The Bavarian Candidate

THERE actually was a time in this country when we used to ask ourselves periodically which "new" Richard Nixon was the "real" Richard Nixon. No longer. We have adjusted to the fact that the real Nixon-if he exists at all-will never reveal himself; it is enough now to merely try and decipher all the nuances of the current Nixon and let it go at that.

The newest new Nixon has only been around for about seven months. It is important that we do try to understand him, for he is perhaps the worst Nixon of them all. He is the Nixon that has given us Cambodia, Kent State, and, this fall, the loudest and most terrifying election campaign in memory. He is the Nixon that represents a clear and present danger to our country and our lives.

This latest Nixon is not to be confused with the one who was elected President two years ago this week. That Nixon, you may recall, was the "Bring Us Together" man, the low-profile President who went about his business as quietly as possible, if also as deviously as possible. A President as detestable in his way as LBJ was in his-yet calmer, dull.

Suddenly, after the Carswell defeat in the Senate, that Nixon disappeared. In his first display of temper since taking office, the President lashed out at the Senators who had vote against his defeated Supreme Court nominee. And that was just the beginning. What followed was a widening of the war, a statement telling students that they could expect to be shot if they participated in unruly campus protests, and, last week, a plea to American voters to give him a mandate to deal with the "thugs" he considers a threat to our society.

What turned Nixon, the quiet reactionary, into Nixon, the mad dog? It is hard to say; quite possibly we will never find out. But whatever the reasons-psychological or otherwise-there is plenty of evidence to suggest that something has snapped in the White House.

It does seem fairly clear that the turning point came with the Carswell defeat. As a New York Times political reporter visiting Harvard last spring suggested to a group of students he talked with, it seems quite plausible that Nixon suffered some kind of severe psychic setback after that Senate vote. The reporter felt as well that the then ongoing Cambodian crisis-both the invasion and the super patriotic rhetoric surrounding it-was a product of the same upset mind. He added, of course, that the President was sufficiently isolated from reporters and public that it might take more than a year to discover any stripped gears in the Chief Executive's brain.

At the height of the Cambodian crisis-the morning of the march on Washington protesting it-President Nixon made a surprise 5 a. m. appearance at the Lincoln Memorial to chat with demonstrators who were encamped there. The most detailed report of this appearance was written by Parker Donham of the Boston Globe, who interviewed moderate students who had talked with the President. They described Nixon as being incoherent (indeed unable to put a sentence together), sickly looking and somewhat frightening. One of those interviewed described the President as "a robot out of control." In any case, he stammered, broke off into mumbles, stared constantly at his shoes-and was capable of conversing only on the subject of surfing.

THE PRESIDENT was not terribly visible over the summer, but he has made up for it during the last few weeks of the election campaign. The campaign was not only dirty and disgusting-but also revealed an Administration bent on practicing a noisy, unsubtle and, of course, insane brand of right-wing politics.

The key event of this campaign came last Thursday night, when Nixon spoke in behalf of Republican candidates George Murphy and Ronald Reagan in San Jose, California. When Nixon emerged from the hall, he was greeted by about a thousand demonstrators, who, up to his appearance, had been peaceful. Oddly enough, a path had not been cleared for the President. Nor had an alternative route for his departure been considered. The crowd was allowed to move up close to Nixon, and the crowd was becoming vocally hostile.

But did Nixon get in his car and drive away? No. He climbed up onto the limousine's roof and flashed the "V" sign, later telling a Newsday reporter, "That's what they hate to see." The White House later explained that the President greeted the demonstrators in that manner because he had thought he had seen some "friendly faces" in the crowd. Taunted in this manner, demonstrators threw eggs and other debris towards the motorcade-but later reports have raised the possibility that the President's car was not even hit.

In a campaign in which the Administration had been trying to identify the Democratic party with permissiveness, crime and anarchy, Nixon now had the incident he needed to sew the whole fabric together. But at what price?

According to subsequent police reports, the security surrounding Nixon's departure from the hall in San Jose was hardly tight. There could have been an alternative route away from the place; in any case, Nixon's proximity to and taunting of the demonstrators could have been avoided. After the assassinations of recent years, are we to believe that these security break-downs were mere slip-ups? Hardly.

Whatever the Administration wants us to believe, the facts seem to suggest that the whole incident was as close to being staged as possible. While that is lamentable in itself, it raises a bigger question: What does it mean when the President is willing to risk assassination in order to get law-and-order candidates like George Murphy elected to the Senate? Is this man sane?

Luckily for Nixon he got his incident without getting shot down from the roof of his car. He and Vice President Agnew proceeded to milk it for all it was worth over the weekend.

On Friday night in Anaheim-home of Disneyland-Nixon made a speech dramatizing the San Jose incident before a throng of screaming Orange County supporters. The Republican party bought television time that night to broadcast the address-and it was as good a show as any late-night horror film. His eyes rolling around in his skull, his hands chopping the air in shaky spastic motions, the President asked the nation to draw the line against those who condone and excuse violence.

Meanwhile, in Belleville, Illinois, Agnew told Americans to vote for Republicans Senators so that the Administration would have the means to pass legislation that would separate the "misfits" and "garbage" from society. A comparison between this kind of rhetoric and the fascist appeals in Germany in the early thirties is more than a little instructive.

There is, to be sure, something wrong in the White House. The Administration did not merely stage a law-and-order campaign. It was more than that. As Sen. Edmund Muskie said in his moving address to the nation on election eve, Nixon was asking the people to give him power over their freedom so that he can protect them. Repression is hardly the word for this. Fascism is.

Luckily-for now anyway-Nixon has been thwarted. Murphy's losing campaign was not helped by the San Jose fracas, and there was little in the election returns to indicate a sweeping national desire for a police state. But we aren't about to get off that easy. Nixon's behavior since the Carswell defeat-particularly last week-indicate the lengths to which he is willing to go to get what he wants. He has gone off the deep end. If he is willing to risk his life, he is certainly willing to ignore the Bill of Rights.

Now that the election is over, there seems to be very little to be done. Nixon has the next move-and perhaps that move will indicate the manner in which we can fight. It is not, though, a business-as-usual situation. As one student explained matter-of-factly to the Times last week, "I watched [Nixon] on television the other night and it was like watching old movies of Hitler."