A Job with a Future

The two-hour political science seminar was called "DecisionMaking in the Federal Government," and the professor hardly needed to prep for it. Hubert Humphrey was a college teacher 25 years ago, before he entered politics. Returning to academe last week, he taught his first class at Macalester College, a smallish (1,900 students) liberal arts school in St. Paul, Minn. Far from retreating to an ivory tower, however, Professor Humphrey chose the campus as the ideal place to retrench for a political comeback attempt--perhaps for the Senate in 1970, more probably for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972.

The 50 or so job offers he received from private business after last Nov. 5 would have meant putting himself out to pasture. The green was all but irresistible; some of the proffered posts would have made him instantly wealthy. They included the presidencies of an international-development firm, two Wall Street brokerage houses and a major mutual fund. But all of them would have precluded further political activity. The most remarkable offer, however, came from the American who probably senses more keenly than any other a defeated candidate's need to work for the future as well as the present. Richard M. Nixon, after all, had done just that for the previous eight years.

Company Time. The new President offered Humphrey the ambassadorship to the United Nations within days after the election, when the two met briefly at an airport near Miami. He repeated his offer several times by telephone. Not only would it have placed Humphrey in one of the new Administration's more conspicuous posts; it would also have provided ample opportunity for political fence mending on company time, as it were. As an added lure, Humphrey was offered veto power over all Democratic appointees to the Nixon Administration in Cabinet, sub-Cabinet, White House and regulatory-agency posts. He was guaranteed a quota of Democrats to place in these jobs. As U.N. Ambassador, he would also have had Nixon's go-ahead to spend whatever time he felt necessary to rebuild the Democratic party. Finally, said Nixon, he knew that Humphrey would make plans to run against him in 1972, and "I understand that, too."

Humphrey refused, of course, primarily because the U.N. job would not have permitted him the necessary latitude to criticize the incumbent's policies. When the Vice President decided to take leave of government entirely, Nixon called on his own experience to make the move a bit easier. Remembering his dejection at having to travel back to California aboard a commercial aircraft in 1960, the President arranged for Humphrey and his wife to arrive in Minnesota aboard a presidential 707 Air Force jet--a bigger plane than he normally commanded as Vice President.

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