Quad Angles . . .

Before breaking for summer vacation, students on U.S. college campuses had time to register an entire spectrum of response to the Watergate scandal, ranging from moral indignation and self-righteousness to sympathy and support for the President. Some called for the rescinding of honorary degrees and speaking invitations to Nixon Administration officials. For example, Attorney General Elliot Richardson decided to cancel a commencement address at Georgetown University when threatened with a massive boycott.

But the vast majority seemed to take a surprisingly measured, some might even say cynical view. Noting that the result of the spring 1972 student elections at the University of Southern California had been ruled invalid because of widespread illegal campaign practices, USC Law Student Pat Nolan shrugged, "All these real-adult-world aspects of politics are nothing new to USC students." Michigan State Senior Stuart Lachman put an even finer philosophical point on the issue. "Presidents run the country the way they were used to running things," he theorized. "Eisenhower ran it like an army, Kennedy like Harvard, L.B.J. like a cattle ranch, and Nixon like a business. Truman was our last great President. He ran the country the way it should be run--like a Missouri mule." That view would hardly bring agreement from businessmen (most of whom are appalled by Watergate) or from mules, but it reflects a facet of the 1973 campus mood.

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