Nixon: A Fresh Burst of Summitry

WHILE troubles piled up in Congress for President Nixon last week, he announced a series of surprise summit meetings that will have him jet-hopping from island to island and coast to coast over the next two months. It was something of a whirling-dervish act with a serious motive: before he undertakes his historic mission to China, he wants to make sure that key heads of state have been consulted and accommodated. Under the watchful eye of Henry Kissinger, the President will meet with:

> French President Georges Pompidou for two days in mid-December in the Azores;

> British Prime Minister Edward Heath the following week in Bermuda; > West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who will come to Key Biscayne, Fla., in late December; > Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato, who will visit San Clemente in January; >Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, almost certainly, at some point not yet determined.

This unprecedented round of summit talks is intended to deliver a clear message to Peking: the U.S. President will be speaking not just for his own nation when he arrives in China but for the Western world as well.

France was singled out for the initial meeting because of the role it had played in arranging the China trip; Paris had served as an intermediary between Washington and Peking, smoothing out many details. Beyond that, President Pompidou has been the latest Western leader to talk to Soviet Boss Leonid Brezhnev, and Nixon is anxious to know what is on the Russian's mind before he goes to China. Nixon feels he enjoys a special relationship with Pompidou. "I find the French President a man very much like myself," he once remarked. The French President reciprocates the feeling. On leaving the U.S. after a visit in 1970, Pompidou remarked that he and Nixon shared a "communion of temperament."

The talks with Pompidou, Heath and Brandt will be far-ranging. They will include the forthcoming European security conference and the proposed mutual reduction of forces between the Warsaw Pact nations and the NATO countries. Since Secretary of the Treasury John Connally is accompanying Nixon and Henry Kissinger, the international economic impasse will also be discussed --though not likely resolved (see THE ECONOMY). The summit conference with Sato will give the Prime Minister a badly needed boost at home, where his reputation has been seriously damaged by the sudden U.S. policy reversals on both China and international trade.

Campaign Dilemma. To keep American power from being undermined at a critical stage in overseas developments, the President ordered an all-out lobbying effort to defeat the Mansfield Amendment, which would have reduced U.S. forces in Europe by 60,000. Though the proposal was heavily supported in the beginning, it was defeated in the Senate last week by a comfortable 15-vote margin. The President's domestic design did not fare so well. He had urged Congress to pass a $27.4 billion tax cut to stimulate the economy. The House gave him about what he asked for, but the Senate handed him much more than he wanted: another $11 billion in tax relief, mainly for individuals.

Much of what the Senate added is expected to be whittled down by House-Senate conferees, but the most worrisome amendment will be the hardest to remove. It provides each of the major political parties with $20.4 million for the 1972 presidential campaign. Adopted by an almost strictly party vote, it is patently aimed at bailing the Democrats out of their financial predicament. As an instrument of campaign reform, it is suspect: it concentrates an awesome amount of cash in the hands of one man in one election. Because of its blatant partisan appeal, the Senate amendment jeopardizes the chances of the more sensible campaign bill now being considered by the House. But the Democrats would be overjoyed to have millions, no questions asked, from federal coffers. The Republicans, on the other hand, would have no trouble raising as much as $40 million from private sources. But the amendment specifies that if a party chooses to accept private contributions, it must forgo the federal handout.

It is a painful political dilemma. The White House would like to get the amendment killed in conference, but the House Democratic leadership is as happy with the proposal as Senate Democrats were. Republican congressional leaders mutter darkly of a presidential veto of the entire tax bill. Still, Nixon badly needs the bill if his rosy promises of economic upturn in 1972 are going to be realized. If they are not, his re-election could be in doubt.

Along with their other rebukes of the week, Senate Democrats continued to give Nixon a bad time on his nominations. His two choices for the U.S. Supreme Court, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist, finally won the approval of the Judiciary Committee--only after prolonged quibbling by some of its members. But another nomination ran into unexpected trouble. While ticking off the business still ahead of the Senate in the remainder of the session, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield remarked: "Bringing up the rear will be the nomination of Mr. Butz as Secretary of Agriculture." After the Senate stopped laughing, Minority Leader Hugh Scott added: "I can envision the headlines: SENATE SITS ON BUTZ." It was no joke. Earl Butz's nomination was reported out of the Agriculture Committee by only 8 to 6, and the committee is more conservative as a whole than the Senate. It was no surprise that liberal Democrats opposed his nomination on the grounds that he is too friendly to big farmers and not friendly enough to small ones. But the No votes of conservative Southerners and Midwestern Republicans came as something of a shock to the Administration. The President doubtless found some solace in a midweek visit to his favored Washington Redskins. He delivered a little pep talk: "What really proves that a person or a team or a country has it is not when it is winning and everybody is with them and everybody is cheering them on, but when it has lost one and then does not lose its spirit. It comes back and goes on to win." Such, at any rate, is the presidential game plan.

Pat into the Fray

In 1960, Pat Nixon was one of the pluses in her husband's campaign for the presidency. With the cloth coat and shirtwaist dresses, she added a humanizing grace to Nixon's race against John F. Kennedy. But in the eight years that separated the two Nixon presidential campaigns, Pat Nixon changed. The bitter defeat in the 1962 California gubernatorial race and the long road back left their marks. During the 1968 campaign, she was little more than a speaker's platform mannequin, hair carefully coiffed, legs properly crossed at the ankles, the smiles and pattering applause from her gloved hands correctly timed but somewhat mechanical.

As First Lady, she has presided over White House teas and receptions with quiet charm. But Mrs. Nixon has avoided the clamor of a public person--except for her notably successful trip to earthquake-devastated Peru in June 1970. All this, however, is apparently coming to an end. In January, Mrs. Nixon will travel to the inauguration of William R. Tolbert Jr. as Liberia's President. It will be the first time an American First Lady has visited the African continent, or served as the U.S. representative at the inauguration of a foreign chief executive. After the ceremonies in Liberia, Mrs. Nixon will visit Ghana and the Ivory Coast. She will accompany the President to Moscow. And Peking? "I'm lobbying for it," she says. White House political strategists are also planning a more active role for the First Lady in the election campaign. Whether at presidential request or by her own choice, Pat Nixon has changed again.

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