Guarded White House

The first 100 days of an Administration may not be time enough to chart a new course for Government, but it is long enough to shake up--and shake down--the nation's prime President-watchers: the White House press corps. Some new reportorial figures have already begun to stand out in even that elite group, and the entire corps now has a good notion of what to expect from Richard Nixon. Compared with covering Jack Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson, these newsmen are finding their work more regular, less exciting and, for those trying to report in depth, much more difficult.

Nixon's orderly approach to running the Government allows White House reporters to plan their day; all they have to do is check the presidential schedule. They know when to pack their travel bags, when to expect a weekend at home. Gone are Johnson's impromptu press conferences and his sudden take-offs for Texas. Gone also is the spice of the unexpected, the spontaneity of a Kennedy quip or a Johnson sermonette. There is less news out of the Nixon White House, but when it comes, it is more likely to be substantive, less apt to be intriguing.

With Nixon, there is no confusion about which of his remarks can be published and which cannot; there is no difference between his public statements and private remarks. He plays no press favorites, tends to hold the entire corps at arm's length. Newsmen thus have little fear that they will be used, seduced, or played off against one another. If Nixon regards the press as a friendly adversary rather than an auxiliary tool of Government, his relative aloofness also means that reporters must work harder to scratch the smooth White House veneer and find what lies beneath it. So far, key presidential aides have proved to be much more wary of candid revelations than those of the past two Administrations.

The task of chasing news at a more guarded White House has been eagerly tackled by numerous newcomers assigned to the job with the shift in command. Three men stand out as the most impressive among the new arrivals:

sb THE NEW YORK TIMES'S ROBERT B. SEMPLE JR. Simultaneously witty and scholarly, Semple, 32, came to the Times's Washington bureau six years ago from the National Observer. A smooth writer and sharp analyst, he replaced Veteran Max Frankel (who became Washington bureau chief) at the White House in January. Although Semple does not get from Nixon the sort of spoon-feeding that L.B.J. used to give the Times, he has developed solid White House sources and used them to produce, for example, the most revealing backstage report of how Nixon arrived at his ABM decision. He was the first newspaper reporter to pin down the exact makeup of the Nixon Cabinet, detail Nixon's plans for handling his personal finances while President and predict the appointment of National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.

sb WASHINGTON POST'S DON OBERDORFER. Assigned to Nixon ever since the Post hired him away from the then dying Saturday Evening Post last year, Oberdorfer, 37, writes a perceptive and critical weekly column. He also covers breaking news. He was one of the first reporters to convey Nixon's style of operation, probe the efforts to change Spiro Agnew's image and note Senator Strom Thurmond's lack of power in the new Administration. A somewhat stuffy writer, Oberdorfer has nevertheless conveyed his impatience with the slow pace of Government under Nixon. As the headline on one of his columns gibed, he also feels that "Nixon's Change in Direction Is Not Necessarily Forward."

sb NBC'S HERB KAPLOW. Probably the most aggressive news questioner at presidential press conferences, Kaplow, 42, effectively employs his broadcast-trained voice to push Press Secretary Ron Ziegler hard at daily briefings. He has covered Nixon longer than any of the other new reporters, has interviewed him frequently since his 1956 vice-presidential campaign. A 14-year network veteran, Kaplow thinks quickly, and manages to capsule presidential news neatly in the limited time he has on the air.

The newcomers, as well as most veterans, seem fascinated by the mystery of the true nature of the emerging presidential Nixon. "None of us know this man very well," says Oberdorfer. Yet few fault him for his relative distance from the press. "A certain arm's-length position is a wholesome one on the part of press and President," says Peter Lisagor, who has been covering the White House for the Chicago Daily News since the Eisenhower days. "If we're too close, we lose our detachment, and if he's too close, we keep seeing all the warts."

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