White House White Elephants

Even at the height of his popularity, Richard Nixon was never "big at the box office," as one New York book editor puts it. As a result, publishers have not rushed to recruit past or present White House aides for books about the President. One exception was William Morrow & Co. of Manhattan. Last February, when Nixon still rode high, Morrow signed a $250,000 contract with William Safire for a book giving his insider's view as a speechwriter during the President's first term. Safire, the resident White House wit until he resigned to become a New York Times columnist last April, produced a 350,000-word manuscript, titled A Hurry to Be Great.

Now the publisher wants to drop the book and has told Safire to return an $83,000 advance. Lawrence Hughes, president of Morrow, claimed last week that the manuscript was "editorially unacceptable," despite Safire's claim that Morrow editors read five chapters -- and voiced no qualms -- before the contract was signed. But Safire insisted that the real reason is that Nixon's popularity has dived, thus making a "balanced" book about Nixon less likely to sell. Other publishers agree with Safire's assessment of the market. "The only book that would sell well would be one that exposed Nixon as a crook," says Vice President Donald Smith of Thomas Y. Crowell. Undaunted, Safire has demanded arbitration, as provided for in his contract with Morrow. "This," he says, "is the most pernicious kind of censorship -- the censorship of the gutless."

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