Nixon's Fall

THE SUMMER HEAT exceeded all expectations this year. It began as an uncomfortable nuisance in May, but it gathered strength in June and July and grew unbearably intense in August. Aides were shoved and cursed as tempers flared on the Potomac. High officials, reddening under the sun, became increasingly reluctant to leave the secluded comfort of their airconditioned offices, and recalling the last pleasant weather grew increasingly difficult.

Then, only when it seemed that matters could get no worse, the heat itself faded.

Now the days are noticeably cooler than only a few weeks ago, and, for many, sleep finally comes easily at night. Autumn has arrived--a time for inflating the presidential pigskin. The season of year has proved enough to raise the spirits of the nation's number one football fan. Mr. Nixon, we are told, is on the rebound.

Accordingly, he bounced before a polite VFW crowd in New Orleans not long ago and celebrated his resurrection as a public man by taking credit for illegal bombing raids in Cambodia. The audience was predictably appreciative. Enjoying this taste of the respect Americans of status accord a president--no matter how shadowed he may be--Nixon held one press conference, and then another, to announce that he was no longer "wallowing in Watergate" but moving on to unspecified Business of the People. Within days he vetoed a health services bill--remaining undefeated in veto battles with Congress at 5-0--and signed into law a ban on profootball TV blackouts.

WASHINGTON and the people should be grateful to the president not only for putting George Allen on local TV, but also for shattering the spell Watergate has cast over us. The exploits of the Ervin committee often forced us to ignore the complexities of Return to Peyton Place or the cruel twists of fate of Let's Make a Deal; more importantly, this new horrifying talk show also pushed other horrors off front pages and out of prime time.

These sideshows occurred as far away as Indochina and were distinguished by no memorable faces or names. So they were merely grim diversions this summer, though in calmer, more thoughtful times, these atrocities might have evoked determined calls for impeachment. Already satiated with scandal, Americans meekly accepted the rest of the bad news.

THE MOST serious acts attributed to the Nixon administration remain crimes they readily admit--the widespread destruction wrought by U.S. military forces in Indochina. Endowed with unshakable faith in their good intentions, most Americans find it distasteful to use the expressions "war crimes" and "genocide" in an American context. Vietnam is referred to as "a tragedy." Demolition of hospitals, houses and non-combatant lives is termed "regretful." Nixon claimed that the massive bombing of Hanoi last December had him "in agony."

But American war stories and mistakes rarely have American settings. We cannot begin to understand what anguish means to the peasant whose life was ravaged in every facet by a defense of an indefensible regime.

Neither can we understand that the standards of culpability established at Nurenberg a generation ago apply to Americans as well as to Germans.

Believing that genocide and a criminal war, with all their fascistic connotations, cannot have an American form is a comfortable illusion, one--if we are ever honest with ourselves--that will come unraveled in time. The fact remains that for acts analagous to those ordered in Indochina, Germans were convicted and executed after World War II.

Like their German counterparts, President Nixon, Henry Kissinger '50, and other architects of Indochina war crimes may some day stand in judgment of some higher court. But the president has made it known he may ignore a Supreme Court ruling and the White House confesses that the Nixons have not attended church since last Easter. Clearly, no judgment weighs heavily on his conscience.

Probably none is forthcoming from the American people. Few Americans have not viewed the newsfilms, read the statistics or seen through the coverups of the Indochina war. Because of unyielding confidence in American virtue, they still underestimate the criminal significance. Electronic eavesdropping and official lists of enemies have imperiled our freedom for years to come, but while transfixed with the unfolding truth of Watergate, we merely counted down the days for a cruel systematic bombing of Cambodia. We numbly accepted the revelation of the Cambodian bombing coverups and the lies that structured them -- reacting more angrily to the lies than the bombings themselves.

NIXON IS RIGHT. Wallowing in Watergate has been our downfall.

Perhaps there is no limit to the abuse Americans will tolerate as a group if they believe they can still retain some measure of freedom as individuals. The media and the public have followed the president's resurgence only because they expect a final resolution to the Watergate puzzle this fall in a Supreme Court decision. Should the president ignore this order -- as he has hinted he may -- will he be removed from office?

Most likely, no. Congress ignored Rep. Robert F. Drinan's (D.-Mass.) impeachment motion that cited the illegality of the Cambodian bombings. When matters come to a serious discussion of what has always been "the unmentionable" in political life, many politicians will back away again. Senator Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), dimpled hero of the hearings, noted recently that although as many as 70 per cent of the American people believe Nixon has deceived them in some manner on Watergate, only 20 per cent actually favor impeachment. "A paradox?" he thundered. "No! Just the genius of the American political system in action."

What Baker calls the genius of our system is really our fear to admit that we have done wrong and our lack of courage to correct it.

These are chilling winds so soon after the summer, though they must be blessed relief to some brows. But most Americans are raised to seek the sun and its warmth, and for these Americans, the grim prophecy of so cool a fall is clear. There is a long barren winter ahead in American politics.