NIXON'S MESSAGE: "LET US GATHER THE LIGHT"

FINALLY, it was over. The apprenticeship in high places, the eight years of anxious exile in which he could only wonder if the chance would ever come again, the final months of combat, triumph and preparation anew--all that was behind Richard Milhous Nixon. Now, at 56, atop the citadel of power, he was ready to stand before the thousands in the Capitol Plaza and millions watching TV across the U.S. to take his oath of office as the nation's 37th President. In his inaugural address, he set out to sound clearly the tone of his Administration.

In keeping with his campaign promises and personal style, Nixon offered no new Utopias, delivered no exhortations to grandeur. Rather, he earnestly and soberly addressed himself to the immediate tasks of reunifying a divided nation and leading "the world at last out of the valley of turmoil. . . We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another," he said, "until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices. For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways--to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices and the anxious voices and the voices that have despaired of being heard."

No One An Enemy. Nixon chose not to deliver a detailed catalogue of policies and programs. His underlying themes were conciliation and equity at home, the quest for peace abroad. "Those who have been left out," he said, "we will try to bring in. Those who have been left behind, we will help to catch up." To foreign friends and adversaries, he extended this hope: "Because the people of the world want peace and the leaders are afraid of war, the times are on the side of peace. Let us take as our goal: Where peace is unknown, to make it welcome. Where peace is fragile, to make it strong. Where peace is temporary, to make it permanent." Realistically, he added: "We cannot expect to make everyone our friend, but we can try to make no one our enemy."

Nixon appealed to Americans to join individually and actively in solving the nation's problems--a standard passage in presidential oratory--but he did it in personal, vivid terms: "We need the energies of our people, enlisted not only in grand enterprises, but more importantly in those small, splendid efforts that make headlines in the neighborhood newspaper instead of the national journal. With these, we today can build a great cathedral of the spirit, each of us raising it one stone at a time, as he reaches out to his neighbor, helping, caring, doing."

The address was very much of a piece with the more thoughtful of his campaign speeches. It was hopeful without being euphoric, avoided partisanship.

It was aimed squarely at the national constituency that Nixon must rally if he is to be able to govern effectively. It was yet another effort to recruit a coalition from among the sundered political and ideological factions of the country, an effort he is bound to continue.

Nixon's emphasis on citizens' involvement in the affairs of their society was also an extension of his previous appeals. He did not suggest a retreat from the high degree of governmental activity that marked the Democratic Administrations since the 1930s. Rather, he pleaded for support from all levels of society in a drive for common participation that will probably be a dominant ambition of the new Administration. "I do not offer a life of uninspiring ease," he said. "I do not call for a life of grim sacrifice. I ask you to join in a high adventure--one as rich as humanity itself, and exciting as the times we live in."

A Common Destiny. As the speech suggests, President Nixon plans no frenetic hundred days, no volcanic outpouring of glowing visions and imperative programs.

One theory of presidential strategy has it that any new White House resident must stamp his signature on the times immediately or risk losing forever the chance to do so. Nixon construes his circumstances and opportunities differently--and with cause. He wants what one adviser calls "studious momentum." He is a minority President who faces an opposition majority on Capitol Hill, a centrist Republican who confronts a political left and right, both flaming with angry frustration.

Thus Nixon took extraordinary pains in framing his inaugural address. After maintaining a low silhouette since the election, he was anxious to set the right note with which to begin the exercise of leadership. The process began several weeks ago with requests for drafts from three of his speech writers and idea men, William Safire, Patrick Buchanan and Raymond Price. Nixon himself had read every previous inaugural address, picking as his favorites Lincoln's second inaugural, both of Wilson's, F.D.R.'s first three, the Kennedy speech and--surprisingly--the baroque oratory of Democrat James K. Polk. A favorite Nixon motto is "Forward Together," and Polk in 1845 chose compromise and unity as his basic themes. He deplored "sectional jealousies and heartburnings," entreating the competing factions of his day to "remember that they are members of the same political family, having a common destiny."

While preparation of the speech absorbed so much of Nixon's time and attention during the final weeks of the transition period, the process of transferring power continued at a somewhat slower pace than many had expected. The recruitment of officials below the Cabinet, sub-Cabinet and White House staff levels was apparently being done with great deliberation. Of the 300 top posts that Nixon might have filled before taking office, he had by last week named only about 100 appointees. Incoming Cabinet officers, notably William Rogers at State, have been asking assistant secretaries of departments to stay on for the immediate future. During the campaign, Nixon had talked of a "complete housecleaning" at the State Department, but, more recently, he said that he had "the greatest respect for the career State Department people." One associate described Nixon's mood: "He doesn't want to rip out and tear up. He wants it slow, orderly, methodical, measured."

Ganglia of Government. The task that confronts him is formidable. Beyond setting broad policies, choosing from the plethora of recommendations being churned out by his advisers, keeping close vigil over the Viet Nam negotiations and the conduct of the war itself, Nixon must establish control over the balky federal bureaucracy. The vast ganglia of government, housed in 141 buildings in and around the capital, cornmand 6,300,000 in military and civilian personnel (the figure was just 4,800,000 when Nixon left Washington in 1961). Somewhat apprehensively, this awesome apparat still waited for the impact of the change in party and President.

Box-Office Success. It was one of the ironies of the transition period that while the lower levels of government awaited new superiors and unknown policy guidelines, Nixon was nonetheless making himself felt at the top. On Viet Nam, particularly, he acted almost as a coPresident, assisting the Johnson Administration in bringing Saigon into the expanded Paris peace talks (see THE WORLD). He scrupulously observed his pledge to act in concert with Lyndon Johnson on foreign affairs from November through January.

The relatively cooperative, amiable tone established by Nixon and Johnson immediately after the election was preserved through Inauguration morning, when the Nixons and Johnsons had arranged to meet at the White House for an informal chat before riding together to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue for the formal change of command. The trip back--the triumphal parade that was to take the rest of the afternoon--was a box-office success. All 38,000 seats along the line of march were sold in advance.

With the Johnsons scheduled to leave for Texas later in the day, the new first family planned to spend Inauguration night in the White House. Inevitably, there would be many differences in atmosphere and routine. Among the changes: the Nixons plan to hold interdenominational prayer services in the mansion. On a more prosaic level, Pat Nixon may set up a beauty salon for the convenience of White House distaffers and the family.

But before any changes, global or minuscule, would be effected, before that first night's sleep under the nation's most august roof, the Nixons--and the Republicans--had the traditional celebrations to enjoy. At an estimated cost of $2.3 million, the highest in history (borne by the paying guests and the Washington business community), the festivities that started over the weekend with receptions, luncheons and a concert at Constitution Hall, reached a crescendo Monday night with six balls around Washington, at each of which the Nixons were to appear. G.O.P. bashes are traditionally more sedate than Democratic wingdings, but the Republicans still promised to produce hundreds of young "Nixonaires," dressed in silver-sequined miniskirts, at each of the balls. As the weekend approached, downtown hotels and suburban motels were jammed with guests from all corners of the nation. One of the most congested spots in town was outside the old Willard Hotel, where tickets to inaugural events were on sale. The Republicans did not have the field to themselves. A group of Democrats and some newsmen staged the "First Quadrennial Pre-Inaugural Extra-Dimensional Ball," and found a heavy demand for tickets. Meanwhile, antiwar groups organized protest demonstrations.

During much of the period between election and Inauguration, Richard Nixon purposely remained in the wings, saying little, digesting masses of reports from 21 study groups on problems ranging from the guaranteed annual wage to the post-Viet Nam economy. Now center stage is unavoidable. Nixon's first official address was an evocation of the striving and optimism that are basic to the American temperament: "We have endured a long night of the American spirit. But as our eyes catch the dimness of the first rays of dawn, let us not curse the remaining dark. Let us gather the light." The new President of the U.S. has that opportunity, and, indeed, an urgent summons to do so.

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