A NEW ADMINISTRATION EASING IN

The U.S. is for peace in the world, but that doesn't necessarily tell the Secretary of State what to do when he gets up in the morning.

DANIEL Patrick Moynihan's observation was apt, and its pith was as relevant to his own bailiwick of urban problems as it was to William Rogers' diplomatic domain. As the new Administration gets up--uncommonly early--in the morning, it should have little difficulty in broadly defining its goals. Specific strategies and tactics for achieving them are something else. Washington must decide soon if it is going to enter into serious arms-control talks with the Russians. The new President must make up his mind whether to frame a State of the Union address of his own. He has to decide exactly how, if at all, he should rework the budget inherited from Lyndon Johnson. The continuing Middle East crisis calls for patient, imaginative attention. Not least, in Dr. Moynihan's special preserve, the White House must decide which urban problems it can most effectively attack, and how the assault can best be mounted.

Richard Nixon, who is above all a methodical craftsman, addressed himself to stretching and sizing his canvas before attempting to paint big answers for public view (although he did schedule his first formal press conference for this week). In their early days at least, most administrations are judged more by their style than their programs, which are generally embryonic at this stage. Nixon and his men so far convey an earnest, deliberate, unspectacular approach. The President's inaugural address clearly reflected this attitude: "As we measure what can be done, we shall promise only what we know we can produce." His actions in the following days confirmed that impression. He was engaged in a process of intense preparation to make decisions rather than in a rapid-fire production of proposals.

Challenged Council. On the domestic side, one of Nixon's first important official acts was to sign the executive order creating his Cabinet-level Council for Urban Affairs. He used the ceremonial multipen technique, complaining that his name was too short and his scrawl too undisciplined to allow for a legible signature and a large number of souvenirs. But the name appeared as clear as his intention to make the council a vital body, the domestic equivalent of the National Security Council.

The council will be larger than originally indicated. With Nixon as chairman, it will include Vice President Spiro Agnew and the heads of seven departments: Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Health, Education and Welfare, Commerce, Transportation, Labor and Agriculture. Moynihan will serve as a kind of chief of staff.

At its first meeting, the council formed ten subgroups, each to deal with specific problem areas such as crime, housing, welfare and mass transit. "The American national Government," said Nixon, "has responded to urban concerns in a haphazard, fragmented and often woefully shortsighted manner." He challenged the council to change all that with firm, coordinated policy recommendations. The President also assigned Budget Director Robert Mayo to draw up proposals for allocating federal funds after Viet Nam.

Meshing Mandates. Nixon sprang a surprise with the appointment of Columbia University's Dr. Arthur F. Burns, a distinguished economist, to the newly created post of Counselor to the President. Burns, 64, will have Cabinet status, and therefore becomes the ranking member of the President's in-house staff. A Republican and longtime adviser to Nixon, Burns was a chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under

Dwight Eisenhower. Now he will be responsible for overseeing the development of domestic programs. How his mandate will mesh with that of Moynihan--who is a liberal Democrat with no personal ties to Nixon--is unclear. A division of labor could be established in which Burns concentrated on broad, long-range policy while Moynihan remained responsible for the day-to-day coordination of programs.

Burns has already been at work on the recommendations being made by advisory groups. He has handed up proposals on 18 domestic situations for Nixon and the Cabinet to consider. These, he indicated, could form the basis of a legislative program, although that will not come for at least a month or two. So far, Nixon's only official request of Congress has been for the confirmation of his appointees. However, the White House has withdrawn the still-unratified nominations of 485 appointees made in the final months of the Johnson Administration, and rescinded Nixon's predecessor's disputatious award of coveted transpacific routes to five airlines (see BUSINESS).

In the fields of security and foreign affairs, Nixon was moving to make good his aim of restoring the National Security Council as the prime policymaking body. His first important post-Inauguration meeting was with the N.S.C. and its principal advisers: Presidential Assistant Henry Kissinger, General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard Helms, who is being retained as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Kissinger, unlike the heads of most of the departments, had rapidly assembled an expert staff, and was ready with studies on three top-priority subjects: the nation's strategic posture, U.S. options and prospects in Viet Nam, and the ramifications of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. These and other studies will form the basis of discussions at the N.S.C. twice-weekly meetings; under Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy, the N.S.C. held formal meetings only occasionally.

No Medicine Balls. Nixon's approach to organization and work habits demands formal, early scheduling. Last week he was acting like a farmer raring to start the spring plowing. The morning after the Inauguration balls, with just four hours' sleep, Nixon was up at 6:45 and in the Oval Office at 7:30, after a fast breakfast of juice, oatmeal and coffee. The suddenly spartan regimen was something of a surprise considering that Nixon has never been noted as liking early appearances. But it did enhance the image of a superindustrious new team. Trouble was, no one had passed the word down. On that first morning after, Nixon found himself pretty much alone in the White House West Wing, except for one personal aide. Henceforth, the crew will be on deck as early as the skipper, although he promised not to require the staff to be on call much after midnight.

The Cabinet was hardly lolling abed either. Nixon scheduled the swearing-in ceremony for eleven of the twelve department heads for 8 a.m. (Interior Secretary Walter Hickel's confirmation was delayed by opposition from some Senate Democrats. He was sworn later in the week.) Perhaps to further his effort to boost the Cabinet's prestige, Nixon suggested that one of its members might run for President some day. After all, he pointed out, eight previous Presidents were Cabinet alumni.* But he warned: "If any of you is going to come through, we must get to work. It is time for the Cabinet meeting, 8:30." The President also recalled Teddy Roosevelt's "tennis Cabinet" and Herbert Hoover's "medicine-ball Cabinet." "We," said Nixon, "will call it the working Cabinet."

* The first was Thomas Jefferson, who had been Secretary of State. The last was Herbert Hoover, previously Secretary of Commerce.

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