A FEELING OF FORBEARANCE

In the wake of Richard Nixon's election, speculation inevitably focused on the impact that his narrow victory would have on his ability to govern. Lacking a popular majority, or even a respectable edge over Hubert Humphrey, would he be hamstrung by an opposition Congress and hounded by his always numerous critics? The answer is likely to be: not for a while. After a year of crises and threats of more to come, the nation and the world seem eager for a respite. Moreover, the U.S. has long had a tradition of forbearance toward a new President: a willingness to let him show what he can do, even if he does not enjoy wide and enthusiastic public support.

Humphrey sounded the proper note when he met Nixon in Florida two days after the election: "I'm going to want his presidency to be an effective presidency, because as he succeeds, we all succeed." Gracious words from the loser are almost obligatory, but others under less compulsion to be generous to the winner after a close campaign also indicated a readiness to withhold judgment. Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox, a loyal Wallace man, sent congratulations to "my President." So did George Meany, while Walter Reuther, Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Whitney Young Jr. expressed good wishes. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a special target for Nixon during the campaign, said there should now be "no recriminations."

In this week's New York Times Mag azine, Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. allows that he finds Nixon more palatable as a President-elect than as a candidate, and concludes: "If Mr. Nixon can really listen to the diversity of ideas, agonies and hopes in this great and turbulent land, he may yet achieve the capacity to move beyond himself and to serve the nation and the world." Columnist Max Lerner, another longtime Nixon critic, wrote sympathetically that the President-elect "will need all the help he can get from all of us," and proposed that his opponents "meet him better than halfway."

One willing to go even further was John Freeman, London's Ambassador-designate to Washington. Six years ago, when he was editor of Britain's leftwing New Statesman, Freeman wrote that Nixon's record "suggests a man of no principle whatever," one who has "done lasting damage to the conventions of American political life." Freeman now argues differently, saying that Nixon "has proved by his success, and the quite admirable struggle which he has made to achieve it, that he has the qualities of leadership that make him worthy of high office."

Of course, Nixon can hardly expect the sniping to cease altogether while he gets his bearings. Chicago Daily News Columnist Mike Royko mocked Nixon for having won a "mand," or "about half a mandate." A mand, Royko wrote, means something to the effect that "We've got to hire somebody for the job, so it might as well be you. But try not to mess things up, huh?" Drew Pearson, an inveterate Nixonphobe, tried to be considerably more damaging with a story--given in a speech rather than a column--that Nixon visited a psychiatrist some years ago because of his difficulty in standing up under pressure. Both a Nixon spokesman and the physician, a former internist who now specializes in psychosomatic medicine, denied the Pearson story.

An Absence of Passion. Most people, however, were more interested in Nixon's future than in his past. Nixon benefits from the character of this year's campaign. Despite the tumult, there was relatively little passion expended on behalf of either major candidate. Consequently, the letdown for those who supported Humphrey was not too severe. Even many of George Wallace's passionate partisans knew all along that their cause was lost. Nixon's own style through most of the campaign was designed to make as few new enemies as possible.

Soundings by TIME correspondents around the country last week indicated that many blacks, activist college students and supporters of Eugene McCarthy still distrust Nixon deeply. But they are outnumbered by Republicans who have been Nixon fans for years and others who are willing to remain open-minded until the President-elect has a chance to prove himself. Whatever the vote totals, that attitude constitutes a mandate--or at any rate, something more than a mand.

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