REPUBLICANS: Campaign from Mission Bay

While memories of Miami Beach faded like a vacation tan, Rich ard Nixon and his staff spent most of their time last week ministering to G.O.P. moderates, who still smarted at the winner's choice of Spiro Agnew as No. 2 man on the ticket. On the surface, at least, Nixon's efforts seemed remarkably successful. There was plenty of lingering bitterness, particularly in the Rockefeller camp, and some veteran Republicans even muttered that they would rather vote Democratic or not at all than vote for Nixon. But in general, and certainly with the professionals, party unity remained the big goal. One by one, the moderates vowed full, if not devoted, support to the Nixon-Agnew team. "All we see," noted one jubilant Nixon aide, "are smiling faces who want to win."

Michigan's George W. Romney, Pennsylvania's Raymond Shafer and Illinois' Senator Charles Percy pledged their help, while Washington's Daniel Evans, Rhode Island's John Chafee and Colorado's John Love--all three Rockefeller men--signed up for posts on the candidate's "key issues" committee. Nixon, comfortably ensconced at San Diego's Mission Bay resort, talked by phone with John Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller, inviting Rocky to his Fifth Avenue apartment (which, as it happens, is right next door to the Governor's) this week for a chat on his role in the campaign. Kentucky's Senator Thruston Morton, an early Rockefeller man, was named a special assistant to the candidate, with a reserved seat on the campaign plane. New York's Senator Jacob Javits and Mayor John

Lindsay were the only prominent G.O.P. liberals to hedge support. In response to 40 questions from reporters, Lindsay could find not one good word to say about the G.O.P. ticket.

Seeing White. The Nixon people have been planning their fall campaign since June--with the basic outline going back as far as the summer of 1967--and the Republican strategy is now all but complete. In essence, the pitch will be to whites, with the Negro vote a very secondary consideration. "You can't build a campaign on Negro votes that you don't have and probaoly can't get," says a top Nixon strategist. "We're going after the middle-class Democratic urban voter, and the buttons you push there are Viet Nam, law and order, taxes, inflation, and so on."

While expecting to receive much less of the nonwhite vote in 1968 than he did in 1960 (32%), Nixon at the same time hopes to do a little better than Barry Goldwater's minuscule 6%. "We may get 7%," says one adviser, "and we'll be lucky if we get 10%." But that tiny margin, reason the strategists, might be enough to tip the balance in a few closely contested states. Consequently, says one aide, "the boss" will be "talking a lot about black capitalism. He'll be going into the ghettos."

Building his hopes on the South and the Border States, Nixon is concerned that George Wallace might win a great many conservative votes that might otherwise go Republican. But for the long run, Nixon tends to discount Wallace's appeal. By November 5, say hopeful Nixon thinkers, Wallace's strength will have dwindled from the 16% the polls currently give him (in a three-way race with Nixon and Hubert Humphrey) to no-more than 4% to 5%, the "hardcore" racists. "The rest," says one man at Mission Bay, "are people who are just upset at things in general and want a change. We think we can work on that part." Law and order, Wallace's theme, will be Nixon's No. 1 topic, and every effort will be made to undercut the Alabamian on his own ground.

Sour Note. Unlike 1960, when he believes that he spread himself far too thin, the candidate this year will be highly selective with his time and energy, concentrating on television and personal appearances in about 20 key states. Nearly $12 million of a $30 million budget will go to TV, which Nixon now thinks that he has mastered. The TV campaign will begin this week, with reruns of Nixon's Miami Beach ac ceptance speech--in his opinion the finest he has ever made--on both the CBS and NBC television networks. Cost: $200,000.

The only sour note under the California palms was continuing reports of adverse reaction to Agnew, who Nixon had assumed would be the least controversial of running mates. "I doubt that even the closest friends of Spiro Agnew," said a Rockefeller aide, "would suggest that he is qualified to be President." "It's the same old tricky Dicky," complained Bayard Rustin, a leader of black moderates. J. Earl Bearing, a Negro member of Nixon's advisory council on crime, admitted that even he was disturbed by Agnew's billy-club approach to civil disorders.

Traveling Man. As a campaigner, Agnew was proving a quick study. Working with the Nixon staff in California, he was given a fast lesson in how to deal with the press, learning how to gloss over embarrassing questions and how to cut his answers from a windy five minutes to a streamlined minute and a half. In his first public appearance since nomination, he was a big hit, wowing a Portuguese-American association in San Francisco with language that will likely be repeated across the nation. It was an odd mixture of sensible patriotism and a smug defense of the status quo.

"There is in this country," he said, "a creeping paralysis of our national purpose, and we've got to do something about that. While there is hunger and poverty in this country, much of it is exaggerated. We must help the hungry and the poor, but let's stop overdramatizing what's wrong with the United States and start talking about what is right. I am tired of criticisms of the U.S. We are the most generous and compassionate people in the world."

Despite the furor over his selection, the Nixon people bravely profess their pleasure with the Maryland Governor. "If anyone visits all 50 states this year," says one, "it will be Agnew. He'll be seeing a lot of the country."

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