Phantom of the Campaign

In Kansas City, it was the day that Gerald Ford was nominated; in San Clemente, it was a day much like any other for Richard Nixon. The ex-President played a leisurely 18 holes of golf with his aide, former Marine Colonel Jack Brennan; trailing them on the links were eight Secret Service men who did not have to worry about keeping crowds at bay on the lonely course at the Camp Pendleton Marine base. At the time that delegates were streaming into convention hall, Nixon's armor-plated black Cadillac, bristling with aerials and importance, was taking him back home. When it pulled up in front of his Casa Pacifica, he stepped out with no sign of the limp from his bout with phlebitis almost two years ago. Then the door closed behind him, sealing him off in his own special world, where he watched the convention on television.

The man who fashioned one of the greatest of all presidential victories in 1972 had no part to play last week. He has become a non-person removed from even any mention in Republican oratory. Says his onetime White House Aide Gerald Warren: "I'm sure he is sitting there eating his heart out. Remember that this is the first Republican Convention since 1948 where he hasn't been a central figure." But Nixon has avidly followed the campaign, totting up delegate figures and assessing the strategies of both the Ford and Reagan camps. He was cautious about letting his own preference be known, for he could only damage his favorite. Some visitors felt that he wanted Ford to win, especially after Reagan chose liberal Richard Schweiker as his running mate. Nixon seemed to feel that John Connally, whom he has long admired, should be on the ticket to help the G.O.P. carry the South against Jimmy Carter.

Rabbi Baruch Korff, Nixon's tireless defender, indignantly insists that the Republicans will be hurt by their "unAmerican" actions of making a "phantom" out of the former President. Nixon is doing his best to keep his reputation alive by working on his memoirs, which he hopes to complete by December. He is undecided about how to handle Watergate. One of his White House speechwriters, Patrick Buchanan, has advised him to concentrate on the peaks of his presidency and to minimize the troughs. Nixon will begin taping in December a series of TV interviews with David Frost that will be broadcast in February--well after the presidential victor is installed in the White House.

Life at San Clemente is somber and isolated, and has become even more so since Pat Nixon suffered her stroke in July. She undergoes daily therapy to strengthen her arms and legs and correct her slurred speech. (So far she has received 180,000 get-well messages from around the country.) Only a few relatives and old loyalists can get into the house. A thicket of electronic devices warns off intruders, though not many venture close to the coastal grounds. Young surfers believe that remote-control TV cameras equipped with powerful microphones can pick up a conversation hundreds of feet away. "Nod, if you can hear me," some surfers like to whisper. Sure enough, the camera sometimes dips in reply. One day last week Nixon was alone on the bluff by his house. Far below, a surfer waved--and the ex-President waved back.

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