The Next Round

With Rogers Morton leaving for the Interior Department, Richard Nixon was evaluating candidates to take over as chairman of the Republican National Committee. The decision will affect 1972 campaign tactics.

Bryce Harlow, Counsellor to Nixon, could have the job if he wished, but his former employer, Procter & Gamble, wants him to return as a lobbyist. At 54, Harlow has his stake in Procter & Gamble's retirement fund, and profit-sharing and stock-option benefits. Other possibilities are Texas Congressman George Bush, who was defeated last month for the Senate, and Kansas Senator Robert Dole. Nixon's choice will indicate to what extent the White House will control party affairs going into the next election. Bush, for instance, would demand a strong voice for the committee. Dole might be more willing to function simply as Nixon's spokesman. There was talk that John Mitchell might resign as Attorney General to assume overall command of Nixon's campaign above the party chairman, but that would seem illogical now; Mitchell can easily advise the President politically without leaving the Justice Department.

Last week a group from the Republican Party's innermost circle sat down for a secret meeting at the national committee office to review this fall's campaign and map tactics for 1972. Among those attending: Mitchell, Finch, Rogers Morton and his brother, former National Committee Chairman Thruston Morton, House Campaign Chairman Bob Wilson and his Senate counterpart John Tower, and Leonard Hall, the architect of Dwight Eisenhower's 1956 campaign. Hall was there because he alone among the group had experience in running a campaign for an incumbent President.

Hall and the congressional group argued strongly for running Nixon's campaign from outside the White House in 1972. They want to remove partisan politics from the Oval Office and restore party unity, which, they believe, was sacrificed during this year's election. Nixon will face the classic dilemma of any President running for reelection. A strong White House staff including his most trusted advisers tends to run the campaign in its own way, ignoring the national committeemen, who have the firmer ties with the state organizations. White House domination makes the larger party organization atrophy, as occurred in the Johnson Administration. Reported TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angelo: "The point was made that the White House blew it this year on the law-and-order issue by trying to blame the Democrats so heavyhandedly that it boomeranged." Said one participant afterward: "Looking toward '72, I can't see anything to cheer about. Nobody there was pleased about what happened on Nov. 3 --or if they were, they kept quiet about it."

The Republican pros are now planning as if it were already 1972, even to the point of discussing how to penetrate such important voting blocs as blacks and ethnic groups. All tacitly accept the premise that unless Viet Nam and the economy dissolve into nonissues, any other political planning is largely pointless.

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