IS THERE A NEW NIXON?
Williams, David C.
Is There A New Nixon? by DAVID C. WILLIAMS TWO HOURS before the crucial vote on the jury trial amendment to the civil rights bill, there was a huddle, just off the Senate floor, of strategists...
...For instance, discussion was vehement when the President met with Administration and Congressional leaders before the telecast on sanctions...
...The Vice President is strongest precisely where his chief is weakest...
...At first, Nixon moved with extreme caution...
...This rule of reticence applied even to off-the-record gatherings...
...The President's initial acceptance of Nixon as a running-mate was so DAVID C. WILLIAMS, editor of the ADA World, has written widely of public affairs for American and foreign publications...
...Nixon's supporters are confident that these dark horses will never get off the starting mark...
...Nixon was present throughout the long meeting, but said not one word...
...Nixon puts his public support of Mr...
...Almost uniquely among American politicians (Kefauver, in a rather different way, is another instance) he is a "loner...
...During all this period, Nixon's silence was positively deafening, so much so that no Zionist voter could possibly find in the record any indication that Nixon had associated himself with Administration policy...
...Nixon did not ttand with the Jenners and the Ma-fc&es—but he did not stand with Case or Javits either...
...And when he has chosen his goal, he does not wobble or waver in his pursuit of it...
...In the old days he seemed to distrust all journalists except for a few cronies and court favorites, like Ralph de Toledano of Newsweek...
...On the plus side is the fact that liberal Republicans are no longer defensive about him, as they once were...
...So it is quite natural that his list for 1960, which he is already discussing with his friends, should be headed by General Alfred M. Gruen-ther, former NATO commander and presently head of the American Red Cross, and Robert Anderson, the new Secretary of the Treasury...
...In the ensuing weeks, the tense situation resulting from Israel's refusal to withdraw her troops from the Gaza Strip mounted to the climax of a Presidential telecast strongly foreshadowing the use of sanctions against Israel...
...For years he acted as if he thought so...
...But, added Bell, "Mr...
...Eisenhower's illnesses, Ike's distaste for rowdy politics, and his inexperience in practical political organization...
...To a political realist like Nixon, it must be apparent that neither condition is certain of fulfillment...
...He has also had to take into account the fading luster of the Eisenhower name, as most recently and dramatically shown by the upset defeat of former Governor, and Eisenhower man, Walter J. Kohler, in the Wisconsin Senatorial election...
...As Albert Clark, reflecting the private comments of Nixon's supporters, has written in the Wall Street Journal (Aug...
...Nixon has kept this quiet until now, but he lectured McCarthy several times . . . Tor your own good, you should devote yourself to other fields...
...Was this the same Nixon who devoted so large a part of his 1954 campaign to charging that the Democratic Party was in the grip of ADA and that ADA was "soft" on Communism...
...Every Republican convention for twenty years has passed the Old Guard candidates by, and they will do it again...
...He is developing political principles and convictions as he grows in experience...
...His 1952 troubles over the private fund his sponsors had raised for him...
...And there is no reason to assume he was pleased at having his hand forced by the G.O.P...
...The Nixon clique is not basically unhappy about the decline of the Eisenhower star, which they consider may make Nixon's shine all the brighter...
...Wilson's tactic is to plead "guilty as charged, but the accused has reformed...
...The most devastating criticism of him is that he lacks real heartfelt convictions and adjusts his views to political expediency...
...The President prefers the company of generals, or of corporation heads whose success in big business has been such as to qualify them for the assimilated rank of general...
...He isn't a winner," they say...
...When he speaks, he has the facts firmly in his grasp...
...they speak of him as having matured with responsibility...
...Has Nixon dangerously exposed himself to attack from the right flank...
...Nevertheless, a point must be noted about Nixon which may be a serious threat to his ambitions...
...Nixon expressed curiosity about its furnishings...
...Already, they intimate, state Republican leaders visiting Washington are by-passing the White House and making their pilgrimage instead to Nixon's crowded suite in the Senate Office Building...
...Anyway, they question what value Nixon need attach to the President's "second-best" blessing...
...miring Look profile (Sept...
...Eisenhower's philosophy of change into words that don't lend themselves to slogan-making...
...Already this is being cited by the Old Guard as evidence that only its kind of candidates can win...
...But two circumstances must combine to assure success by this route—that Eisenhower's support of Nixon be as whole-hearted as Jackson's was of Van Buren, and that his influence over his party be as great as "Old Hickory' enjoyed...
...He thought the blunderbuss attack upon the budget this year wide of the mark, but insists that a firm hand could squeeze a great deal of water out of the federal bureaucracy...
...Recently his friends have let it be known that he is privately critical of the President for his weak and half-hearted support both of civil rights and of school aid...
...But the atmosphere of inevitability did not persist...
...Since [then] Nixon has developed puritanical sensitivity to the faintest hint of private gain from public office...
...and fight for it without suggesting...
...The time had come, they told him, to speak out...
...On the contrary, the latter has remained since his retirement the most visibly unrecognized and unrewarded politician in the country...
...Much later, when the dust had settled, he let it be known that he had considered the Anglo-French intervention a grave error...
...by DAVID C. WILLIAMS TWO HOURS before the crucial vote on the jury trial amendment to the civil rights bill, there was a huddle, just off the Senate floor, of strategists backing a "strong" bill...
...And I said, 'Any one of these will be acceptable to me,' and he was on the list...
...As for Knowland, they profess not to see him as a serious threat...
...He has made a distinct turn to the left...
...It is by no means as easy as it seems...
...Yet, when one reviews any recognized liberal scorecard for these years, the few plusses are all but lost a desert of minuses...
...The image of Nixon that people now hold carries only the faintest shadow of his Jled-hunting days...
...He has, in fact, been a far more effective and articulate spokesman for the Administration program than has President Eisenhower himself...
...unpremeditated as to be almost casual...
...A prolonged at-j^ick on him in a recent book by Alger Hiss aroused virtually no response from circles which, a couple of years ago, would have been quick to strike...
...This gives Nixon great freedom of maneuver (increased by the readiness with which, when expedient, he drops even close friends, like Murray Chotiner...
...Other Nixon supporters and staffers deny that there is a "new" Nixon...
...These same people, and they are close to Nixon, still see him as they always have, as a "builder of bridges" between the right and the left wing of the G.O.P...
...This involves the perplexing problem of positioning himself in the developing split between "modern" and Old Guard Republicans...
...He favors aid to school construction, but only to forestall irresistible pressure later for federal aid on a scale which might undermine local control of the schools...
...Already it seems clear that he has had to give up the idea, seriously canvassed until recently, of opposing Knowland's bid for the governorship of California...
...His fulsome praise for Africa's new leaders increased both American prestige in the Dark Continent and his own political appeal at home...
...there are two kinds of Republicans dwelling in segregated camps...
...It remains to be seen whether inexhaustible energy and infinite adaptability are sufficient to attain the summit...
...And he was careful to let it be known that he had made the decision on his own, without any instruction from the President...
...Characteristically, he sent up a trial balloon first...
...If one asks, as I have asked many people, who will be close to the throne in a Nixon Administration, the list begins and ends with his faithful spear-bearer, Deputy Attorney General William Rogers...
...As on his previous visits to Asia and Latin America, he took care to touch base with religious and trade union as well as political figures...
...So striking is the contrast that he has for the first time found it expedient to underline it...
...Only once did he break surface during these six months— when, as presiding officer of the Senate, he delivered a ruling against Senate Rule 22 (the rule which makes the filibuster possible...
...it has not been done since Van Buren accomplished the feat in 1832...
...Recently, most notably in Africa, he has seemed much more at ease with them, and for the first time capable, like most other politicians, of "letting down his hair" with them in private talks...
...Back at home, Nixon found some of his advisers convinced that the hysteria over the budget had been whipped up to embarrass the Administration and was already spending its force...
...I wrote down the names of five, or maybe it was six, men, younger men, that I admired, that seemed to me to have made a name for themselves...
...As William H. Stringer wrote in the Christian Science Monitor (July 26, 1957): "It is known that Mr...
...Instead, the impression gained ground that the President, taking his duties as lightly as he seems determined to do, might not only survive his second term but attend the funerals of many who once thought otherwise...
...As for Nixon, he was so infuriated by the President's attitude toward him during this period that he was more than once on the point of throwing in the sponge...
...1," is eminently fitted to undertake...
...What, then, is to be done about the "old" Nixon...
...has called for moderation in any legislation to curb labor abuses...
...So long as most politicians assumed that the President might die any day, few would venture to come out against Nixon, lest they join Harold E. Stassen in the political scrap-heap...
...Those who find it expedient to emphasize the continuity in Nixon's career insist that he remains a conservative at heart...
...National Chairman, Leonard Hall...
...Since then, Nixon has spoken out in defense of the budget, especially of overseas aid and defense spending...
...and has advocated aid to Poland—on this issue crossing swords directly with Senator Knowland...
...Could Nixon achieve the succession by a similar apostolic laying on of the President's hands...
...Each autocade, for example, was scheduled to allow opportunities for Nixon to step down from his car and for the vigorous clasping of an ample (but not, in Senator Estes Kefauver's style, unlimited) number of available hands...
...So far as the records show, Nixon has yet to be invited to spend a single night at Gettysburg...
...Nixon is without doubt the present front-runner...
...Nixon wsa more strongly in favor of the school Intruction bill than was President hower himself...
...Nixon, therefore, is stepping discreetly out from under the shadow of the President and striking out on his own...
...He appeals only to the right-wingers—and there aren't enough votes there to win the election...
...But is Nixon really a winner...
...Unlike the President, Nixon is not afraid of hard work, and he is both quick and thorough in his mastery of new subjects...
...The relations between the two men have never, in fact, been intimate...
...Indeed, he had not even seen the inside of the nation's most publicized farmhouse until the campaign kick-off rally last year—and then only because Mrs...
...By all appearances, its worth is steadily depreciating, as Eisenhower by his own sheer political ineptitude steeply accelerates the normal decline in influence of a second-term President...
...This was a deliberate political initiative on his part, for the parliamentary situation was such that he need not have delivered any ruling at all—and he had, in fact, to create the opportunity by prompting the civil rights forces, through Senator Hubert Humphrey, to raise the issue...
...Significantly, Nixon maintains privately that, if he i**e sitting in the Senate now, he WaM be voting with Kentucky's two Senators, Cooper and Morton...
...Lichard L. Wilson has un-"new" Nixon...
...30, 1957): "The Vice President, his friends emphasize, did not usurp the leadership role...
...The first thing I knew about any Presidential nominee having any great influence in the Vice Presidential selection was, I think, about the moment I was nominated," he told his May 31, 1955, press conference...
...Raymond H. Lahr of the Washington Daily News must have been listening to the same oracle, for on the same day he wrote: "Some of [Nixon's] friends doubt he is enthusiastic about the use of labels like 'modern' and 'up-to-date' which stir resentment among Republican conservatives...
...The President seems to have wanted to submit another of his lists to the 1956 Convention...
...The conclusion Nixon's friends prefer to draw from the victory of William Proxmire in Wisconsin is, in fact, the need to strengthen and rebuild the Republican Party organization from the ground up—a task which the President, because of his distaste for partisan politics, has neglected, but which Nixon, as "Organization Man No...
...But it is a measure of the limitations of the man that, if he stumbles, few will pause to help him up...
...As one of Nixon's closest associates recently told me: "With every day that passes, Nixon needs the President less, and the President needs Nixon more...
...Superficially different, yet basically the same—for the same relentless ambition that led him to denounce liberals two years ago moved him to fight shoulder to shoulder with them this year...
...They now prefer to use the word "moderation," thus staking for Nixon a place in the currently fashionable middle of the road...
...He favors federal action to secure civil rights, but as the one and only exception to his general opposition to federal intervention in state and local affairs...
...They are surrounded by a coterie of counselors who rise with them and who, at the ultimate summit of the White House, will be found manning the key posts...
...There was a time when Nixon might have relied upon the compelling argument of "inevitability...
...Sometime, somewhere near the beginning of his career, Nixon must have decided: "Down to Gehenna or up to the throne— He travels farthest who travels alone...
...For example: Lack of fixed principles...
...But they have reached it by identifying themselves with some great issue which has stirred the people deeply...
...There is no equivalent of F.D.R.'s "cuff-links gang" or Dewey's kitchen cabinet...
...Noting how far Lyndon Johnson has pulled the Democratic Party in Congress to the right, they see Nixon in the same political orbit as the Texan Senator—in fact, to the left of him on the two crucial issues in the past Congress, civil rights and overseas aid...
...He refers to the "Dewey-like quality of apparently heartless efficiency that plagues Nixon...
...When the choice has been between the Republican right and the Republican left, Nixon has sided with the Republican left...
...In a part of the world where previous rulers have kept their distance from the people, this came as a pleasant and effective surprise...
...From the day of his re-nomination in the Cow Palace last year, Nixon's unequalled political ingenuity has been concentrated on one problem— how does a Vice President secure his Party's nomination for the Presidency...
...Here he put to good use the techniques he had perfected in his domestic campaigning, particularly the planned spontaneity for which he regularly provides in his timetables...
...On the traditional political maxim, "if you can't lick them, join them," he seems likely to support Knowland—and without asking or expecting his withdrawal from the contest for the Presidential nomination...
...The denunciation of Nixon by Senator Richard Russell and, in more moderate language, by Johnson himself will make good campaign ammunition in 1960...
...On April 29 Jack Bell of the Associated Press wrote that the Vice-President had decided "to try the role of peacemaker between G.O.P...
...His relations with the press have improved as well...
...Heads together, comparing notes on a checklist of Senators, were Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., vice chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, a spokesman for the United Automobile Workers, Deputy Attorney General William Rogers—and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon...
...The "old" Nixon, they maintain, was not as reactionary as generally portrayed, and they cite carefully selected votes from his six years in Congress...
...Between election day and the beginning of May, while the Battle of the Budget was being fought, he made no major speeches and avoided the background chats with correspondents by which his opinions are usually communicated to the public...
...Whatever inhibition about the inevitability of Nixon remained were shattered when Senator William F. Knowland, announcing on January 7 his decision not to run for re-election, all but cast his hat into the big ring...
...The reasons are obvious...
...factions warring over 'modern Republicanism.'" Nixon was portrayed as committed to support the President's effoited "make the Republican Party respoo sive to the modern-day needs and pirations of all people...
...Knowland," one of them confidently predicted to me, "will place Nixon's name in nomination...
...This is the one note of doubt Wilson permits himself in his otherwise ecstatic Look profile...
...Nixon thinks this can be accomplished without goading the: party's conservatives into open rebel-lion . . . With this in mind, Mr...
...They are, in fact, already laying claim for him to the leadership of the G.O.P.—by default, they hasten to add, and not by a palace revolution...
...Lonely people have reached the White House...
...Now, as then, he is running for President 24 hours a day, and it is one of the more encouraging signs of the times that his quest has taken him so far afield from the dregs of McCarthyism he stirred up in 1954...
...Soon thereafter, the Vice President departed for the remote (but politically rewarding) fields of Africa...
...Instead, the role was thrust upon him by circumstances —Mr...
...They believe the, Nixon approach would be to spelt out his program on a specific issue...
...But it has its dangers as well...
...His relations with McCarthy (a tough one, because it must be dealt with in such a way as not to offend the late Senators' admirers...
...In America, most political figures do not rise alone to the greatest heights...
...Van Buren in 1832 was forced upon a divided convention by his mighty predecessor, Andrew Jackson...
...He has many acquaintances, admirers, and supporters, but few intimate friends...
...without it, he said, the Israeli forces could have pushed through to Cairo and settled the problem once and for all...
...You should not be known as a one-shot Senator.'" Wilson has no doubt of "the big change" in Nixon...
Vol. 21 • October 1957 • No. 10
