Delicate Balancing Act

The guest of honor at the head table had barely finished his spareribs when he was introduced by Republican Congressman Tim Lee Carter with a ringing declaration: "I shall work for his nomination in 1976 with all my strength!" The audience responded with applause and cheers at last week's Lincoln Day Dinner held in the Laurel County High School gym at London, Ky. As he rose to speak, the object of the Republicans' affection smiled modestly and let the pledge and its portents go by without comment. Vice President Gerald Ford was much too careful to start his own bandwagon rolling at this early date, yet the fact that it was already moving showed how prized he is by the Republicans.

As a politician who projects complete sincerity, Ford has rapidly become the hottest G.O.P. property in the era of Watergate. He is now the ceremonial head of the party; Republicans want him, not Nixon, as the keynote speaker at their fund-raising dinners. And despite his devout denials of any higher ambitions, Ford looms as the leading Republican candidate for 1976. In conversation, the President usually leads off his private list of possible Republican standard-bearers with his deputy's name. In the Harris poll, the Vice President leads the Democratic front runners for 1976, Senators Edward Kennedy (48%-44%) and Henry ("Scoop") Jackson (43%-41%). "Ford's different, refreshing, new," says Kentucky's Republican Senator Marlow W. Cook.

"That's what the American people are looking for."

Rescue Effort. Ford's popularity is largely due to his success as the Mr. Outside of the White House, the link between the besieged Nixon presidency and the people. He also serves as a special White House emissary to a hostile Congress. For the first time in history, a President needs his Vice President more than, well, vice versa. Ford recognizes the pitfalls and anomalies of this situation, not the least of which is a Gallup poll finding that Americans, by a margin of 46% to 32%, would like him to finish out Richard Nixon's term. For the good of both the party and himself, Ford must back up the man who selected him--yet he cannot become his puppet. Last month he made the mistake of letting his loyalties as a team player overcome his instincts as a politician. He delivered a speech drafted by the White House charging that a "relatively small group of political partisans" was dragging out Watergate to cripple the President.

On Capitol Hill, Ford was severely criticized not only by liberal Democrats but by conservative Republicans. "The conservatives understand his need to support the President," says Congressman John Anderson, a House Republican leader, "but they are definitely opposed to his plunging in up to his elbows in the rescue effort." While he still staunchly defends the President, Ford now avoids attacking Nixon's critics.

Ford claims that he has ready access to the President. "I talk to him or see him almost every day," he says. In fact, Nixon has given his Vice President an unusually broad scope of action, making him part of meetings with the Cabinet, the energy emergency action group, the Domestic Council and the congressional leadership. His relations with Henry Kissinger are carefully cultivated --by both men. Kissinger briefs Ford on foreign affairs every other week.

Unless he is out of town, Ford spends part of each day on Capitol Hill, presiding at least briefly over the Senate.

When legislation is in its crucial stages, he will be working to ease bills through a Congress that has been locked in battle with the President. Most important, during the impeachment proceedings that are expected to take place in the House this spring, the Vice President will be moving around backstage, talking up support for Nixon among Ford's countless friends in both parties.

Lost Yards. Last week Ford took a three-day swing through Kentucky, Illinois and Nebraska that looked remarkably like a campaign tour. He thumped the tub for campaign funds.

He talked with groups of newsmen at every opportunity (four times in one day in Omaha). He looked every sturdy inch a candidate when, cheered by 4,000 flag-waving students, he jumped out of his limousine in Tinley Park, Ill., and plunged into the crowd to shake hands.

Ford, in town to honor the championship high school football team, declared that he saw nothing odd about the Vice President of the U.S. taking part in such a ceremony.

A former star center for the University of Michigan, Ford attended a memorial dinner in Chicago for Frank Leahy, the famed Notre Dame football coach. "I only wish that I could take the entire United States into the locker room at half-time," Ford declared. "It would be an opportunity to say that we have lost yards against the line drives of inflation and the end runs of energy shortages, and that we are not using all of our players as well as we might because there is too much unemployment.

We must look not at the points we have lost but at the points we can gain. We have a winner. Americans are winners."

As the week went on, Ford began to recite some of the disclaimers that unannounced presidential candidates traditionally pronounce while simultaneously signaling their interest. He said that he had "no plans to go out and corral delegates and seek support" for 1976.

But that is not to say that Jerry Ford, if he can maintain his balancing act during the next 2 1/2 years, will not be willing to accept a draft from the Republican Party that he is now helping mightily to sustain.

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