Production Numbers

As the Democratic road show settled into Miami Beach for a week's run, the Administration managed a few deftly staged production numbers of its own, each designed for a special audi ence. For the nation's farmers, there was the news of a $750 million grain sale to the Soviet Union. For the aerospace industry, there was a $150 million export license granted to Boeing permitting the sale of ten 707 jets to China. For the oldsters, there was Richard Nixon's signature on a bill increasing Social Security benefits by 20% ; he protested that its effects would be inflationary, but he put his name to it anyway.

Except for the Social Security bill, these developments are entirely consis tent with established policies of the Nixon Administration, and could not be called political ploys. The exports to Moscow and Peking are a natural and widely welcomed outgrowth of presidential summitry. As Nixon relaxed last week in San Clemente, swimming and toning up his suntan, he demonstrated once again the tremendous power of an incumbent President to shape events and influence opinion. That simple circumstance remains perhaps the most important fact of life for the presiden tial candidate emerging this week from Miami.

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