What Nixon's Second Term Might Be Like

FOR nearly three decades Richard Nixon has been running for office, a paradigm of the professional politician. Attaining the White House in 1969 did not slake his ambition, but turned it to ensuring his re-election this year. If he wins in November, Nixon in a sense will be a free agent for the first time in his long public life. With no more worlds to conquer, he can move and act completely out of conviction and contemplate his place in history, rather than worry about his standing in the polls. How he might use those four years is a question that fascinates--and puzzles --even those in the White House and his party who know him best.

"Does he have a rendezvous with destiny or a rendezvous with himself?" asks New York Senator Jacob Javits. No one really knows what Nixon's view of history is, what he would like the historians to say about him. Is the real Richard Nixon the statesman who opened new worlds with his missions to Peking and Moscow, or is he the shrill and narrow partisan of the 1970 congressional campaign? There are those who argue that the President suppressed some of his more conservative convictions during his first term because they were not politically palatable. So he might be tougher, and he might also settle some old scores. Asserts one Republican: "Having prevailed and been ratified, having nothing further ahead of him politically, why wouldn't he grind his enemies under his heel?" Others foresee a very "relaxed" second term under a mellower Nixon, presiding over a healing "era of good feeling" in the nation. That, of course, would require a quite different use of Spiro Agnew, a less rhetorical and more substantive role for him in domestic programs.

Beyond such fundamental matters of temperament and tone, some specific second-term strategies and policies are already discernible. Nixon's enduring interest is foreign affairs, and in conducting them he aims toward an "enduring monument of his Presidency," says Henry Kissinger with his characteristic modesty. In his first term, observes the President's foreign-policy architect, "the President swept away the previous structure of foreign policy and laid new foundations. In his second term he will put up the house." Elements: an end to the war, the diplomatic recognition of China, major trade and arms agreements with the Soviet Union, a reduction of tensions in the Middle East and between the Koreas, a new set of world economic relationships. What Nixon hopes to prepare, as he has often said, is "a generation of peace."

At home the agenda is less ambitious, both out of necessity and philosophy. The top priorities remain the unfulfilled legislation of the first term: revenue sharing, welfare reform, health insurance and Government reorganization. As one White House aide said: "There'll be no innovations, no new programs." Why? "There will be no money." Indeed, with an anticipated $35 billion deficit this year, one of the first painful decisions Nixon may have to make in his second term is how much of a tax increase to seek. To avoid a tax increase, one group of presidential advisers favors a major cutback in Government spending. If Nixon is reelected, says one aide, he will "clean house. He'll zap some of those federal failures, programs that eat up revenues and don't accomplish anything. He'll set about eliminating some of those crazy Great Society programs. I'll bet he'll cut billions out of federal spending." -

Given a second term, predicts one aide, Nixon "will bite all sorts of bullets, especially in the labor area." The President, he explains, has always felt that much of the economic lag and inflation can be traced to the power of labor bosses. Two programs being worked up deal with property tax relief and a value added tax to finance education. Other proposals include such notions as a Hoover-type commission to diminish the size of the Federal Government, a national service corps of young volunteers, and a "conservative Brookings Institution" to increase the flow of conservative ideas for government. Says White House Aide Pat Buchanan: "We still do not have control of the federal bureaucracy. We need to develop our own philosophical roots there."

A second term is bound to bring a fresh team. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird wants out. The President might replace him with his old law professor, Kenneth Rush, now Deputy Secretary of Defense, HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson or New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. HUD Secretary George Romney wants to return to private life; his post could go to Donald Rumsfeld, presently director of the Cost of Living Council. Treasury Secretary George Shultz, Labor Secretary James Hodgson and Transportation Secretary John Volpe may bow out. Likely to stay on are Commerce Secretary Peter Peterson, Interior Secretary Rogers Morton and Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz, all Nixon favorites. Secretary of State William Rogers is certain to leave and is possibly due for the next Supreme Court vacancy. There are those who believe Kissinger would like to move over to Foggy Bottom and institutionalize his unique modus operandi. There are also those who think Democrat-for-Nixon John Connally wants State. If he gets it, Kissinger would probably soon resign, but the short-term collision of the Connally and Kissinger egos over who's in charge of the nation's foreign policy could provide the most spectacular fireworks display of the Nixon era.

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