Nixon's Secret Protector

During the Johnson era, the Democratic White House courted Illinois Republican Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen with unabashed political passion. He requited the wooing. The Senate Minority Leader helped pass important L.B.J.-sponsored legislation, and in return reaped prominence and prestige. Ironically, Dirksen's influence has declined since the Republicans won the White House. The reason: he is no longer the foremost elected G.O.P. official in Washington, and Republican Senators look to the President for leadership. Now, instead of cooperating, Dirksen prefers to harass the executive branch.

Last week he continued his guerrilla warfare by delaying senatorial consideration of William Brown, Richard Nixon's Republican nominee for the chairmanship of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. While the holding action will not prevent Brown's eventual confirmation, it did embarrass Nixon and anger Senate Republican Whip Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, the man who had first suggested Brown for the job. Further, Dirksen continued to block the appointment of Dr. John Knowles, director of Massachusetts General Hospital, as an Assistant Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Although HEW Secretary Robert Finch has argued for Knowles, Dirksen is going along with American Medical Association opposition to the selection.

Presidential Rebuke. The Senator also objected for a time to the nomination of Creed Black, managing editor of the Chicago Daily News, as HEW Assistant Secretary for Congressional Affairs. At first, Dirksen said no because the News had opposed his re-election last fall. Later he relented when Senator Charles Percy intervened.

Dirksen was instrumental in getting Nixon to shy away from appointing Dr. Franklin Long, a Cornell chemist, as director of the National Science Foundation. He would not abide Long's opposition to anti-ballistic-missile systems and said so to Nixon's advisers. The President acknowledged publicly that he was shelving the Long appointment because of the ABM issue. Last week, however, Nixon reversed himself, admitting that he had been wrong (by that time Long was no longer interested in the job). Nixon's statement seemed to be a rebuke to Dirksen.

In resisting these appointments, as well as in opposing the Administration's effort to take postmasterships out of politics, Dirksen is in part mirroring Republican displeasure with the offhand manner in which the White House has been handling patronage--which is all-important to the politicians on the Hill. The pols are angry because in many cases they have not been consulted or even informed of the Administration's decisions. Still, Dirksen is far more vehement than his confreres. Why?

The Senator explained to TIME Correspondent Neil MacNeil that it was all for Nixon's benefit: "Golly, I thought it was so very obvious. The President of the United States lives essentially an isolated life. He has people around him. He has to depend on them to give advice, to see that he makes no untimely mistakes, to shield him from many things. I'd be an awfully poor Republican leader if I were not willing to shield the President of the United States from people I feel do him no good and could do him harm."

Count on Dirksen. Obviously there is more to it than Ev's honeyed words convey. Under the Nixon Administration, Dirksen has lost some of his former power and luster. Nixon, 56, is a generation apart from Dirksen, 73, and the President favors younger congressional leaders. Nor does Nixon deal with individual legislative barons in the same intensely personal manner that Johnson did. What is he going to do about Dirksen? If the Senator keeps embarrassing him, he could be forced into a direct showdown. A President does not easily lose arguments with his own party. On the other hand, an angered Dirksen can still cause untold amounts of trouble. Therefore, Nixon will most likely try to cool things down. At week's end he invited Dirksen to accompany him to the Kentucky Derby. As for Dirksen, he remained as archly disingenuous as ever. "The President knows all the time what I'm up to," he told MacNeil. "He knows that if there is anyone on this hilltop he can count on, it's the fellow from Illinois." Precisely so, but counted on to do what?

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