Raising Cattle, or-?

My basic commitment with the President stems from the conversation which we had in which I said I never had an employment contract in my life, and I didn't want one, and that I felt my employer should be free to ask me to leave any morning and I should be free to leave any afternoon. That's the way it has been and that's the way it is.

When John Connally made those off-the-cuff remarks, he had already served notice upon his most recent employer, President Richard M. Nixon. The subsequent announcement of his decision to resign as Secretary of the Treasury sent tremors through Washington. In the 15 months that he has worked as the only Democrat in Nixon's Cabinet, Connally emerged as an extraordinarily powerful figure in Washington and abroad. Tall, immaculately tailored, silver-haired and handsome--a sort of Florentine prince from Texas --Connally left the negotiators for great nations awed by his skill as a bargainer. His execution of a revamped U.S. international monetary policy was at once suave and tough; it was essentially his hard-line protectionist thinking that underpinned Nixon's devaluation of the dollar. Recently, in the face of some Cabinet uncertainty, Connally urgently backed the President's decision to mine Haiphong harbor. Yet last week, at the acme of his influence, Connally quit to return to Texas; he will be replaced at the Treasury by George P. Shultz, director of the Office of Management and Budget (see THE ECONOMY).

Just an Office. Why did Connally resign? Speculation abounds. When Nixon first signed him on, in December of 1970, the former Texas Governor agreed to hold the job for one year. At the President's behest he said that he would stay on for an additional six months, through June. Connally, it seems, never had any intention of remaining at his post through the election. He said, "This is just a place to have an office," and scarcely hid his growing disdain for fiscal details. Nellie Connally recently whispered to a visiting Texan friend in a Washington reception line: "We're coming home soon." Says one associate: "John is a master at political timing. He's getting out before his enemies in Washington begin cutting him up."

Indeed, Connally's blustery, sometimes abrasive ways, coupled with his ready access to a usually inaccessible President, made him highly unpopular with more than a few in the Nixon circle. At a press awards dinner last week, Secretary of Commerce Pete Peterson wryly alluded to Connally's penchant for poaching in other than Treasury preserves. Said Peterson: "Almost everybody is sorry to see him go. The State Department is having a going-away party; it is now in its 32nd hour."

There are others who were not entirely appreciative of Connally's preeminence. For months now Washington talk has swirled about the possibility that Connally would switch parties and replace Spiro Agnew as Nixon's running mate on the 1972 Republican ticket. Agnew is rumored to be disenchanted with his job, but pressed on the point at a news conference last week, his pique showed brightly. The Vice President snapped: "I just don't understand how anybody can seriously believe a man who is a registered Democrat in the middle of May in an election year can suddenly turn Republican and be nominated as Vice President at the Republican Convention. We have a lot of good Republicans the President can turn to--but Mr. Connally just isn't it."

Still it is no secret that Nixon could use him on the ticket for his regional appeal in the South. The President may well need Texas' 26 electoral votes, which Hubert Humphrey won in 1968 and which Connally could doubtless deliver in 1972.

President Nixon has some plans for Connally, anyway. After lavishly praising his departing Secretary, Nixon said that Connally will "undertake some temporary assignments; one of those will be announced when I return from Moscow." That rather mysterious pronouncement could mean that Nixon feels Connally is the man to negotiate the ultimate bargain with Moscow and Hanoi to conclude the Viet Nam War. Other speculation had it that the President plans to put Connally in a more permanent slot come January--as successor to Bill Rogers as Secretary of State. One way or another, Connally would like to be to Nixon's brand of conservative nationalism the kind of active eminence that John McCloy was to the liberal internationalism in vogue long after World War II.

Connally claims that he wants simply to return to his Floresville ranch, relax and enjoy the fruits of his lofty labors. Still, he makes no bones about his ambitions, and must still hanker after the No. 1 job. There is an old prairie bromide which says that at a certain age a Texan chooses between raising cattle and raising hell. Connally has all the cattle he needs; unquestionably he will choose to raise considerable political hell for some time to come.

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