On the Road

The same question had come up hundreds of times since the final count was finished on that bleak November day. And each time, Richard Nixon gave the same answer: "I'm not a candidate."

But last week Nixon was touring the Midwest on a G.O.P. fund-raising mission --and looking more and more like a once and future candidate for President of the U.S. In Detroit, he learned that the Salvation Army mistakenly expected him to attend a dinner honoring the 28th anniversary of its local residence for women. Nixon cut short a midafternoon press conference, dashed a dozen blocks across town for a quick, handshaking inspection of the spic-and-span quarters, then hurried on to keep another engagement.

The warmth of the crowds that greeted him was enough to lure almost anyone back to politics. He had to fight his way past well-wishers and autograph seekers in crowded hotel lobbies. Everywhere he spoke there were large and obviously enchanted crowds: 3,000 at a $25 box supper in Des Moines, 10,000 at a Detroit fund-raising rally, 1,100 at a $100-a-plate dinner in Columbus, where Young Republicans toasted him with a convention-style "demonstration," complete with victory banners such as "We'll do more in '64."

Avoiding the Ruts. In closed-door sessions, Nixon had long talks with local Republican leaders, trying to bring home the major lessons learned from last year's loss at the polls: the G.O.P. needs stronger city organizations, better candidates. Nixon himself was trying, with only partial luck, to persuade attractive Republicans to run for key posts. Senator Jacob Javits bowed out of the New York City mayoralty race (see New York) despite Nixon's urging. American Motors Corp. President George Romney was still pondering Nixon's suggestion that he run for Governor of Michigan.

On the public platform, Nixon fashioned his own criticism of the New Frontier--which, he announced, he would henceforth call the "Old Frontier," with its programs for "Government controls, pump priming, high taxes, bigger deficits and economic stagnation." He called for expression of a G.O.P. philosophy that would "avoid the ruts of reaction on the right and the ruts of radicalism on the other side." His main point was that it is time for the Kennedy Administration to substitute action for talk in the cold war.

"If I may use a blunt but expressive Midwestern term," he said, "we must 'put our money where our mouth is.' "

Worn & Warmed. Assailing the "errors" of Cuba, Nixon argued that President Kennedy "should consider giving notice to Cuba and the Communist nations that for them to continue giving arms to Cuba will be a patently aggressive act and will be regarded as such by us." He suggested that Kennedy should meet Khrushchev in a summit conference: "If Khrushchev assumes, because of some of the things that have occurred in the past few weeks, that our bark is worse than our bite, he may be tempted to push us too far. Thus he would precipitate the war neither he nor we want."

Nixon saved his hardest words for the fund-raising dinner in Columbus. There he ripped into Kennedy's welfare programs as "worn out and warmed over," insisted that national security and a sound economy have greater priority. "Everyone is for good housing and good health and good education for all the American people," he said. "But in a period of maximum danger to our national security, can we really justify these programs of what I would call 'domestic affluence'? This is a time to put America's security and solvency first . . . That means keeping the expenditures for nondefense purposes at a minimum and spending every cent that we think is necessary to keep America the strongest nation in the world."

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