A NEW LEADERSHIP EMERGES

THINGS began to happen in Washington. After three months of cautious groundwork since the election and three weeks of intensive study and preparation since the Inauguration, the Nixon Administration signaled an end to the presidential interregnum--that period after the previous chief executive has departed and before the new one has found his pace. Though Richard Nixon remained fascinated by procedure and form, the predominant note of the week was movement. In both foreign and domestic policy, the U.S. for the first time felt the guiding hand of its new leadership.

Perhaps the most impressive fact about that leadership was that it moved so affirmatively in so many directions. It made a conciliatory bow to Europe, as to an old friend whose acquaintance has been all too neglected of late. It spoke soothingly, but with extreme correctness, in the direction of the Russians, inviting them to begin a new chapter in Soviet-American relations. As for the U.S., the Administration displayed determination to heal old wounds while it contemplated new ventures.

All of this was symbolized by President Nixon's second press conference, in which--using neither lectern nor notes--he held forth with a confidence that left no room for even his initial display of nervousness. He spoke mainly of foreign affairs, and opened by announcing that he will spend a week on a working tour of the capitals of Western Europe at the end of this month. Secretary of State William Rogers and Presidential Assistant Henry Kissinger will go along, though Nixon aims to meet tete-a`a-tete with the heads of government in Belgium, Britain, West Germany, Italy and France. He will also see Pope Paul VI in Rome, and make the ritual visit to West Berlin that has become almost compulsory. It will be the first European tour by a U.S. President since John Kennedy's triumphant swing in June 1963.

No Breakthroughs. The European tour is both good international tactics and sensible domestic strategy. Europeans were outspokenly dismayed by Lyndon Johnson's preoccupation with Asia at the expense of older Atlantic allies. Nixon's trip will counter that impression, perhaps inspire new purpose in NATO, and probably advance a Franco-American rapprochement. At home, the President can hardly expect a sudden breakthrough in the overweening problems of racial discord and dissent about the Viet Nam war. Europe is the area in which he can best hope to make some quick and perhaps dramatic progress.

The President's European consultations are part of a new stance toward the Soviet Union, an approach that is coming to be known in Washington as "total diplomacy." By building Western unity, President Nixon hopes to strengthen the U.S. position across the spectrum of common concerns with the U.S.S.R. In the President's now familiar words, he believes that this should be "an era of negotiation instead of confrontation." Unlike his predecessor, he also believes that negotiations should cover tough global political differences as well as the purely military matters that the Russians have been more eager to discuss. While Nixon has deferred answering a new Soviet proposal for arms-control discussions, he pressed ahead last week for Senate ratification of the nonproliferation treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons to nations that do not now have them. He also accepted in principle a French proposal for joint U.S.-Soviet-British-French talks on the Middle East crisis, which more and more seems out of control.

Although Nixon describes this as part of "a new policy on the part of the U.S. in assuming the initiative," the main U.S. thrust continues to be toward agreement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union on a solution to the Arab-Israeli impasse. Nixon's men also intend to make bilateral probes of French and British attitudes through their delegations at the U.N. When the four-power talks eventually take place, the U.S. wants to make sure that it does not find itself on the short end of a three-to-one international line-up over the Middle East.

The President also scotched talk of an immediate summit meeting with the Russians, though he did not rule it out for the future. "I take a dim view of what some have called instant summitry," he told the White House reporters. What is more, he explained, "I have long felt that before we have meetings of summitry with the Soviet leaders, it is vitally important that we have talks with our European allies, which is what we are doing."

Candy from Congress. If the Nixon Administration is moving with short, measured steps to deal with its foreign problems, its tempo in domestic matters seems slower and less specified. During the week, Nixon let it be known that he would recommend overhaul--though not outright abolition--of the Electoral College system. He said that he favored tax reforms designed to meet mounting congressional clamor for closing some of the loopholes that allow many of the very rich to live entirely taxfree. He has been in close touch with Arkansas Democrat Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the most powerful man in Congress on fiscal matters.

Nixon even made a move that proved unpopular with the Republicans in Congress. He decreed that it was "time to bite the bullet" and end political appointment of postmasters and rural mail carriers, urging their selection by competitive exams. Such men and women number some 63,000, all patronage jobs handed out by the party in presidential power.* Nixon thus moved toward carrying out the aims of the Kappel report, which called for removing the postal system from politics entirely. Complained one Republican Representative: "It's like taking candy away from a kid who has waited for it a long time." Still, Congressmen have long complained privately of getting their own fingers sticky: when they name one of the party faithful to such a job, they instantly make enemies of dozens of other hopefuls.

There is a good chance of further difficulty for some Congressmen in Nixon's appointment of Dr. John Hannah, 66, president of Michigan State University and chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, as head of the embattled Agency for International Development. Hannah is an astute, strong-willed man with years of experience in dealing with state legislatures and with Congress, and he promises to be a formidable adversary for Congressmen intent on cutting foreign aid.

Respect and Friendship. The President seemed intent upon leaving old attitudes behind. Though in the past he has referred proudly to his role in drafting the Taft-Hartley Act provisions for dealing with national-emergency strikes, he called those arrangements "outmoded." A correspondent asked him, "in light of your more than passing familiarity with the Hiss case," to comment on right-wing objections to the supposed past associations of Charles Yost, Nixon's U.N. Ambassador, with Alger Hiss. Nixon firmly rejected the bait. "What I am looking to now," he said curtly, "is his capability to handle the problems of the future, and not events that occurred over 20 years ago." Besides, he added, "there is no question about his loyalty to this country." Nixon's most impressive--and magnanimous--pronouncement to date may well have been his candid admission that even his own post-election task force on education "pointed up that I was not considered as a friend by many of our black citizens." Nixon went on: "I can only say that by my actions as President I hope to rectify that." The President, he said, "represents all the people. He is a friend to all the people. And I hope that I can gain the respect and I hope, eventually, the friendship of black citizens and other Americans." N.A.A.C.P. Executive Director Roy Wilkins conferred with Nixon for half an hour late last week. Wilkins criticized the President for moving too slowly in cutting off federal aid to school districts that lag behind in desegregating. Still, there was some cheer in an otherwise solemn week: a delegation of 15 Scouts and Explorers came to the White House and gave him a fishing rod to mark the start of National Boy Scout Week.

Easing the Path. Obviously well-briefed for his news conference, Nixon breezed through 24 questions in 30 minutes with only a few gaffes. Warily, as though they were still uncertain what to make of the man, U.S. headline-writers have assiduously avoided calling the new President "R.M.N.," on the model of "J.F.K." or "L.B.J.," or "Dick," though they never boggled at "Ike." For all that, his candor and directness have won him the increasing esteem of even his harsher critics in the press. He has appeared uncommonly open and responsive; even when he feels that he must duck a question, he explains why it would be unwise to answer. The lesson of Lyndon Johnson's "credibility gap" does not seem to have been lost on Richard Nixon. By making that effort, while beginning to move his Administration forward, he has already made the path of his presidency easier.

* Nixon is hardly the first President to have been vexed by the question of post-office patronage. In 1861, just after the Union defeat at Bull Run, Abraham Lincoln confided to an old Illinois law associate what had annoyed him in the presidency more than anything else: "The fight over two post offices--one at our Bloomington, and the other in Pennsylvania."

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