WILL PRESIDENT RESIGN? NIXON BRINGS RARE UNITY TO THE UNITED STATES

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33387, 20 November 1973, Page 18

WILL PRESIDENT RESIGN? NIXON BRINGS RARE UNITY TO THE UNITED STATES

i By

STUART McMillan.

of the literary staff of "The Press.” who has recently

returned from a tour of the United States on a State Department grant.)

For a while it looked as if Richard Nixon would neither resign nor be impeached. The Senate Watergate Committee hearings had dragged on through the summer until the oaks and maples that seem to be everywhere in the north of the continental United States had changed colour and the leaves were falling; some newspapers had pressed the Watergate issue so relentlessly that it seemed as if publication would stop if Watergate were solved; perhaps even the television newscasts would lie mercifully silent without Watergate; and a number of Congressmen and Senators might run out of things to say.

But the dismissal of the special Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox, changed all that. The resignation of the Attorney-Gen-eral, Elliot Richardson, and the dismissal of the Deputy Attorney-General, William Ruckelshaus, solidified the change. It is now hard to believe that Richard Nixon will neither resign nor be impeached.

There are those who do not believe it. They argue that when the crunch comes Congressmen and Senators will not impeach, nor bring enough pressure to force a resignation. They argue also that Nixon has a strong sense of his place in history, particularly over foreign policy—an almost Gaullist view—and that his sense of history does not include a place for himself as the President who resigned. Others argue that Gerald' Ford, nominated as Vice-1 President, who, if confirmed would become President if Nixon vacated the White j House, has not the political power to exercise the 1 influence necessary for the; Presidency, nor the guile to stay abreast of the subtle minds of Melvin Laird and Henry Kissinger, whom he would probably retain in his Administration. Others also foresee a rejection of Gerald Ford as being the choice of a man the country can no longer trust, and that the Constitutional appointment of Carl Albert, a Democrat, would thwart the will of the country which elected a Republican President, and thereby cause bitter dissention in the nation. Carl Albert himself holds the last view and says that if he be-

[came President he would rej sign in favour of a Republican. Time and unity I But time and the odd unity Nixon has given the country tell against these arguments. There will be no Presidential election until 1976. If an election were to be held within a few months perhaps the condition of 'suspended belief could be I maintained, perhaps people ; could steel themselves against the continuing series of disclosures. If it were only a few months Americans might simply become sadder and wiser about the mystique that surrounds the Presidency. After all, the United States has lived with so much recently that anything is possible for a few months. But not for three years. i The reason time is importwant is partly domestic, partly to do with foreign policy. 'The domestic problem is ithat the President of the (United States relies on his ipower to persuade his Ad- ] ministration, the American 'people, and Congress to accept his policies. If the President is no longer believed then his power to persuade may be lost. The country, as mentioned below, may function, but new policies cannot be implemented.

In foreign policy, the President has to speak with the authority of the country. During the height of the Middle East crisis it was suggested that the Russians had threatened to send in troops because they considered that Nixon was in too weak a position to act. There was also a suggestion that the seriousness of the

I Middle East situation had been magnified to divert attention from the domestic crisis. (The present writer I considers the last suggestion unlikely to be accurate because Kissinger and Laird, who would both have had to be privy to the bid. would have put themselves in a position of such enormity that they would have made the Watergate cover-up agents look in contrast like children who had spent the pennies that they were supposed to have put in the Sunday school plate.” But, nevertheless, the doubts exist and have been expressed, shocking many Americans, if not others.

Twice united I The other factor is the (feeling in the country. I Senator William Fulbright (holds that the United States is facing its biggest Conjstitutional crisis since the iCivil War. To the foreign observer it seems that there may be parallels between the crises. The Civil War imposed a kind of unity. Nixon has twice brought some kind of unity: once during his last election when all states except Massachusetts supported him, and now when the whole country seems against him. In the trip through the United States from Hawaii, to the west coast, south to Arkansas, and to the north, from which the present writer has just returned, he did not meet one person who supported Nixon. A few reluctantly admitted that they voted for him, and a few did not express any view, but it was not a subject on which Americans were inclined to be reticent. The anti-Nixon car-sticker business is booming. "Don't blame me,” one says. “I voted for McGovern.” “Don’t blame me,” another says, “I come from Massachusetts.” Probably, somewhere, there were pro-Nixon stickers, but not having seen any one might be forgiven for assuming that the proNixon sticker business is not a traditional American success story. Nation carries on

Possibly two things are happening. One is that the American people are discovering that in spite of the domestic crisis the countrV continues to function. The telephone service is as marvellous as ever and the mail services as hopeless. Civil servants go to work and have their salaries paid. The country goes on despite the fact that notice boards in government departments which list the top administrators have many names and photographs missing. The other thing that is happening is that doubts are being voiced about the system of government. To a foreign student of American politics it seems incongruous to hear from Americans that they wished they had a parliamentary system because then Nixon would have resigned long ago. Such doubts, voiced several times during discussions, may not last. Some people seem so anxious to be rid of Nixon jthat they would go to what ;they consider the dangerous extremes of the Parliamentary system. The other point, that the country can function while the Presidency is in disarray, might in time lead to a lessening of the I mystique of the Presidency — which in the view of .many Americans would be 'no bad thing. Thus, because of time and |the unity Nixon has brought against himself, the United States will probably see both the Vice-President and the President of one Administration resign. Maybe it will happen when the oaks and the maples of the north are completely bare.