"It Was a Highly Unusual Situation"

The incident was brief and unimportant, in a week filled with other presidential news, but it gave the nation a rare glimpse of Richard Nixon, the man, reacting to the accumulated strains of many months. There was the President, striding up the ramp toward the Rivergate convention center in New Orleans, pursued by a cluster of reporters and TV cameramen. Suddenly, his face contorted in a burst of anger, he turned on his press secretary, Ronald Ziegler, who was following him. He seized Ziegler roughly by both shoulders, spun him round, and gave him a hard shove in the direction of his pursuers. "I don't want any press with me," he snapped. "And you take care of it."

This startling scene, viewed by millions over national television last week, provoked a flurry of comments and questions about the President's state of mind. Was the temper tantrum a sign that he might be buckling under pressure? "It was a highly unusual situation," explained Deputy Press Secretary Gerald Warren, "a difficult situation."

Hostile Queries. The shoving incident was doubtless a reaction to many months of agony. All Presidents have had to endure pressures of one kind or another, but probably none has borne a burden like Watergate, with all the related charges of malfeasance and general immorality. White House aides freely admitted that their boss had been "grim" and "tense," that he had experienced "disappointment" and "frustration." But they denied that his mood was affecting his performance as President. In a statement remarkable because of the very need for it, Warren told reporters: "There is no question in the President's mind and in the minds of those around him that he is capable of performing the functions of his office. He is leading the nation."

As best he could, Nixon tried to show leadership by once more seizing the initiative. He went to New Orleans to deliver a tough speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, in which he defended the secret bombing of Cambodia and said that he would be willing to do it all over again. After five months of sedulously avoiding the press, he held a news conference in San Clemente, where he announced the departure of Secretary of State William P. Rogers and the nomination of his successor, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's longtime adviser on foreign affairs and the architect of his foreign policy. Not even reacting to the announcement, the press assailed the President with a barrage of harsh and hostile queries.

At least part of Nixon's general irritation may have been caused by the week's most peculiar and confusing event--or nonevent: the discovery by the Secret Service of a "serious" conspiracy to assassinate Nixon in New Orleans (see page 12). The President had planned on this trip to mingle with the people and seek some reassurance that they still supported him. But his aides and the Secret Service were sufficiently alarmed by the threat of danger to talk him out of appearing in the open. A planned motorcade was canceled, and Nixon was whisked to the convention hall in a closed car. "He was very disappointed," said an aide. "It made him fairly tense."

That tension did not abate when Nixon arrived onstage. After having been presented with a peace award, he said nothing at all for a few seconds, as if he were not sure what to do. When he realized that it was time to speak, he turned his back on the audience, made an exaggerated, impresario-like bow to the guests onstage, and fairly bounded to the lectern. Occasionally, as he spoke, he slurred his words or mispronounced them. His animated gestures sometimes seemed to be unconnected with his speech.

Still, he made his points forcefully. The bombing of Cambodia, he said, had been "absolutely necessary" to save American lives. U.S. planes, he insisted, had raided only a 10-to 15-mile border strip that was occupied exclusively by North Vietnamese troops. To call such an area neutral was "simply ludicrous." It was also "absurd" to criticize the secrecy surrounding the strikes.

But the President ended his speech on a vaguely conciliatory note. He reached back into history to comment on the Duke of Wellington: "After every battle which he won--he did not lose any --he had a feeling of depression, and this depression was because he had seen brave men die on both sides."

When Nixon arrived at the Western White House in San Clemente later that day, his mood was still stormy. He was met by his secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who greeted him by saying, "We prayed for you." Nixon was overheard to answer: "They canceled. They'll never cancel another time." Reporters took this to be a reference to his irritation at the rerouted motorcade in New Orleans, but White House Spokesman Warren later told them that Nixon was talking about a different, private matter. Nonetheless, reporters pressed for more details about the President's unusual behavior. Was he taking any kind of medication that might account for it? Warren said he was not.

After reporters had gathered for Nixon's surprise press conference on the sunny cliffs of San Clemente, the President started out nervous, ill at ease, his face lined with fatigue and his voice occasionally quavering. But he gradually warmed to the challenge, and for almost 50 nerve-racking minutes he was by turn edgy, bantering, combative. He fended off his foes by supplying some details here, omitting some there, needling the reporters themselves--and giving some blunt answers. Asked how much blame he accepted for the climate of Watergate, he snapped back: "I accept it all." Asked whether he had any thought of resigning, he sharply retorted: "The answer is no." When the ordeal had ended, it was widely acknowledged that Nixon had not done himself any harm.

By week's end the President had demonstrated that he was not only fighting back, but that he was also restructuring his Administration to meet the crisis of Watergate. His appointment of Kissinger was the clearest indication to date that he means to enhance the importance of his long-enfeebled Cabinet and to give more independence to the men who work for him. Kissinger's new assignment, the President said, would "get the work out in the departments where it belongs." He thus served notice that he was opening up the hermetically sealed White House of John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, who had often prevented even Cabinet members from gaining entrance to the Oval Office.

For all the President's efforts to get back to business, Watergate pressures are not likely to subside any time soon. The public remains skeptical about his involvement in the scandal, as the latest Gallup poll indicates. After his nationally televised speech on Watergate on Aug. 15, approval of Nixon's performance as President rose from 31% to 38%, but 58% of the people who viewed the speech said that they were not satisfied with it. The Senate hearings reopen this month, and there are likely to be ample further causes for presidential tension.

But the President's puzzling behavior during the week is not necessarily symptomatic of a loss of control. As Psychiatrist Walter Tucker of Boston's Lahey Clinic observes: "It is certainly natural for people to show signs of stress when they are under stress. There would be something wrong with them if they did not." Adds New York Psy chiatrist Alvin Goldfarb: "In the past, Nixon has been able to show a re markable ability to marshal his forces and to continue with admirable tenac ity." That quality has not yet been placed in serious doubt.

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