NIXON'S FIRST SIX MONTHS

RICHARD NIXON'S White House is a controlled, antiseptic place, not unlike the upper tier of a giant corporation. It is staffed by briskly busy young men whose discreet, deliberate, disciplined manner accurately reflects the image of the Boss. The President is seldom seen by the press. The "Beaver Patrol"--the title given to the assistants of Presidential Aide H. R. Haldeman--scurry around with the Nixon orders and the memos signed RN. Working in the oval office, the Lincoln Room, or a new hideaway in the Executive Office Building, Nixon keeps ceremony to a bare minimum and makes sure that there are few official appointments to disrupt his organized days. After six months in office, say those closest to him, he is calm and confident--and pleased with the record of his fledgling Administration.

He has some things to be pleased about. The polls show 63% approval, and "Middle America" still seems to be in tune with him. Liberals in both parties, on the other hand, have begun to question his performance--though he has surely done better than they predicted before his election. In fact, his achievement record is mixed. On the plus side are foreign affairs, the direction set on Viet Nam, economic policy and an important psychological factor: the credibility gap that haunted Lyndon Johnson has been closed by Nixon. On the minus side is his lack of real leadership in the deepening social crisis of the blacks and the cities.

Foreign Affairs

In foreign policy, the new regime undoubtedly makes its best marks. Nixon has clearly demonstrated his Administration's interest in world affairs, not merely Southeast Asia's. Despite his past reputation as a hard-line antiCommunist, Europeans generally find the new regime less dogmatic and more open to discussion than its predecessor. The President's liberal critics, moreover, sometimes seem readier to fault him than Moscow; his impending Rumanian trip, for example, was denounced as a mistake by his opponents while apparently not ruffling the Russians at all. The Soviets appear eager for better relations, and the prospects for a slowdown in the arms race look better than they have in years. Last week, in what may be the beginning of a worldwide drawdown, the President announced that 14,900 troops will be brought home from various stations abroad.

The unhappy battlefield of Viet Nam, of course, will prove the chief test of the present Administration. Nixon, the onetime hawk, is determined to disengage. He has begun to lessen the U.S. involvement here and has put pressure on the Saigon government to seek peace. It can be argued that he might have done more--some dramatic move after the inauguration, a cutback in American-initiated ground actions. On balance, however, Nixon has done about as much as could be reasonably expected, considering the political, diplomatic and military perils of the situation. At any rate, he has completely changed the official U.S. attitude toward the war.

To Nixon's credit, too, is something that can easily go unnoticed: the absence of any major blunders or "over-reactions." Unlike John Kennedy, he has not had a Bay of Pigs in his first six months. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, he has not had a Dominican Republic. While he did nothing at all when the North Koreans shot down a U.S. airplane, killing 31 men, his restraint was well-advised.

The Economy

Inheriting a dangerously overheated economy, Nixon has moved forcefully to curb inflation. His economists have tightened the fiscal and monetary screws and, unlike Johnson, Nixon appears ready to maintain that firm grip even at the cost of greater unemployment. But some of his subordinates have been painfully inept, notably Treasury Secretary David Kennedy, who last week suggested for the second time since taking office that it might be necessary to impose wage and price controls if the surtax were not extended (see BUSINESS). He did this even though the President is firmly and publicly opposed to such a step. Nixon himself, however, is responsible for the Administration's early indecision on the surtax and tax reform. As a result, the tax is tied up in a Senate committee (the Treasury has been empowered to withhold the tax temporarily) and the financial markets may not know for weeks exactly how the Government will fight inflation.

Race and Cities

On the most serious domestic problem--the racial and urban crisis--Nixon has already failed his first test. The nation's blacks have been largely ignored, and the Administration has vacillated and backtracked on civil rights. While it has brought important court suits and cut off federal funds when necessary to enforce desegregation, its main thrust, in the proposed voting rights bill and school desegregation guidelines, has been to weaken the national commitment to end racial separatism. So far, the President has done or said little to convince the nation's Negroes that he is on their side.

Black protest has been quiescent for the past six months. It is possible that the President's tranquilizing tactics may work--but hardly in the long run. "Instead of cooling the crisis," says Whitney Young Jr., executive director of the National Urban League and a leading spokesman for black moderation, "this studied nonactivity is adding dangerous fuel to the pent-up rage and frustration of inhabitants of our black ghettos." As if to prove Young's point, the man chosen by Nixon to promote his black capitalism program--a major campaign pledge--angrily resigned last week. "It's useless to go on like this," said Philip Pruitt, who was assistant administrator of the Small Business Administration. "The President just didn't support the program. Rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric, but no support."

Administration and Congress

Most of Nixon's successes and failures might have been predicted from his past record and his campaign statements. What could not have been anticipated is his erratic performance as an administrator. Few men know Washington better than Nixon, and few place a higher premium on order. The President retains his image of methodical competence. Yet the Administration appears in many ways to be maladroit and insensitive. More and more, comments TIME'S Washington Bureau Chief Hugh Sidey, "there is an aura of ineptitude growing here that could spread to the nation. There is a growing feeling in Washington that Nixon and his men cannot manage the machinery; that it is too big, too complex for them."

Task forces and subcommittees abound, but their output so far has been slight. Final proposals by the President to Congress have been slighter still. As yet, there is no Administration policy on such high-priority issues as social security, poverty, welfare, transportation and the war against crime.

Stranger still is the Administration's failure to communicate with Republicans in Congress. Stories, some apocryphal, some true, are making the rounds about urgent telephone calls to the White House that go unanswered for days or weeks, or for good. There seems to be no ideological bias to the neglect, but Republican liberals are the most upset. Democrats, of course, were never enchanted with Nixon; so they could scarcely be characterized as disenchanted now. Nonetheless, there is a growing feeling that the President is a man who bends under pressure. Many were confirmed in this view when Everett Dirksen and other Senate conservatives defeated the appointment of Dr. John Knowles as HEW's Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs. Reports TIME'S Congressional Correspondent Neil MacNeil: "Individual Democrats like Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, are moving into the vortex where the decisions are made."

The Politics of Zigzag

Certainly few Presidents in U.S. history have had to deal with more difficult problems. Moreover, Nixon was elected by a minority. This fact has persuaded him that he must maneuver and enlarge his hold on the middle ground rather than take dramatic positions on one side or the other. From all appearances, he is following the politics of zigzag, giving way on one point to gain on another. His surrender on the Knowles appointment, for instance, was motivated in part by the need for conservative votes on the surtax and the anti-ballistic-missile system. There was much talk last week that he was moving to the right. Most of it was premature. When one of the President's top aides was asked whether the Administration was swinging to the right, he replied: "Sure--every other time." Only a few months ago, the liberals seemed to be in the ascendant. "It's the way you sail a boat when the wind's against you," says another White House staffer. "You tack. You average the headings."

Every Administration to some extent shifts and bends, compromises and changes in response to the prevailing breeze. There is no convincing evidence so far that Richard Nixon, for all his tacking, lacks an ultimate goal or a philosophy. Indeed, up to a point, a great deal can be said for responding to the winds. To his credit, Nixon sensed early that there is a rising gale against the Viet Nam war. His greatest challenge today is the clock. If within a reasonable period, he can produce a formula for peace, many Americans will be inclined to give him more time for the task of healing the domestic wounds. It is perhaps more likely that a troubled nation will demand progress on both fronts at once--and that may be Nixon's real test.

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