The Nixon Vacuum

By Edwin Warner

CATCH THE FALLING FLAG

by RICHARD WHALEN 308 pages. Houghton Mifflin. $6.95.

On the theory that he needed a youthful look to his 1968 campaign staff, Richard Nixon made a search for bright young conservatives. He found Richard Whalen, then 32, a bona fide conservative who had written what he called "Whiggish" editorials for the Wall Street Journal. He had also produced a literate, debunking biography of Joseph P. Kennedy, and an article in favor of a strong nuclear-defense policy for FORTUNE. Nixon courted him, even suggested that he become the candidate's "press man." Whalen accepted. The result, according to Whalen, was a classic encounter of the man of principle and the man of politics.

This book records Whalen's disillusionment. No dove, he wanted to end the Viet Nam War--the better to pursue the cold war on more favorable terrain. He wrote a speech for Nixon opposing Lyndon Johnson's escalation and calling for great-power negotiations to end the war. Nixon, says Whalen, almost delivered it. He confided to Whalen that he thought the war could not be won. But then Johnson dropped out of the race and Nixon figured that he did not need to take any dramatic stand on Viet Nam. Rejecting Whalen's speech, he adopted the Vietnamization policy urged by--of all people--Roger Hilsman, the architect of counterinsurgency during the Kennedy Administration. After quitting the State Department because of a disagreement with Dean Rusk, Hilsman was now offering advice to the Republican candidate, and the galling thing was, says Whalen, that Nixon took it. "Such promiscuous brain picking revealed in due course the near vacuum where Nixon's own position should have been."

In other areas Whalen discovered--apparently to his surprise--that Nixon was more interested in getting elected than in promoting any consistent creed. Whalen wanted, for example, to replace the giveaway programs of the Great Society with the promise of a more open society; that is, Nixon would help blacks gain entrance to lily-white suburbs. Nixon responded with a noncommittal silence. "I could no longer find phrases to express Nixon because I could not find him," writes Whalen.

Whalen found himself shouldered aside by the more obliging .men around Nixon, one of whom lectured him: "The trouble with you, Dick, is that you care too much." Indeed, Whalen cared enough to quit before the election and then to write this account of his ordeal of near power--not without a touch of vindictiveness against the man who let him down. As Whalen puts it: "Nixon's worst enemies have nothing to say about him so damaging as the observations of hurt, puzzled friends."

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