Word-Game Plan

Despite the Instant Analysis and the Effete Snobs, the Silent Majority supports Vietnamization, and the steady Winding Down has allowed our allies to Hack It. On the domestic side, though, the Game Plan could use a little Benign Neglect.

Could anyone reading those lines before President Nixon's inauguration have had the vaguest notion of what they were about? Not likely, which is the point William Safire makes in the introduction to his second edition of The New Language of Politics (Collier Books; $4.95), a lexicographic gallimaufry of political catch phrases. Safire, 42, a top Nixon speechwriter, published the first edition in 1968; the controlling theme was that political terms are among the most colorful and inventive in the English language, and that each new President creates neologisms. So do his opponents. Johnson gave us the Great Society and the War on Poverty, his enemies Credibility Gap and Big-Daddyism.

Safire published a second edition so quickly because of the bounteous contributions of President Nixon and that empyreal employer of epigram, Spiro Agnew. Since the language of politics is essentially the lexicon of propaganda, the tone of the Nixonisms reflects what are perceived to be the shifting moods and needs of the nation. Thus, Safire observes, the Great Unwashed is undesirable, while the Silent Majority is praiseworthy. Nixon's critics, says Safire, have manufactured their own verbal ammunition, such as Nixonomics and Southern Strategy.

Safire also notes that events of the past four years have produced or popularized a battery of phrases that came from neither the Administration nor its attackers. Notable among these are Women's Lib, Machismo and Middle America. But the Nixon team clearly walks away with the flight-of-fancy award, for which Safire must take part credit. As a Nixon and Agnew speechwriter, Safire is himself, responsible for Nattering Nabobs of Negativism.

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