7 MARCH 1969, Page 5

Caution at home

NIXON-2 JOHN GRAII AM

Washington—Wherever he goes, whatever he says, President Nixon is greeted with polite respect, even admiration. Senators and leader- writers scramble to compliment him on his style of government, in tones either pompous or obsequious. Like Macbeth, after little more' than a month in office he has bought golden opinions.

It is all so strange that it is worth looking at some of the specific actions which have brought Mr .Nixon credit. He is widely praised, for instance, for his candour in his public state- ments, especially his press conferences. The most striking example of this was the delight with which his remarks about himself and America's blacks were received. He openly ad- mitted that 'many of our black citizens in America' did not consider him a friend. Was this so brave an admission? He had been asked the question point-blank, and the tiny propor- tion of blacks who had voted for him was publicly known. He could not in all conscience have said anything else.

Moreover, on at least two of the major problems he inherited, Vietnam and inflation, he has dropped no hints about what he plans to do. In the first part of last year he said several times that he had a plan to end the war, but that he would not reveal it while President Johnson was trying his own plan; he would reveal it when he himself became President. We are still waiting. As for inflation, despite frequent long statements by one or another of his economic lieutenants, no one is any the wiser about the administration's economic policies.

And so it goes on: lots of promises, lots of bustling about, lots of new high-level commit- tees, every appearance of government but precious little action. Meanwhile, far from the commanding general's tent, the reports from the various battlefields are dismal.

In Vietnam, the enemy has stepped up the war and casualties-are on the increase. There doesn't seem to be much relief in sight in Paris, though you can never be sure about this. At home, prices are still rising too fast for com- fort, and all necessary ingredients are present for an international financial crisis. The blacks are in an ugly mood, particularly on college campuses; black and white students together are disrupting an astonishing number of colleges and schools. There is no lessening of the .crime rate, which has grown worse in the past two months. And only last month a truly horrifying series of hearings was held in the Senate on hunger in America.

With all this unpleasantness on the back- cloth, why is there a general vague feeling of relief that things are better than they were, even if only slightly, and of satisfaction with Richard Nixon for making a sensible, steady start to his administration? Partly the reason is tradi- tion: America takes its traditions seriously, and one of them is that a new President must have a honeymoon. The attack is called off for a time, to give the poor man a chance.

But partly it is what one long-standing Washingtonian has called 'the demonsterisa- tion of Nixon.' Mr Nixon has been thought a monster for so long that people are relieved to find that he isn't after all. He has got credit for not doing things, as much as for doing them. He has not, for instance, started a witch- hunt in the State Department. He has not given up the struggle of the Federal govern- ment to get the state and local authorities to integrate their schools, which was what many southern Republicans hoped he would do. He has modified his position on what sort of nuclear arsenal the United States should have, in order to bargain with the Russians. The old insistence on a clear-cut superiority seems to have been abandoned.

Then there have been a few actions by his cabinet members and assistants which have reinforced the hope that Nixon and Company really do plan to try and do something about the worst of America's problems. Robert Finch has cut off funds to school districts which refused to desegregate, and some of the districts are in South Carolina, the fief of the egregious Strom Thurmond. Pat Moynihan, the urban- ologist in the White House, was able to dream up a scheme for improving one of Washing- ton's worst slums.

Most surprising of all was the outcome of the hunger hearings in the Senate. Firstly, a cut- back in funds for a proper investigation, ordered by the Rules Committee, was over- turned. (It is virtually unheard-of for the Rules Committee to be itself overruled.) Secondly, the Secretary of Agriculture agreed to try a free issue of Federal food stamps to the poorest people in certain areas. This is something that the Democratic administration had baulked at; it is not something you would automatically expect from a Republican administration. Teddy Kennedy is reported to have said to the man mostly responsible: 'Bobby worked for a year and a half to get done what you did in two hours.'

But these are isolated incidents, not part of an overall presidential plan. Mr Nixon has not revealed any major domestic plans, partly because he has been so tied up with 'foreign affairs, and here it appears that he is taking one big risk. His aim is to start talking to the Russians as soon as decently possible. This has been mentioned so often, most recently during his European tour, that people are coming to believe that a summit meeting is all but arranged, and they may be right.

The pretext is a discussion of arms limitation, but Mr Nixon, made it clear that he does not wish to restrict American-Soviet exchapges to one subject. 'I do believe we should go for- ward on settling some of the political differ- ences at the same time.' This approach is sometimes called 'total diplomacy' here, and it is a beguiling, seductive idea. President John- son tried a similar approach to the Russians, and got nowhere fast The Glasboro summit meeting between him and Mr Kosygin was con- sidered at the time to have been quite success- ful. But in the end it didn't amount to a row of beans. It may be that the Russians are ripe for this approach, but their actions in the last eighteen months hardly suggest this.

Still, to list all the weighty problems exercis- ing the President of the United States would be a weary business. Mr Nixon is a hard- working and patient man, and he has sur- rounded himself with some notable problem- -solvers; such as Mr William Rogers, the g Secretary of State. He seems, too, to have shed some of his rashness—another cause for relief and "demonsterisation.' It would be churlish not to allow him some time to think about all his problems; on the other hand, he was sound - and fury last year: he must start signifying something soon. He has been lucky so far in that there has been no crisis, as surely there will be. Then we shall see the cut of the emperor's new clothes.