Autumn in the Shade of Watergate

After the anguished and uncertain spring and summer of Watergate, there was something deceptively reassuring in the return to the familiar rhythms of September. For President, Vice President, for the nation, there was as yet no real surcease of crises; all the grave questions were yet to be satisfactorily answered and trust was yet to be restored. But the true American new year begins each autumn with the end of vacations, the recall to jobs and schools, fresh starts on the ordinary business of life, the re sumption of friendly routines.

High Prices. With Sam Ervin's committee still in recess, local preoccupations could get a hearing. Los Angeles and Denver laid plans for new mass transit systems. California's legislature voted to restore the death penalty for eleven specific categories of offenses, ranging from killing a policeman to causing a fatality by willfully wrecking a train; the state thus hoped to meet the Supreme Court's objections to indiscriminate capital punishment. South Dakota and Missouri debated ways to make their state governments more efficient. Portland, Ore., talked of saving electricity by eliminating high school football games on Friday nights. Nude bathers in San Diego opposed city fathers' plans to turn a stretch of secluded beach into a public park. Bakersfield, Calif., worried that a proposed atomic power plant might somehow pollute its water supply. The people of Cherokee County in Alabama complained that pesticides sprayed on cotton fields had poisoned thousands of fish, birds, rabbits and squirrels, as well as three cows.

Almost everywhere farmers reveled in the record high prices for their harvests. In Ramsey County in the heart of North Dakota's wheat country, people told the tale of the farmer on the verge of selling his durum wheat for $7.20 per bu. (compared with $1.35 last year) who slipped out to the toilet. By the time he returned, the price had jumped 600. In Maine, clam diggers pocketed $18 per bu. for clams that brought $10 per bu. last year. Tuna harpooners sold their catches for 650 per lb., compared with 150 last year. The food producer's gain was, of course, the consumer's bane. In reaction to high food prices, Americans sought ways to stretch their food dollars. As one answer, Southern Californians took out hunting licenses at a record rate.

There were other diversions as well. Just in time for the start of the professional football season, the nation's premier telephone quarterback, Richard Nixon, signed legislation banning television blackouts of home games sold out 72 hours in advance of the kickoff. That will enable tens of thousands of local fans to watch their favorite teams play, though owners fear that it might depress ticket sales. Houston got ready for this week's show-biz spectacular in the Astrodome -the tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. In Pittsburgh, 51,860 people, some after enduring a twelve-mile-long traffic jam, toured the first jumbo jet to land at the municipal airport.

Trying to take advantage of the seasonal surge in spirit, Nixon intensified his campaign to rebuild his public image. He delivered to Congress a 15,000-word second State of the Union message, which called for action on more than 50 previously presented legislative proposals. Curiously, it devoted only a few sentences to the need for reform of campaign practices, one of Watergate's clearest lessons. Moreover, the message asked only for a study, not specific reforms. He discussed crime prevention with law-enforcement officials, met with state Republican leaders at the White House, and succeeded in getting Congress to sustain his veto of the emergency medical services bill, which would have provided $185 million for local health agencies. It was a carefully planned show of presidential visibility, designed to advertise his contention that the Watergate crisis was behind him and he was ready -if Congress was willing -to "get on with the business of government [and] to complete the people's business."

Even as the President campaigned for normalcy, Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and Presidential Counsel Charles Alan Wright resumed their courtroom debate over access to the presidential tape recordings and documents that Cox needs to do his job. Two federal grand juries continued their deliberations on the Watergate and related scandals.

Ugly Mess. The Senate Watergate committee postponed resumption of its public hearings until Sept. 24 and now intends to conclude them by the unexpectedly early date of Nov. 1. One reason for the delay was to give the staff more time to prepare for the final two subjects under study: campaign "dirty tricks" and improper use of funds in the 1972 presidential election. Another was the unavailability of former Presidential Special Counsel Charles Colson, the most important witness the committee had planned to hear in concluding its examination of the Watergate wiretapping. He may be indicted soon on federal charges involving the burglary of the office of Pentagon Papers Defendant Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist (see page 24). In Southern California's San Fernando Valley, Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak interviewed 94 voters hi two precincts that have supported Nixon for years and found that by better than three to one they wanted the Ervin hearings to continue.

Certainly most professional Republicans want the investigations ended, and for practical reasons. At a meeting of the G.O.P. National Committee in Washington, party leaders argued that inflation would be the dominant issue in next fall's elections. But they agreed that Watergate has damaged morale so badly that even state Republican parties are having difficulty raising funds, signing up volunteers and finding candidates for local office. In a series of three articles published by the New York Times, Senator Barry Goldwater urged Nixon to exorcise Watergate by reaching a compromise with the Ervin committee on their dispute over his tape recordings "to clear the air and get this ugly mess behind him."

Despite the malaise or perhaps because of it, former Treasury Secretary John Connally kicked off a nationwide speaking tour -his first as a Republican -by appearing at a meeting of the California state Republican central committee in San Diego, which was heavily dominated by supporters of Governor Ronald Reagan. Connally's reception was warm but watery; the convention's reaction seemed to be that he had yet to demonstrate to his party a loyalty that is as strong as his presidential ambitions.

Both Connally and Goldwater agreed that Watergate's repercussions were wider than the G.O.P. Wrote the Arizona Senator: "The reverberations of scandal and corruption will shoot through both major parties and create real trouble for incumbents." A Gallup poll found that while voter identification with the Republican Party has dropped four points since the 1972 election, to 24%, those who said they were Democrats has stayed at 43%. The only increase has been among those who consider themselves members of neither party.

Growing Cynicism. Governors and mayors are having to contend with a growing suspicion of politicians and cynicism about government. In Atlanta, a supporter of Democratic Mayoral Candidate Maynard Jackson exclaimed: "These days a politician is about three cuts below a used-car salesman." Says Ohio Governor John Gilligan: "I don't visit a town that the question isn't asked, 'Why do all you politicians turn out to be crooks?' " Gilligan cites that attitude to explain why less than 20% of Toledo's voters went to the polls in the recent municipal election, compared with the usual 40%.

To help restore confidence, Michigan Governor William Milliken has exhorted state employees to take extra pains in handling the public, "to deal in human terms -not bureaucratic terms." Every Saturday, Illinois Governor Daniel Walker has made walking tours of towns in his state, shaking hands and talking with people. He explains: "People want their executives out where they can see them and talk to them." Other Governors hope that the Watergate climate will facilitate passage of reform legislation, such as a political ethics bill being pushed by Missouri Governor Christopher ("Kit") Bond that would permit closer public scrutiny of lobbying and campaign financing.

A special effort to stress honesty and integrity is being made by some candidates, such as Democrat Brendan Byrne in his campaign against Republican Charles Sandman Jr. for Governor of New Jersey. But, for the most part, the issues are ones that have become all too familiar in recent years: taxes, crime and race. Last week voters in Detroit selected a white career law-enforcement officer, Police Commissioner John F. Nichols, 54, and a black state senator, Coleman Young, 55, as candidates for mayor. Nichols, who campaigns with a pistol tucked in his belt, stressed law-and-order and drew 98% of the white vote. Young, who at times carries a pistol of his own, called his opponent "Blackjack Nichols" and promised to end heavyhanded police tactics in minority neighborhoods. He drew 98% of the black vote. Since Detroit has slightly more white voters than black, Nichols was favored to win the election Nov. 6.

But for all the local preoccupations and private distractions in the quickening pace of autumn, the sum of concerns represented by Watergate and its abuses of public trust and presidential power still hung in the air. The astonishing bundle of national contradictions remained: most Americans are weary of Watergate but they nonetheless want Ervin, Cox & Co. to finish their appointed tasks and probe it to its roots. Most Americans want to see Nixon finish out his term as President, but they still believe he is guilty of impeachable crimes. Most Americans, in spite of everything, still see Nixon as the best man now around to be their President, but they do not feel well governed. F. Scott Fitzgerald once observed rather wistfully that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." The U.S. is, in a fashion, doing just that in myriad diverse and individual ways.

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