NIXON'S WORST WEEK

It did not take an alarmist of Chicken Little proportions to discern that bits of sky were falling on the Nixon Administration. The Haynsworth case, the Green Beret debacle, disarray in the Justice Department, the Republican loss in a congressional special election, bitter debate over Viet Nam--all at once all the news was bad. Yet somehow, Nixon seemed unconcerned and aloof from it all. Hugh Sidey, TIME'S Washington Bureau chief, found that attitude perhaps as alarming as the events themselves in the most trying time Nixon has yet had in office, and offered this analysis:

RICHARD NIXON conceived his presidency in contrast to Lyndon Johnson's. Nixon won the election partly because he was so successful in the use of cosmetics and electronics. In power he intended to pursue the same course. Johnson was loud, Nixon would be soft. Johnson was secretive and deceptive, Nixon open and candid. Johnson played cronyism while Nixon would seek counsel from friend and foe. Johnson became the symbol of a political manipulator, but Nixon would abandon his old style of partisanship to strike a pose as statesman of all the people. The script said in large letters: AVOID LYNDON JOHNSON'S MISTAKES.

Crucial Months. It isn't working. For all the President's intelligent instincts, last week--the worst for Nixon since taking office--showed how easily history can repeat itself. Nixon had tried to fine-tune his war policy by modulated maneuvers, but suddenly the home front reverted to a battle for the weary hearts and minds of Americans. There are no lines from the White House that link up with the Vermont Avenue headquarters of the Viet Nam Moratorium Committee, whose first nationwide demonstration, scheduled for Oct. 15, appears to be gathering momentum beyond all expectations. Nixon cannot turn a knob or issue an order that will still Democratic Senators Mike Mansfield and William Fulbright. He cannot even silence Republican Senator Charles Goodell.

In the splendid serenity of Camp David on Sept. 27, Nixon allowed the partisan and the tough infighter to reappear. Meeting with Republican legislative and party leaders, he declared that he did not intend to be the first American President to lose a war (see story page 17). He railed against those who would "bug out." He talked of the crucial nature of the next "couple of months." That meeting placed Nixon shoulder to shoulder with L.B.J. in an unwinnable fight against those whom Johnson once described as "nervous Nellies." Nixon's presidency may never be the same again.

Automatic Honor. The Administration also may not quickly recover from the matter of Judge Clement Haynsworth's financial affairs. With Eisenhower's old dictum about being "clean as a hound's tooth" as a possible rationalization, the Administration helped nudge Abe Fortas off the Supreme Court. Now, because of the casual approach that Attorney General John Mitchell took, Nixon finds himself on the defensive over the Haynsworth nomination. Those who believe that a judge should be above suspicion may be forgiven if they view both men through one lens.

Of all the Johnson Administration's plagues, none was so virulent as the credibility gap. Yet last week Washington witnessed one of those painful rituals in which the White House was forced to acknowledge--after earlier evasions --that the President had, after all, been personally involved in the dismissal of murder charges against the Green Berets.

Sometimes it seems that Nixon and his men were flash-frozen back in the mid-'50s, when the U.S. was primarily concerned with consumer appetites and staving off recessions, when the men from the board rooms ruled comfortably and calmly. Defrosted and put into service now, 15 years later, they find the environment totally changed. For Mitchell and his aides, Haynsworth met the criteria of respectability and honor that automatically accrues to one of his social and economic standing. What else was needed? For Nixon, it is enough that a President deliberate in solitude and have a nice, pleasant representative of the firm like young Ronald Ziegler (see THE PRESS) out front talking in advertisingese about the President being "cool," and his "meeting with staff" and "reviewing."

This Administration has the atmosphere of the private club. Mitchell in particular seems to exude an attitude impervious to national concerns. The fact that he said school integration would be accomplished seemed to be all he felt necessary. He showed a remarkable nonchalance when some of his attorneys rebelled, and stayed calmly in his bed at San Clemente. Nixon's own style has been that of the corporate man rather than the public official--or at least a version of the corporate man who is insulated and protected from outside scrutiny of his decision-making processes. He has lived in lush privacy, unhurried and at times seemingly unconcerned. Others take the clue. They congregate in the splendor of the Watergate apartments, entertain each other and are either unaware of the mounting problems or not certain how to meet them.

In the past 15 years the internal problems of this nation have grown geometrically. The American people know more, are troubled more. Hints of strain back then have become deep divisions in society. Yet Nixon has not tended the shop. He has not, in fact, worked hard enough at the job. That does not mean a President must shout and heave like Lyndon Johnson. But a President must stay in there and slug away from dawn to night. Take breaks, certainly. But all these experiments in running a government from the banks of the Pedernales or the Pacific shore are exercises in selfdelusion. Washington is home and office for a President of the U.S. in this age; Nixon ended last week with another trip to Florida.

No Crises. The old worries about the superficiality of Nixon have been rekindled. He has been preoccupied with deadlines: give him a year; no war criticism for 60 days; we'll do it faster than Clark Clifford wants. These are splendid salves for the wounds, but they avoid the realities. There is no real progress in the pursuit of peace that anyone knows about. There is a middle America, angry at crime and dissent, in tune with much of what Richard Nixon stands for, but to ignore the basic causes of problems is dangerous.

Nixon, to an alarming degree, has done just that. Preoccupied with the rituals of power, pleased with the mood of calm he evoked in his first days, conditioned to a world where men in their privileged preserves make the decisions that bind others, he is now finding how difficult it is to govern in the real world. The President and his men have had something of a grace period, free of new, stabbing crises arising in the night. Their troubles--relative to a Bay of Pigs, a Cuban missile confrontation, a Tet offensive, a skein of domestic riots --have been modest in scale. Right now one can only guess how the Administration will perform in future tests, and how much it is learning from its present difficulties.

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