Superelf in the Basement

As if to counterpoint his European journey, President Nixon last week sent Congress his first message on domestic problems. In it he once again confounded his critics and tempered his cam paign rhetoric by proposing to realign the previous Administration's antipoverty programs rather than cancel them wholesale. As New York's liberal Senator Jacob Javits observed, the message was far more important for its "positive approach and tone than for the rel atively few organization changes it makes." It was also a tribute to the coun sel of Nixon's chief adviser on urban affairs, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose persuasive voice was largely responsible for the President's early -- and forceful --guarantee that the subject of poverty will get "priority attention."

Moynihan's original appeal to Nixon and part of his present effectiveness was basically that of an adversary. He was part of the committee that drafted the Kennedy-Johnson "war on poverty," then turned into one of its harshest crit ics. In his recently published attack on the program, Maximum Feasible Mis understanding, Moynihan criticized the Office of Economic Opportunity for antipoverty campaigns that have a tendency "to oversell and underperform."

That was precisely the kind of grousing that Candidate Nixon wanted the nation to hear during the campaign, and he sometimes quoted Moynihan. When it was time for the President-elect to deliver something more effective, he decided to offer Moynihan the chairmanship of the new, Cabinet-level Council on Urban Affairs.

Jolting Moments. The two men's styles could hardly be more dissimilar. Moynihan, 41, is a big (6 ft. 5 in.), boisterous Irishman who pads around his basement office in stocking feet like a kind of White House Superelf. Quite apart from what one Nixon aide calls "Moynihan's flair," however, the President and Moynihan have each developed a strong respect for the other's ideas. It was Moynihan's idea, for example, for Nixon to tour the Washington ghettos a few weeks ago. "The important thing," he says, "is that the President was out among the people again."

It can safely be assumed that Moynihan is the first board member of Americans for Democratic Action (which he still is) to have seriously referred to Richard Nixon as an "intellectual." "Pat Moynihan understands Presidents," says Stephen Hess, a Nixon biographer who serves as deputy director of the council. "He knows what Presidents want, and he knows how to give it to them without taking up much of their time."

The new bonds have created some jolting moments. Nowhere has Nixon had to bend to necessity more than in last week's decision to transfer the Job Corps to the Labor Department. During the campaign, he had branded the program a "failure" and threatened to scuttle it. Some of Moynihan's own statements may also come back to haunt him, especially his 1965 report, as Assistant Secretary of Labor, on disintegration of the Negro family. The latest figures, unfortunately, back him up only too well: the nationwide rate of black illegitimacy has increased from 23.6% to 29.4% in the interim. But the Moynihan report was attacked by Negro leaders, including James Farmer, the recently named Assistant Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, who charged that Moynihan had used "haphazard judgment" and stacked figures that glossed over white promiscuity.

National Urban Policy. Besides the Job Corps, Nixon's principal antipoverty change was to transfer the highly successful Head Start program to HEW, turning the Office of Economic Opportunity into a kind of research and development center without specific programs. Nixon's explanation consistently reflected Moynihan's deep concern with the first few years of childhood development, an area in which he feels research has progressed far enough to warrant permanent legislation--unlike many other aspects of the poverty program. Said Nixon: "We have learned that intelligence is not fixed at birth, but is largely formed by the environmental influences. We must make a national commitment to providing all American children an opportunity for healthful and stimulating development during the first five years."

Most of Moynihan's time is presently spent in holding opening sessions with the seven Cabinet members*who sit on the council and with setting up committee work with his nine (v. the National Security Council's 29) young staff members, who often work 15 hours a day. His first top-priority assignment, suggested by Vice President Agnew, is to draft a coherent national urban policy, outlining the Federal Government's posture in relation to state and local authorities. One tentative conclusion: the Federal Government should flatly double aid to local governments when the Viet Nam war has ended, reforming the local funding mechanism to reward them on the basis of performance.

Unorthodox Thinking. If he can sort out the problems of equity and incentive that the Federal Government must face in attempting to heal the nation, Moynihan's guidelines could have the same durable influence in domestic affairs that George Kennan's famous containment policy memo achieved in foreign affairs. They can, in any case, be expected to further Moynihan's reputation as an unorthodox thinker with little regard for hard-liners of either liberal or conservative persuasion. But first Moynihan must last long enough in the White House basement to produce his report. "He is a very voluble guy," says a Democratic Congressman. "Nixon doesn't know what he's swallowed." Perhaps not, but so far it has every appearance of agreeing with him.

*Robert H. Finch of HEW; George Romney, Housing and Urban Development; George Shultz, Labor; Clifford Hardin, Agriculture; Maurice Stans, Commerce; John A. Volpe, Transportation; and John Mitchell, Justice.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.