Holding the Phone

There is a new face behind the telephone on John Mitchell's old desk at the Washington offices of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President. Replacing Mitchell, who quit suddenly at the demand of Wife Martha, is Clark MacGregor, 50, an affable former Minnesota Congressman who for the past 19 months has been in charge of President Nixon's relations with the Hill.

The red-haired MacGregor is a Dartmouth graduate who made a name as a moderate Republican during his five terms in the House. He has long been a Nixon devotee. A friend since their early '60s days as members of "The Chowder and Marching Society," a Republican congressional social club, he advocated Nixon for a second presidential nomination as far back as 1965. The fact that it was Nixon who urged him to take on Hubert Humphrey in a hopeless fight for a Senate seat in 1970 has had no effect on MacGregor's enthusiasm.

MacGregor, in fact, is fond of quoting from a 1970 conversation with Nixon during which the President cited a need for a higher "E.Q."--enthusiasm quotient. At his initial press conference last week, MacGregor firmly stated his belief that the President should delay any active campaigning until after Congress adjourns next October. "The best politics for the President," he said, "is continued performance at the very high level of competence he has demonstrated in office."

MacGregor later told TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angelo that he had noticed a "lack of urgency" among Republicans, and that he intends to "energize the troops. Mitchell's plans and programs are excellent. Now I need to move them into action." That may not be so easy. Said one Republican operative, somewhat unfairly: "We're supposed to leave campaign strategy to this guy, and he lost 2 to 1 in 1970?"

Out Front. For a time at least, Mac-Gregor's job in fact will be something like superintendent of nuts and bolts. The committee he has inherited already numbers 230 workers, broken down into a polling operation, advertising, nationality committees, direct mail and a section concerned with political organization. MacGregor also will be less of a back-room operator than Mitchell. He intends to be the chief political spokesman for the President. "I am going to be somewhat more out front than John was," he says. "I plan to have frequent press conferences and speak out. The President agrees that this would be a good role for me."

Despite Mitchell's sudden departure from the committee leadership, it is clear that the former Attorney General is not out of the campaign. Says MacGregor: "Mitchell will spend some time each week physically in Washington, and the rest of the time he will be as close as the telephone." The Mitchells are planning to move to New York from Washington, but it is not yet clear when. A White House aide summed it up: "I think that Big John will be chairman of the board. I don't see him that much gone." But then who really runs the show? "Clark MacGregor," says MacGregor sharply. "I'll have the benefit of his advice, but the responsibility is mine." He is not, however, as close to Nixon as Mitchell is. As a top G.O.P. strategist puts it: "John has the ear of the President any time he wants it."

That new background role will fit Mitchell nicely. He enjoyed his steady, quiet routine at the Department of Justice, and the long hours and pandemonium of the committee job were unwelcome. Says an intimate: "It was like walking in the door and having the whole building collapse around him." The pressures of the new job affected Martha as well. Mitchell was forced to spend much more time away from her, and friends trace her steadily increasing instability to his absences. Says a White House source: "He knew if he was going to save Martha, he had to get out." There were indications, in fact, that things were still not totally well in the Mitchell home. In a phone call made to her regular confidante Helen Thomas of U.P.I, after John's resignation, Martha reported that she was "still a political prisoner." Given her distaste for her husband's political contacts, it now looks as if at least some of the surreptitious telephoning in the Mitchell household will be done by John.

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