Unit 8: Social Problems in the United States

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Supplementary Readings

Even though I have a certain familiarity with the Nixon administration (at least in the period 1971-1973), Joan Hoff's article opened my eyes to the sheer scope of the domestic programs of the Nixon administration. The main point that I would make to her is that it is important to distinguish RN (or any President) from his administration.

A President has only so much time to devote to the full range of domestic and foreign affairs. Each incumbent approaches the task differently. Some revel in details: Johnson telephoning mid-level civil servants to discuss some domestic issue; Carter personally approving staff members' use of the White House tennis courts. Reagan treated it as a 9-5 job, to be bothered outside work hours only with major crises. It all depends on the individual's personality and his trust in the staff (both White House and Cabinet) to whom so much power is delegated.

Bob Haldeman once described the Presidency to me as one person sitting atop a series of pyramids of information (a seemingly uncomfortable perch!). Each member of the WH staff, each Cabinet officer and his/her subordinates sits atop one of these pyramids; each one of these individuals is available to advise the President. A President cannot become engaged with every issue confronting him; that's why he has a Cabinet and, in more recent decades, a large WH staff. It is at the sub-Cabinet and staff levels that most policy decisions are made. RN spent hours every evening reading, and commenting on, memos on major issues. He spent days preparing for press conferences, so that he could speak knowledgeably on any issue that his staff thought might be raised.

RN was above all a politician. He engaged with those issues that, in his opinion, had the most political clout. In foreign policy, the major issues were Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union. Second tier were the Middle East and western Europe (Britain, France, Germany). He dabbled with Romania and Yugoslavia in the context of Soviet relations. Kissinger and his NSC staff focused on these areas. Rogers and the State Department had the rest of the world, including significant input to the Middle East question, on which RN did not fully trust Kissinger.

Domestically, Nixon had a few particular interests: the Supreme Court, revenue-sharing, government reorganization, and dissent (mostly Vietnam but including civil rights). There is no political capital in government reorganization; I'll come back to the paradox of Richard Nixon. Joan cites the environment and Indian affairs as domestic accomplishments. So they were, but of the administration, not the President. The environment was delegated to Ehrlichman and Whitaker; Indian affairs were the province of Brad Patterson and Len Garment. For RN, there was no political capital to be gained in environmental policy. No matter what he did, the "long-hairs" would never support him, and the "hard hats" didn't care about the environment. Nixon had little interest in the environment. If his administration supported legislation, it was to preclude the passage of even worse legislation supported by his liberal Democrat opponents in the Congress, specifically Muskie, who loomed as a 1972 rival. Ehrlichman was allowed free rein in this area as a reward for his good and faithful service in other areas. RN's corporate supporters might not like it, but the President could always point to the liberal Democrats' proposals which would have been even worse.

Indian affairs definitely was (and is) not a sexy political issue. No one cared, not even the Democrats. There being no downside nor upside, RN could allow the staff to do what they thought right. This is not to say that he was totally without principle. Nixon had been through the school desegration battles of the Eisenhower administration. Not a particular friend of black people (who always voted overwhelmingly Democrat), he was willing to enforce Brown vs. Board of Education because it was the right thing to do. He believed in reorganizing the government to make the (as he believed) liberal Democrat bureaucracy more responsive to the elected President. He put a lot of time and effort into this struggle as a matter of principle.

Could politics override principle? Yes. Nixon the politician looked for the "big play". In foreign policy that translated to the opening to China, detente with the Soviets, and a successful disengagement from the war in Vietnam ("peace with honor"). Philosophically opposed to wage and price controls, he implemented them because, at that point, he believed they were necessary politically. His spokesman on the issue, John Connally, made this action a "ten strike" in his public pronouncements. Connally mesmerized Nixon; he was very unlike the other members of the administration. He had a self-confident, powerful personality-just the sort of man Nixon admired. Under his tutelage RN increasingly was encouraged to follow his instincts for the political "big play". For most domestic programs, there were no such opportunities, because they required action by the Democrat-controlled Congress. So, RN remained engaged with foreign policy, his first love. With Kissinger as his agent, the leader of the world's most powerful country enjoyed manipulating great power relationships. Only Nixon, a conservative Republican from the "who lost China" era, could deal with Chou and Mao. Only Nixon could initiate detente with Brezhnev. When Kissinger was unable to reach a negotiated accord with the North Vietnamese, Nixon increased military pressure until he finally got "peace with honor", in which the North Vietnamese agreed to wait a decent interval after US withdrawal from South Vietnam before they unified the country.

RN explored domestic issues for political advantage. If there was none, he usually left them to the staff. He believed himself to be the consummate politician in the administration, taking advice from Mitchell (on the Supreme Court especially) and Colson in this area-until he brought Connally into the administration (a "ten strike" in itself). School desegregation belonged to Mitchell and race relations to Ehrlichman. Initially, Nixon was unsure of the politics. However, as the 1972 election loomed, Nixon defined his political supporters as the "silent majority". Civil rights demonstrators did not fit. With George Wallace a potential threat to his vote totals, Nixon involved Colson and Harry Dent in the development of the "Southern strategy"-to pry loose white Southern conservatives from the Democrats. When racial problems erupted in Michigan, Colson was dispatched to encourage white resistance to court-ordered desegration-much to the surprise of Ehrlichman, who was trying to calm the situation. The point I've been trying to make is that Nixon was a complicated mixture of (some) principle and (mostly) politics. This is reflected in the policies of his administration. Where he was not personally engaged, he allowed his staff to act for the administration, which further complicates the analysis. Because of these factors, one cannot speak of RN as being identical to his administration.

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