Nation: AN INTERREGNUM WITHOUT RANCOR

THE 36th President of the U.S. and the man who will be No. 37 are two of the most pugnacious politicians of their generation. Yet both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon seemed determined last week to avoid the rancor that has so often accompanied the transfer of power.

If they succeed, it will be quite an achievement. In the 1932-33 interregnum, relations between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt were frosty, though the nation was already deep in the Depression. Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower did somewhat better 20 years later, but not much. In 1960, John Kennedy declined to become involved in decisions that were made during Dwight Eisenhower’s last months in the White House. Their first postelection meeting did not take place until a month after Kennedy won.

The Major Risk. Nixon, on the other hand, visited Johnson at the L.B.J. ranch immediately after he became the G.O.P.’s nominee in August, has since spoken on the phone with the President perhaps a dozen times. Last week, just six days after the election, Dick and Pat called on Lyndon and Lady Bird. The four lunched together. Then, as the hostess took her successor for a tour, the men went to work. Sitting in a familiar spot—the Cabinet Room’s vice presidential seat—Nixon was briefed on major security problems by Defense Secretary Clark Clifford and other ranking officials. After three hours and 50 minutes, Johnson and Nixon faced the press. It was Nixon who drew attention to the major risk of the transition period: paralysis in foreign affairs. “The current Administration,” said Nixon, “is setting forth policies that will be carried forward by the next Administration.” Therefore, Nixon gave his assurances that Johnson and Rusk “could speak not just for this Administration but for the nation, and that meant for the next Administration as well.”

Johnson was surprised that Nixon publicly made such a pledge. He was also elated. Nixon’s statement, first of all, was a clear message to the Saigon government as well as Hanoi that the incoming Administration could not be played off against the outgoing one. From Nixon’s viewpoint, the faster the war is settled, the better able he will be to unite the nation and put across his own programs.

Nixon’s apparent offer of carte blanche to the Administration whose policies he has so roundly criticized did, however, raise several questions. What if Johnson begins serious negotiations with the Russians over arms control? Nixon, after all, is on record as favoring such negotiations only after the U.S. improves its military posture. What if Johnson promises the Communists something that Nixon is not prepared to give in order to achieve peace in Viet Nam? It would be Nixon who would have to live with the arrangement.

No Co-President. To erase the impression that he had given Johnson unconditional support for any contingency, Nixon later in the week said that he had made his pledge with the understanding that there would be “prior consultation and prior agreement” between himself and the White House before any major step was taken in foreign affairs. To this end, he appointed as his liaison man Robert D. Murphy, 74, a retired career diplomat who has handled sensitive assignments in hot wars and cold, and who will now occupy an office next to Dean Rusk’s at the State Department.

The implication remained that Nixon had become a kind of coPresident, and Johnson decided to weigh in with some explanations of his own the next day. With Murphy at his elbow, Johnson told reporters that “of course, the decisions that will be made between now and January 20th will be made by this President and by this Secretary of State and by this Secretary of Defense.” Despite the caveats from both sides, the objective sought by Johnson and Nixon—to let Washington speak “with one voice,” as Nixon put it—remained reasonably clear. On the Viet Nam talks (see THE WORLD), at least for now, there are no fundamental differences between the two. Nixon will have an opportunity to speak out on any important foreign policy decision that may bind the next Administration. But until Jan. 20, Johnson has the last word.

“Will the marriage last?” mused Bryce Harlow, who will serve Nixon as a White House assistant. “I don’t know. They’re acting like it will. They are strong men with strong positions, but there is a heavy compulsion on these men —the national interest.”

Harmony was evident at lower levels too. While the Nixons were occupied with the Johnsons, the President-elect’s aides met their counterparts in the White House for briefings, tours and lunch in the basement mess. For the first time, the terms of the 1964 Presidential Transition Act were in force. The act authorizes up to $900,000 for the expenses of the changeover and allows the President to make available extensive facilities, including office space, for his successor’s advance party. Johnson went beyond the letter of the law by letting Nixon use his new, heavily armored, $175,000 Lincoln limousine, though he has yet to try it out himself.

Head-Hunting. In New York, shielded by swarms of local cops and Secret Service men,* Nixon divided his time between temporary headquarters on the 39th floor of the elegant Hotel Pierre (the same floor that Aristotle Onassis often occupied) and his apartment a block and a half up Fifth Avenue. He conducted almost continuous staff meetings, many of them devoted to the talent search for Cabinet members and the 2,200 or so other officials who will make up the core of his Administration.

As if to underscore the theme he has adopted for his inaugural and touched on in his victory speech—”Bring us together”—Nixon also played host to a diverse cast of characters. In a single day, his guests at the Pierre included A.T.& T. Ex-Chairman Frederick Kappel, Central Intelligence Agency Chief Richard Helms, A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany and Urban League Executive Director Whitney Young Jr. After his meeting, Young quipped, in a reference to Nixon’s neglect of the Negro during his campaign: “I wanted to make sure the ‘forgotten Americans’ he’s been talking about get together with the ‘forgotten Americans’ I’m talking about.”

No Buffer. Nixon will announce no Cabinet appointments until next month. Meanwhile, as his White House staff began to shape up (see following story), it became clear that he would not allow his immediate aides to exert the kind of authority that presidential assistants have enjoyed in recent Administrations. Under Johnson, Kennedy and Eisenhower, the White House staff often served as a buffer between the President and his Cabinet, and even leeched off much of the Cabinet’s power. Nixon’s men insist that there will be no Sherman Adams, Harry Hopkins, McGeorge Bundy or Bill Moyers standing between Nixon and his statutory policymakers in the Cabinet. The White House staff, they add, will concern itself far more with running the headquarters than fighting the main governmental battles.

As Vice President, Spiro Agnew may also find his role severely circumscribed. In their first meeting after the election, Nixon announced that he would give Agnew substantive responsibilities not held by previous Vice Presidents, but failed to spell them out. Agnew will not have independent executive offices or an executive staff—perquisites that Nixon, Johnson and Humphrey all enjoyed. Instead, the Vice President-elect will have an office in the White House and use Nixon’s staff. Agnew thus will be kept conveniently close at hand, where Nixon and his aides can keep an eye on him.

Awkward Interim. Aside from his talent hunt, Nixon’s foremost chore for the next nine weeks is making plans to revise the fiscal 1970 budget that Johnson’s men are already preparing. In his last State of the Union message, the President may well ask Congress to enact a raft of domestic programs of Johnsonian scope. Nixon’s inaugural speech will have to offer constructive alternatives. For that reason, the President-elect must soon devote considerable attention to specific legislation and budgetary requests.

Nixon is moving slowly and cautiously. He is fully aware that his first steps are being closely watched and that his first task is to create what an aide calls “an overlay of credibility and sureness of purpose.” The period between Election Day and Inauguration can be an awkward one; yet so far, Nixon seems to be using it with skill.

*Security precautions were tightened after three Arab immigrants from Yemen were arrested and indicted by a New York grand jury in an alleged plot to assassinate Nixon. Acting on an informer’s tip, police found weapons in the suspects’ Brooklyn apartment. There was speculation, however, that the “conspiracy” was invented by the suspects’ disgruntled former roommate.