The American Scene A Milhous

round their

Ilecks

Larry Adler The White House hath an Oval Room s Designed with cunning care

, Who happens to be resident ‘-an ne'er be cornered there.

It looks as if the Oval Room is running out of apt.lales. Events are moving so quickly that this , St March I wrote here, in less than elegant Ipse: "It's my theory that the only way to get pcon to move his ass out of the White House t. at, but if you're still around come the midderro elections in November, we are IIMoth, 'Dick, baby, like we love you, dream e d, man'." Well, the song ain't over but the

, Who happens to be resident ‘-an ne'er be cornered there.

alaay lingers on. My bet is still on Goldfor Barry Goldwater to lay it on the line 0 any wily President

may be out of date before it's printed. (Y. P. Harburg)

water, perhaps accompanied by an armed posse, to make the move.

Nixon is now making statements, also having them made for him by the Haig-JulieZiegler axis, that he won't resign, that he'll stay "until Hell freezes over." Reminiscent of Agnew — don't tell me you've forgotten Agnew? — saying, "Even if indicted, I will not resign." And the blue-rinse-and-menopause brigade cheered and stamped their tiny tennis shoes and a week later Agnew — Spiro Agnew, come on, now, you must remember — resigned.

Recently, dining with Senator Jacob Javits in New York, I asked if Nixon were im.peached and then, by just one vote, the Senate failed to convict; what would happen? "Oh, he'd stay put," said Javits, "he wouldn't resign. He'll never resign." But that was before last week. Since that time Nixon has made the extraordinary move of releasing the edited tape transcript to the public. From then on previously loyal Nixon men have been like sinking ships deserting a rat. Also, solidly Republican right-wing 'organs like the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Hearst press have been sounding the trumpet for resignation or impeachment, which is roughly equivalent to John Wayne leading three cheers for Alger Hiss.

Nixon has taken two cruises on the Sequoia with his doctor, which may be paving the way for an easy out. Ill health, you know. Posters in Greenwich Village show a cadaverous Nixon with a slogan: "Would you buy a used Ford from this man?" But you may have to. Lots of muttering in New York about Nixon being allowed to choose his own probable successor. Many wished aloud that the US had parliamentary democracy. Sure, so do I, but with it you'd have the British press system, which would have effectively muzzled both the Washington Post and the New York Times on the Pentagon Papers (a D Notice would have stopped that) and Watergate. (Libel suits, sub judice, the lot.).

One man at a party: "When I was a kid I was told that any little schmuck could grow up to be President of the United States. But my God, whoever would have thought that any little schmuck would actually do it!"

Lately Nixon has taken to drawing an analogy between himself and Lincoln, two great Presidents proving that they could take it under fire. Nixon turned up at the Lincoln Memorial on the 165th anniversary of Lin coln's birth, quoted Lincoln copiously, or rather misquoted him, because, although most of Lincoln's famous sayings are engraved in

large letters around the Memorial, Nixon got them wrong every time. "Ours is earth's last, best hope," is what Nixon said Lincoln said,

and which he didn't say. "We shall nobly save

or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth," is what Lincoln did say. As Mark Twain said,

"Lincoln, if he could have heard it, would be

glad he was dead." There are those who suggest that Lincoln's probable advice .to Nixon

would be, why not an evening at the theatre?

During my New York visit I got the feeling that the malaise was less Watergate than in cipient deafness. A play, My Sister, My Sister was running. Music! Music! opened while I was there, followed by a film, Alfredo, Alfredo. I found myself muttering irritably, "All right, already, I hear you." It reminded me of the character in the radio show, Duffy's Tavern (Where the Elite Meet to Eat, Special Tonight Pickled Pigs' Feet) named Two-Top Gruskin. Two-Top, baseball's only two-headed pitcher, could watch first and third base simultaneously, but had stage ambitions to play the lead in My Son, My Son.

A show in the Village, Let My People Come (which means just what you think it means) was such a hit in previews that they dispensed with a formal opening, figuring that even rave notices can't produce better than sellout business, which they already have, so who needs critics? After the show the cast mingles with the audience, completely nude. (The cast, that is; God forbid the audience should be, at least on the night I was there.) Square that I am, I felt I wouldn't like my daughter to be doing that. She could catch cold. The cast hangs about — there must be a better way of phrasing that — until the last customer has left which, understandably. takes some time. The cast also comes around before the show and tries to inveigle you into a massage. This annoyed me; if I'm asked to participate, I want Equity minimum.

The Exorcist has queues several blocks long. The big hype has worked over there ("My janitors are going bananas wiping up the vomit") as it has not over here, where the reaction seems to be, "Not too different from the life of our own dear Hammer film." The Conversation is a big hit, with Gene Hackman giving another pluperfect performance. The theme is timely: bugging. Another perfect performance is Jack Gilford in The Sunshine Boys, a Neil Simon play about the vaudeville team, Weber and Fields.

While I was there the NY Phone Company started Dial-a-Joke, and if you dialled, you got sixty seconds of jokes from Henny Youngman: "We crossed a mink with an ape. Got a lovely coat, but the sleeves were too long."

"My wife phoned the garage. `My car's got water in the carburettor.' Where's the car?' In the lake.'" "My wife went to the beauty parlour. She was mere two hours. Then they gave her an estimate." "Don't forget, folks, dial again tomorrow for some more jokes."

Henny changed them every day.

Joey Adams, set to follow Youngman, announced his first joke would be; "When the astronauts landed on the moon, they prayed. From there it was only a local call."

Bus fare is thirty-five cents and you'd better have the exact fare ready or you don't get on. No change made. Bus steps are high, alarmingly so, and it is pathetic to see old people — all right, all right, senior citizens — attempt to board a bus, especially if they're carrying parcels. No one offers to help nor does anyone give his seat to an old person. But hell, that more or less applies here too. Incidentally, I found the following verse in a bus ad:

There's so much beauty in the blooming rose

And thru its life who knows where it goes Some roses will live over a season thru While others will enjoy part of the dew But even roses with all their splendor and heart Will one day their beautiful petals fall apart Man too, has his season like the rose And then one day he also must repose Universal Funeral Chapels "We Understand"

On TV one of the theatre's most distinguished actors reads a camera commercial. To

hear this splendid voice parroting the debased currency of Madison Avenue is bad enough; to see him demonstrate the camera like any huckster is simply appalling. I know, I know, we're all in it for the money. But it is still very very sad.

But revenons a nos moutons. (Let's get back to our mutton-heads.) One thing is especially fascinating in the Nixon transcripts. He or ganised the scenario — the game plan, to use his own jargon. He knew his conversations were being recorded, and nobody else knew. He seems to have forgotten this occasionally, because I can't imagine anyone in full pos session of his senses saying some of the things he said knowing he was being recorded. (The latest theory is that, while it's too late to have Presidential papers used as tax deductions, the law hasn't yet gotten around to tapes, which is why Nixon made them.) But, knowing what he knew, when was he being himself and when was he talking, literally, for the record? "Nixon: . . . We're going to prick this boil."

Or vice versa.

Larry Adler, the American musician who now lives in London, has just returned from a month's trip to the United States.