HOMAGE TO THE MEN FROM THE MOON

We were very privileged to leave on the moon a plaque endorsed by you, Mr. President, saying: "For all of mankind." Perhaps in the third millennium a wayward stranger will read that plaque at Tranquillity Base. We'll let history mark that this was the age in which that became a fact. I was struck this morning in New York by a proudly waved but uncarefully scribbled sign. It said: "Through you, we touched the moon." It was our privilege today to touch America. I suspect that perhaps the most warm, genuine feeling that all of us could receive came through the cheers and shouts and, most of all, the smiles of our fellow Americans. We hope and think that those people shared our belief that this is the beginning of a new era--the beginning of an era when man understands the universe around him, and the beginning of the era when man understands himself.

NEIL Armstrong's words to President Nixon in Los Angeles last week seemed all the more eloquent because they were unstudied, and because for once the usually phlegmatic voice of the first man on the moon quavered with emotion. His fellow astronauts were equally moved by the climax of their triumphant daylong sweep across the entire U.S. Mike Collins declared himself "proud to be an inhabitant of this most magnificent planet." Said Buzz Aldrin: "This is an honor to all Americans who believed, who persevered with us. We can do what we will and must and want to do."

The eloquence of the Apollo 11 trio provided the finest moments of Richard Nixon's elaborate state dinner in their honor. Nixon stage-managed the program for the ballroom of the Century Plaza Hotel, summoning the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps from Washington, decreeing that a song be written and performed for the occasion. The President himself approved the menu right down to the clair de lune dessert, a sphere of ice cream topped with a tiny American flag. Pat Nixon personally okayed the table decorations, which included gold napkins and cloths, flower centerpieces and twinkling five-pronged candelabra. The state dinner for the astronauts was held the farthest ever afield from Washington; it was the costliest (about $50,000) and the biggest of all time (1,440 guests, v. the 140 normally accommodated in the White House State Dining Room).

No Autographs. "Everyone coming is a dignitary in his own right," a White House spokesman proclaimed before the dinner. Chief Justice Warren Burger was there, the whole Cabinet except Attorney General John Mitchell (who was addressing the American Bar Association convention in Dallas), 44 Governors, 50 Senators and Representatives, and ambassadors and charges d'affaires from 83 lands. Other guests included Nixon Friends Bebe Rebozo and Billy Graham, Aerospacemen Wernher von Braun and Willy Messerschmitt, and a nostalgic gallery of showbiz figures that included Rudy Vallee, Cesar Romero, Edgar Bergen and Gene Autry. Aviation Pioneers Howard Hughes and Charles Lindbergh were invited, but neither broke his long, self-imposed seclusion to come.

Democrats were thin on the ground at Nixon's party. Hubert Humphrey and Lester Maddox came, but no invitations went to either Edward Kennedy or California's junior Senator, Alan Cranston. On the other hand, Republican Barry Goldwater turned up with his son Barry Jr., 31, newly elected to Congress, who wanted to collect autographs from the astronauts at the head table during dinner. "It's all right," Presidential Special Assistant Dwight Chapin told him coldly. "But if you do, you'll never be invited to another White House function." Young Goldwater desisted.

Not Summer but Western. Nixon was very much the impresario. He gestured like a would-be conductor to The Stars and Stripes Forever, escorted Armstrong and then Collins around the floor between courses, stood to lead applause for the band during The Marines' Hymn, beamed paternally as he awarded the astronauts the Medal of Freedom.* Delightedly he announced that it was "the highest privilege I could have" to offer a concluding toast to Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. The President seemed relaxed and already refreshed from his first few days of vacation in nearby San Clemente at his new Western White House. (He has passed the word that it is not to be called "the summer White House," a phrase that evidently conveys too idle an image.)

Suddenly Silent. The President had only 50 miles to come by helicopter from San Clemente; for the astronauts, the trip to Los Angeles took a bit longer -- 12 1/2 hours and 3,875 miles from Houston in a hopscotching presidential jet. It was made easier by perfect weather along their route.

In all the long day, the eeriest moment came at the beginning of the Chicago ceremonies. As the huge crowd quieted down, the familiar voice of John Kennedy, recorded during a 1961 special message to Congress, echoed across the vast, suddenly silent plaza. "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth . . . " The hush acknowledged the setting of an awesome task only eight years ago, a time that seemed to be both very recent and oddly remote. The cheering that ensued was for the men who reached that ineffable goal--and for the nation that persevered to make it possible.

* The Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award, was created in 1945 as a wartime decoration and revived by John Kennedy in 1963 as an American counterpart to the Queen's list of Birthday Honors in Britain. In the Nixon Administration, the only other recipient has been Duke Ellington.

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