President Nixon could still be driven from office...
...Yet there are inherent limits to what a leader can accomplish if he is unwilling or unable to tell the truth...
...inflation finished a distant second at 18 per cent...
...Warren said, managing to maintain a poker face...
...If they were given a chance to sit down and talk with the President, three out of every four would place the need for honesty and integrity in office at the top of their agendas...
...For one thing, Nixon's decision to link his own exoneration with that of his former aides, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, insures that at their trials they will be widely viewed as surrogates for the President himself...
...As Edmund Burke once observed, the concessions of the weak are concessions of fear...
...In seeking to "put Watergate behind us," Nixon wants the nation to focus on bread and not circuses...
...The results, released by a Muskie-headed Senate subcommittee, reveal that a majority of Americans no longer retain confidence in government at any level...
...If polls are to be believed, the erosion is quite massive...
...Thus, when Laird drafted new fuel conservation rules that would have all but grounded corporate jets, word of the impending action soon filtered back to the men who regard it as a privilege of rank not to ride commercial airliners...
...It reflects the way Nixon and his cohorts worry about the politics of a problem—how will it go over?—at the expense of worrying about the problem itself...
...The corporate jets are sail flying every weekend to Sun Valley and the like for essentially the same reason that the truckers haven't been told what is apt to happen to their fuel bills in 1974: The Nixon White House desperately wants to avoid paying the political price...
...The Executive Branch is held in the lowest esteem, ranking at the bottom of all institutions tested in the nationwide survey...
...And it was another 15 years before that fulfillment could be taken for granted...
...How can Richard Nixon cope with the American people's current lack of trust in him...
...No one told the truckers that world crude prices would continue to soar throughout 1974, dictating further hefty increases in the price of diesel oil...
...In early December, when thousands of drivers blocked highways with their rigs in protest, the "law and order" President said nothing...
...I don't have disappointments...
...give or take a little, if they can be assured that their names will not be attached to their remarks...
...I asked him whether he nevertheless felt any regrets about his White House tour...
...What would you have us do to you...
...They will tell it like it is...
...In a sense, he also destroys all neighborly feeling, all qualities of friendship and, indeed, the very fabric of the nation itself...
...But the planes involved were corporate jets exempt from the no-flying ban...
...The White House had summoned a clutch of oil company presidents to a meeting that had run late...
...Perhaps things must get much worse in America before they will get better...
...W^shington-USA PRESIDENTIAL TRUST AND POLITICAL CIRCUSES BY ANDREW J. GLASS WASHINGTON THE PHILISOPHER EpictetUS, who taught that man is born for mutual trust, encountered a once-powerful Roman who had been disgraced by being caught committing adultery...
...This cast of mind is probably too ingrained in Nixon's character for him ever to change course...
...When Laird departed, Gerald Warren, the Administration's de facto spokesman, took the rostrum to conduct the daily briefing...
...In November 1931, Herbert Hoover created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to deal with the worsening Depression...
...There is no place to put you...
...He announced that if the President went off to Key Biscayne after Christmas, the traveling press would have to arrange for its own transportation and hotel rooms...
...Instead, Transportation Secretary Claude Brinegar invited a delegation of truckers to the capital, where they were informed that things would soon be put right...
...Senator Edmund Muskie (D.-Me...
...The dominant tone at these sessions is one of evasion, set by the President seated off-stage...
...It was midnight before the oil men could fly off in their own planes...
...Of course you are bad and useless," he told the fallen leader...
...How unfortunate, Warren observed, that because of the energy shortage White House reporters would have to be left to fend for themselves —ending an unbroken custom of chartering a press plane (and billing the passengers) whenever the President travels...
...Presumably the President, had he been polled, wouldn't have cited taxes...
...Under Federal regulations, the runways are shut down at 10 p.m...
...At the moment, it is intensified by his desire to keep his job...
...As matters stand, however, they are not permitted to speak candidly at White House briefings, where " court stenographer always taps away lightly...
...The timetable remains uncertain, though, and may well try the patience of editorial writers and newsmagazines who find themselves asking, week after week, "Can Nixon Survive...
...And, in truth, Laird's brief career at the White House was an exercise in humiliation...
...Only 19 per cent of the respondents expressed faith in the Federal Executive, against 41 per cent in 1966...
...It had been a heartwarming experience for him to pursue his "close personal relationship" with the President, Laird said...
...For example, last month Melvin Laird appeared before reporters to say how much he regretted having to step down after only seven months of service as Nixon's chief domestic adviser...
...While this tactic eased the immediate crisis, it failed to deal with the real problem...
Vol. 57 • January 1974 • No. 1
