TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/election/68elect/68elect.009

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                                                                =            ╚August 16, 1968

THE NATION

A Chance to Lead


     As they start on the road to November, the Republicans are
united. Now what will they do with the unity? Richard Nixon is
clearly in tune with his party. Will he be in tune with the
country?

     These are the chief questions that emerge from the
Republican Convention and will dominate the political scene for
the next 2 1/2 months. The American party system allows a
measure of plasticity every four years. The Republicans are
making the most of this chance. The painful ruptures of the past
have been treated and very nearly healed -- almost in a spirit
of harmony or bust. After pulling back from its heartfelt but
self-indulgent right-wing position of 1964, the 1968 party once
more stands in the middle of its ideological spectrum.

     Within his party Richard Nixon represents the only
centripetal force. The country is troubled, the opposition
divided. The rational course is to play it safe, to bet that
self-preservation -- just staying together as a party -- will
be nine-tenths of victory. It is, after all, an election in
which the incumbents are in danger simply because they are
incumbents. Nixon's choice of the factionally neutral Spiro
Agnew as running mate was part of that strategy.

     These assumptions, of course, may prove too neat. Unity is
essential for a minority party, but the G.O.P. may find the
price tag troublesome. Does harmony require straddling at the
expense of commitment? Does it mean combining the vocabulary of
change with the policies of conservatism? The convention offered
mixed portents.

     Boldface Type. Symbols of unity and progress flapped like
so many ensigns at fleet review. Barry Goldwater sounded like
a man from the N.A.A.C.P. New York's John Lindsay agreed to
second Agnew's nomination rather than serve as the rallying
point for opposition to it. The platform, the keynote address,
Nixon's acceptance speech and the subsidiary verbiage were on
the whole impeccably progressive in tone, promising jobs,
justice, education and a "piece of the action" to the poor,
peace in Vietnam, honorable conciliation with the Communists.

     Those who wanted to could find less obvious signals
bearing a slightly different message. Only one sentence in the
platform's domestic-policy section appeared in boldface type:
"We will not tolerate violence!" Somehow Nixon manages to sound
more forceful and specific in emphasizing the need for law and
order than in pleading for social justice. The targets of his
acceptance are the "forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the
non-demonstrators." They are "good people. They're decent
people. They work and they save and they pay their taxes and
they care."

     His critics might reply that Nixon's "good people" really
have little cause to protest in the streets. But more to the
political point is that the whites, the mature, the securely
employed and the affluent combine to form a voting majority.
This massive bloc belongs permanently to neither party. It
follows no one ideology. Nixon seeks to attract enough of it to
form an electoral majority. To do it, he must capture the
imaginations of many Democrats and independents who are largely
reconciled to the Big Government he likes to berate and have
been cool toward Nixon in the past. At the same time, he must
reckon with the disinherited, principally Negroes, who in some
states can hold the balance in a tight election.

     Tasteless Opulence. Nixon seems to be giving considerable
weight to the kind of argument expressed by one Southern lady
on the convention floor. She declared: "This is a protest year.
We've got to get that protest." She did not mean Negroes or
fractious students. The protesters that concern her are people
"who are sick and tired of their money going out of their
pockets to keep people sitting in front of TV sets all day."

     A great many Americans quite understandably feel this way,
and there may be political wisdom in paying heed to such feeling
-- especially at a time when George Wallace can be found soaring
on gusts of middle-class discontent. Nixon adopted the old-style
Southern strategy in the convention, extending it to put
together a coalition of Southern, Border and Midwestern states,
indications are that he may use a similar strategy to try to win
the general election. This makes sense particularly if one bets
that conservative sentiment will run wide and deep between now
and Election Day, and by no means only in the South. This
formula might lose Northeastern states -- but it might also
attract significant numbers of disgruntled voters in the North.
This plan is reinforced by the echoes of riots past and
prospective. A bloody battle was raging in a Negro area just
across Biscayne Bay from Convention Hall. Each ghetto upheaval
will make things tougher for the Democrats this year.

     Compared with the Miami riot, the scene in Convention Hall
seemed a little unreal at times. All political conventions, of
course, convey a certain air of fantasy. But last week's
assembly went somewhat further than usual in this respect
because of the lack of real contention over men or issues. The
very idea of nominating a self-proclaimed "unknown quantity"
such as Agnew hardly helped. Neither did the tasteless opulence
of Miami Beach or the well-coiffured, well-dressed appearance
of the delegates. "They're nice people," said one big-city
Northern Senator, "but they've just never ridden a subway." The
comment was not altogether fair. It is such people who work long
and hard for their political parties; affluence, or the lack of
it, is not necessarily an index of social conscience. Still, the
contrast between the people in the Convention Hall and the
nation's grubbier problems could not be ignored.

     Leeway. The Democrats will doubtless try to sharpen the
contrast. Both Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy professed
satisfaction at the prospect of running against a Nixon-Agnew
ticket, although Humphrey had more reason to be happy. Had the
Republicans picked Nelson Rockefeller, the temptation for the
Democrats to desert their front runner would have been greater.

     Nixon, as the challenger, will have considerable leeway in
shaping the debate. He may choose to capitalize primarily on
the sour mood of the moment, or he may choose a more positive,
upbeat approach. He may shuttle between the relatively
conservative and relatively liberal lines. He is in a good
position to take any course, for so far, at least, he has
retained an uncommon degree of flexibility. Nothing in the
platform, nothing he himself has said, binds him in an
unalterable position. Within a few weeks the nation should be
able to see how Richard Nixon intends to use his new strength.


Now the Republic

     At the end, he took the podium the way he had taken the
convention -- as if it belonged to him. He stretched out his
arms to take it all in. The fingers on both hands wigwagged
victory Vs at the clapping, stamping, shouting, pulsing heart
of the Republican Party. Four years ago, introducing Barry
Goldwater at an identical moment, he had described himself as
a "simple soldier" in the Republican ranks. Now the fortunes of
political conflict had recommissioned him a five-star general.
Richard Nixon was back for one more chance at Commander in
Chief.

     Which Richard Nixon? Friends, enemies and those in between
could not agree. They never could before. In a generally
sympathetic biography nine years ago, Earl Mazo found in Nixon
a "paradoxical combination of qualities that bring to mind
Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Joe McCarthy."
The intervening years have polished Nixon and made him
well-to-do, but they have not simplified him. He can still sound
like the high-minded statesman and act like the cunning
politico. He can talk eloquently of ideals and yet seem always
preoccupied with tactics. He can plink out Let Me Call You
Sweetheart for reporters on a piano or rib himself on television
talk shows, but the grin never seems quite at home on his
strong, heavy face. The almost mysterious quality about Richard
Nixon is that he is a man of exceptional abilities and solid
virtues, but somehow his many parts have always added up to less
than a convincing whole. Today he seems closer than ever to
overcoming this elusive handicap. He is certainly more
confident, more self-assured -- and with good reason. He has
made an extraordinary comeback. He worked harder than anyone
else for the nomination, with total dedication to his goal and
to the party. In that sense, he amply deserved his victory.

     No Millennium. At any rate, the 29th G.O.P. Convention,
looking up at its nominee, was not in a mood for character
analysis. After a conclave made dull by the swift rout of
Nixon's foes and enlivened only briefly by a spat over the
vice-presidential nomination, it was time for exultation. One
thing that his detractors have never understood about Nixon is
his total identification with the Republican Party and his
understanding of it. His acceptance speech was pure Nixon,
telling it as the party would like it to be -- 1968 style.

     He had worked for two weeks on the speech, writing it out
himself on yellow legal pads. It contained major elements of
the basic speech that he had delivered again and again during
the primaries, and reporters who had followed him during those
campaigns could finish many of the sentences as soon as they
heard the first word or two. But the nation as a whole had not
yet heard it. It was a mixture of carefully balanced political
calculations and genuine personal warmth. It was, by any
reasonable standard, corny, but it also was one of Nixon's most
effective speeches in years. Gone was the excessive
partisanship and professional anti-Communism of his early days.
The nation wants a high-roader after Lyndon Johnson. The
republic has survived subversion. The cold war is passe. Vietnam
is something to be settled, not won. So Nixon told them what
they wanted to hear. "Tonight I do not promise the millennium
in the morning. I don't promise that we can eradicate poverty
and end discrimination in the space of four or eight years. But
I do promise action. And a new policy for peace abroad, a new
policy for peace and progress and justice at home."

     To the Communist world, he declared an end to the "era of
confrontations," now that the "time has come for an era of
negotiations." But the new Administration must "restore the
strength of America so that we shall always negotiate from
strength and never from weakness." He did not touch on arms
control, a major point to be negotiated.

     Greatest Engine. In parts, the speech followed the Nixon
pattern of giving and taking away, of praising and then
attacking. He paid his respects to the courts, but they have
"gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the
criminal forces." And his Attorney General would be a real
gangbuster. The black and the poor need rescue, but they "don't
want to be a colony." Federal antipoverty efforts have not
helped at all: "We have reaped from these programs an ugly
harvest of frustrations, violence and failure." Therefore, urged
Nixon, the Government must use its power to "enlist in this
battle the greatest engine of progress ever developed in the
history of man: American private enterprise."

     He was curiously touching in describing the son of the
slums who "dreams the dream of a child. And yet when he awakens,
he awakens to a living nightmare." He was rather embarrassing
in the sketch of another child, himself, who hears a train go
by and dreams of faraway places. "It seems like an impossible
dream." But a self-sacrificing father, a "gentle Quaker mother,"
a dedicated teacher, a minister, a courageous wife, loyal
offspring, devoted followers -- plus a cast of millions of
voters -- combine to put that boy on the train that stopped last
week in Miami Beach, possibly on the way to the White House.

     The fact that Nixon spoke of himself as the hero of this
American dream, even though his intent was plainly modest,
seemed cloying to some. And the reference to a train whistle was
an oddly old-fashioned note: trains do not symbolize escape and
movement to today's young. Yet there could be little doubt that
Nixon was sincere here, just as Lyndon Johnson is sincere when
he talks about his years of poverty along the Pedernales.
Certainly Nixon's audience in Miami knew what he was talking
about, and responded.

     Good Avocation. His ability to evoke the good old days and
look eagerly to the year 2000, and to make the mix sound
coherent, points up his talent for accommodation, which is one
explanation for Nixon's return from political limbo. The
G.O.P.'s liberals can live with him. He picked up much support
from the Goldwater wing (and won the blessing of Barry), not
because he belonged to the party's right wing, but because he
was acceptable to it. Many of the stauncher conservatives
preferred Reagan, but they realized that the California governor
was not a viable national candidate. Tom Stagg Jr., national
committeeman from Louisiana, acknowledged: "We've had our shot
at a candidate who totally met our qualifications, and that
candidate got six states. We've had our druthers. Now shall we
win one?"

     Another factor is Nixon's capacity simply to endure. As a
child, he survived serious illnesses and a buggy accident that
gashed his skull; two of his four brothers died in childhood.
As a politician, he lived through youthful success and
middle-aged failure by dint of total industry and a fatalistic
belief that in politics conditions create a right time for a man
despite his actions. A Navy veteran in 1946, he won a House seat
at the age of 33. He was elected Senator at 37 and Vice
President at 39. Ten years later, defeated for the Presidency
and the governorship of California, he certified himself
politically kaput. Most of the press agreed, including TIME. In
1966, sensing the vacuum in the party, Nixon campaigned
tirelessly for G.O.P. candidates in 35 states and claimed a
major share in that year's victory. Nixon is only 55, but he has
been a national figure for nearly a generation. He has made
survival an avocation.

     In large measure, his current success flows from the
ineptness or vulnerability of his opponents inside the party.
George Romney, first in the ring, was the first to drop out.
Ronald Reagan had possibilities, but was too new on the scene
and too rigid in his views. Nelson Rockefeller, while a strong
and attractive candidate in many ways, has never fully
understood the differences between the politics of nomination
and the politics of election. In three leap years, he approached
the party as if it were a collection of voters on election eve
instead of a coalition of interests about to hold a convention.
It is a failing shared by the liberal Republican leadership,
which apparently learned little from its rejection in 1964.

     While Rockefeller fumbled with Romney's candidacy,
supporting him with money (at least $250,000), staff help and
increasingly hollow pronouncements of loyalty, Nixon continued
to capitalize on the contacts and loyalties he had built up
during 22 years in and around politics. Rocky staged his great
revolving-door act over whether he would be an active
candidate, in the process losing such important friends as Spiro
Agnew. Nixon advanced cautiously, tying up delegate after
delegate and winning primary after primary. The former Vice
President was able to campaign at a leisurely pace, usually
accompanied by wife Pat -- who looks more chic than in 1960 --
and their pretty daughters, Tricia, 22, and Julie, 20.

     Fargo Friend. By the time Rockefeller clumped back into the
race April 30, Nixon's momentum was almost impossible to stop.
Rockefeller roared around the country, berating Nixon for
refusing to stand up and fight. It was a weak argument coming
from a man who had ducked the primaries. Rocky had style and
good humor, and the crowds liked him. But he bet heavily on the
public-opinion polls, only to have them backfire after the
Harris and Gallup surveys clashed. When Rockefeller visited
delegates, it was to get acquainted, "to show I don't have
horns," as he himself acknowledged. When Nixon visited, it was
old-home week. Nixon could drop in at Fargo, N. Dak., and say:
"Hiya, George, remember that night when you were telling me
about that time with Harry..."

     Nixon took the Oregon primary on May 28 against the
disembodied competition of Rockefeller and Reagan, and that 73%
vote, he believed, assured him the nomination. Only some self-
inflicted stab or an act of Providence could stop him.
Privately, he said: "Everyone is waiting for Nixon to blow his
stack or confront Rockefeller directly. Well, it hasn't happened
up to now, and I think it's too late to start."

     In the final days before the convention, it was not
Rockefeller who kept a whiff of competition alive but the
increasingly obvious availability of Ronald Reagan and the
threat that George Wallace would cut into Nixon's
post-convention strength in the South. By this stage, Nixon's
campaign organization was tooling along flawlessly. He had
assembled a talented crew of old and new aides from in and out
of politics and from varying ideological backgrounds.

     Logistical plans for the convention were already being
made in November of 1967, three months before Nixon announced
that he was running. Rooms in the Hilton Plaza were booked even
before the hotel was finished. Finally, Nixon established a
virtual colony in Miami Beach populated by 500 staffers and
roughly 1,000 volunteers. An elaborate telephone and radio
communications system was created. Besides command posts in
Nixon's hotel and in a trailer outside Convention Hall, branch
operations were maintained in 35 hotels housing delegates.

     Nixon's game is poker, and in poker, he observed upon
arriving in Miami Beach last among the candidates, "it's the
fellow without the cards who does the strongest talking. I've
got those cards." Nixon was so confident of his hand that he
tarried on Long Island during the preconvention weekend. On
Monday morning, he appeared at a naturalization proceeding in
New York on behalf of his Cuban driver and cook, Manolo and Fina
Sanchez. When he got to Miami Beach that evening, Rockefeller
and Reagan were frantically and forlornly scampering after
delegates. By this time, the hot Florida sun had finally hatched
Reagan's official candidacy.

     Stirrings. Behind the convention scene of mixed turmoil and
torpor (from her pinnacle of 84 years, Alice Roosevelt
Longworth pronounced it "soporific"), there was a good deal of
political jostling and even some drama. During the three days
leading up to the Wednesday-night balloting, the main
maneuvering centered on three elements: 1) a handful of
uncommitted delegations, of which Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, New
Jersey and Pennsylvania were the most important; 2) the South,
which was largely in Nixon's camp already but vulnerable to
Reagan; and 3) Nixon's choice of a running mate.

     Michigan, under Governor George Romney, and Ohio, under
Governor James Rhodes, were subject to raiding by Nixon. But
the gains to be made there were not worth the cost of
antagonizing their powerful leaders, who clung to their status
as favorite sons. Romney was apparently prepared to hold out
indefinitely. Rhodes, who had been generally regarded as eager
to be in line with the winner, remained surprisingly stubborn.
Not so secretly, he wanted a Rockefeller-Reagan ticket as the
strongest draw in Ohio and, despite a well-earned reputation for
sagacity, held out some hope for its success. "We've really
stirred things up," he said at one point. "We've turned this
into an open convention."

     Most of the important stirring, however, was being done on
Nixon's behalf. New Jersey was restless under its commitment to
the favorite-son candidacy of Senator Clifford Case, and the
Nixon forces decided to move in on it. On a golf course over
the weekend, Nixon Aide Peter Flanigan told State G.O.P.
Chairman Webster Todd: "Look, we need your delegation right
now." Todd, whose wife was openly supporting Rockefeller, shot
back: "Hell, no!" But pressure continued on individual
delegates, who saw no purpose in holding out for a lost cause.
By Tuesday night it was open knowledge that New Jersey would
break, just as it had at the 1964 convention.

     Conservative Trio. Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer had
dropped his favorite-son role in order to back Rockefeller. But
neither Shafer's influence nor his choice to nominate
Rockefeller could hold the entire delegation in line. Some of
the Pennsylvanians had scant respect for their Governor,
privately referring to him as "Dudley Do-Right," after the
feckless cartoon character who usually ends up doing the wrong
thing for the right reason. And Nixon had powerful supporters
in the delegation, including George Bloom, chairman of the state
public-utility commission, and Congressman James Fulton. When
Rockefeller visited the Keystone Staters, District Attorney
Robert Duggan of Allegheny County demanded: "And where in hell
were you in 1964?" It became increasingly clear that Nixon would
get some help from Pennsylvania.

     Agnew's defection to Nixon was all but official before the
convention started. Meanwhile, though, Nixon men were compelled
to mount a defense operation among the Southern delegations.
Reagan had been making inroads in Alabama, North Carolina and
Texas particularly, and this trend could not be allowed to go
on unchecked. Barry Goldwater, Senator John Tower of Texas and
Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina -- three of the most
conservative men in the party -- counterattacked on Nixon's
behalf. Goldwater chatted with Southerners in his hotel suite.
Thurmond and Tower took some waverers for boat rides. Their
message was basic and concise. The real contest was between
Nixon and Rockefeller; every defection to Reagan would
ultimately only benefit Rockefeller.

     Rumors that Nixon was going to pick a liberal as a running
mate were everywhere. When a Miami paper printed a front-page
story that it would be Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield,
Rockefeller's and Reagan's men distributed 3,000 copies on the
convention floor to make sure that no one missed the point.
Thurmond and company denied the report, but the most effective
disclaimer came from Nixon in private meetings with
Southerners. "I won't do anything that would hurt development
of the two-party system in the South," Nixon told them. "I won't
take anybody that I have to shove down the throats of any
section of the country." Thus such Nixon loyalists as Party
Chairman Harry Dent of South Carolina were able to tell skeptics
on the floor: "I've got it written in blood."

     Nixon was also artfully placating Southerners on certain
sensitive issues. The Miami Herald managed to get a tape
recorder into one of the private sessions. In the transcript it
printed later, which Nixon's spokesmen did not knock down, he
explained his public support of this year's open-housing civil
rights bill as a matter of political tactics rather than
conviction. "I felt then and I feel now," said the transcript,
"that conditions are different in different parts of the
country." But he wanted the issue "out of sight" so as not to
divide the party and risk a platform fight. The Southerners also
remembered Nixon's criticism of Johnson's Supreme Court
appointments. While Nixon did not quarrel with Abe Fortas'
designation on personal grounds, the Southerners who did looked
kindly on Nixon's position.

     Collapsed Movement. Vote projections by the networks and
the wire services bounced about a bit between Monday and
Wednesday, while Rockefeller men insisted on talking about the
"erosion" of Nixon's strength. The most accurate count, as it
turned out, was by the Nixon organization, which earlier had
talked about 700 and privately refined its calculations to 702.
Needed to be nominated: 667. As the nominating speech droned on,
Nixon visited his command trailer outside the hall and got word
that a first- ballot victory was assured.

     As the roll call progressed, it was obvious that Nixon was
faring exactly as he had expected. The candidate, watching
television and keeping his own tally in his penthouse suite,
could have noted in the first several states an extra vote here
and there beyond his minimal requirements. Then Florida and
Georgia came through with large majorities -- evidence that the
Reagan movement had collapsed. Maryland delivered 18 out of 26.
Four Michiganders deserted Romney. Mississippi's unit rule held
for the entire delegation of 20. The undermining of Case's
position in New Jersey produced a welcome 18 out of 40. In
Pennsylvania, Nixon picked up 22 more.

     By the bottom fifth of the alphabetical listing, the fight
was really over. After West Virginia, Nixon had 650, and
Wisconsin's 30, won in that state's primary, broke through the
magic number to make it 680. Wyoming added its twelve, for a
first-ballot total of 692, compared with 227 for Rockefeller,
182 for Reagan and 182 sprinkled elsewhere. It was even less of
a race than it seemed. Nixon had reserve votes in several
favorite- son delegations that he could have called upon if
necessary. Minnesota Congressman Ancher Nelsen, one of the nine
whips working the floor for Nixon, had only one complaint: "We
got rather hungry. Getting a hot dog -- that was the biggest
crisis we had." Floor Manager Rogers Morton told reporters: "The
only time I got worried was when my shirttail came out and I
couldn't get it back in."

     Coffee and Cokes. Nixon won with no help at all from
California and Massachusetts and only token support from three
of the other large states, New York, Ohio and Michigan. He owed
his victory to Illinois, most of the smaller states in the West
and Middle West, and particularly to the South and the Border
States. Excluding Arkansas, which stayed with Governor Winthrop
Rockefeller, 14 Southern and Border States delivered 298 votes,
or 45% of the number needed to nominate. Thus Nixon's
determination to keep the South happy.

     It was after 2 a.m. Thursday when the voting ended. With
scarcely time out for a round of congratulations, the candidate
plunged into a round robin of meetings with advisers, aides and
party leaders about the vice-presidential nomination. Ten days
earlier, he had sent notes to a number of supporters, asking
them to send suggestions to a post office box in New York,
"anonymously, if you prefer." Whether he got any ideas from
that source was not clear, but he did arrive in Miami with
Agnew definitely on his mind.

     As the meetings progressed through the early-morning
hours, with a kaleidoscope cast of participants sipping coffee
and Cokes, a list containing scores of names was gradually
shortened. New York Mayor John Lindsay, probably the most
discussed possibility up to that point, was dismissed early as
too unpopular among conservatives. John Gardner was briefly
mentioned, soon dropped. Among others considered were Reagan
and Tower, both of whom would have antagonized liberals.
Hatfield, Romney and Keynoter Dan Evans were mentioned, then
Tennessee Senator Howard Baker.

     Overwhelmed. The shifting group of conferees contained its
own roster of notables: Thomas Dewey, Herbert Brownell, Billy
Graham, Everett Dirksen, Gerald Ford, Barry Goldwater, Karl
Mudt, Party Chairman Ray Bliss. Finally, after a brief break for
a nap and a breakfast of cold cereal, Nixon convened still
another meeting. By this time, the possibilities had been
reduced to five: Senator Charles Percy; Lieutenant Governor
Robert Finch of California, a longtime Nixon friend and
associate; Congressman Rogers Morton of Maryland; Governor John
Volpe of Massachusetts ("It might be nice," Nixon observed, "to
have an Italian Catholic on the ticket"); and, of course, Agnew,
Finch and Morton attended the meetings but left while they were
being talked about.

     It was past noon when Nixon ended the talks by observing:
"Well, I think the meeting has accomplished about all that it
can accomplish." Morton put in a call to Agnew. "Are you
sitting down?" Morton inquired. Nixon got on the phone and broke
the news. "I'm overwhelmed," said Agnew, whose stoic expression
rarely admits of such a condition.

     The Criteria. Overwhelmed also, but hardly in the same way,
were many of the Republicans and much of the country when Nixon
went on television 15 minutes later to announce the selection.
Nixon laid out three criteria for the No. 2 man on the ticket:
1) he must be qualified to become President, 2) he must be an
effective campaigner, and 3) he must be capable of assuming the
new responsibilities for domestic affairs that Nixon says he
will entrust to his Vice President.

     Attaching Agnew's name to these requirements shocked many,
because they knew virtually nothing about the man beyond the
fact that he was a very new, moderately successful Governor with
no national or international status. Many Northern Republicans
were rankled by the ready acceptance of the selection by
Southerners and by conservatives generally. Although Agnew is
a moderate by Maryland standards and a liberal by Deep South
criteria, there was the suspicion that he was on the ticket to
placate Thurmond and other segregationists. Not only liberals
protested. Colorado Senator Peter Dominick howled: "There are
2,000,000 people in my state who have never heard of Agnew. It's
a terrible choice."

     Events during the rest of the day began to take care of
Agnew's anonymity. Irate over the aura of a shabby deal that
surrounded his selection and disturbed by some of his recent
criticism of Negro activists, leaders in a number of
delegations talked revolt. As usual, however, the liberals were
disorganized. By the time the final night's session convened to
name a vice- presidential candidate and hear both nominees'
acceptance speeches, a coalition had been assembled to second
Agnew's nomination: Lindsay, Percy, Tower and California's
William Knowland. They covered all factions of the party.

     The dissidents scrounged for a candidate willing to oppose
Agnew, but were turned down by Lindsay. Rockefeller refused to
cooperate with the revolt, even though some of his allies,
notably Rhode Island Governor John Chafee, were leading it.
Finally George Abbott of Nevada nominated Romney. The ensuing
vote was a cruel slaughter: 1,128 for Agnew to 178 for Romney.
The loser then followed tradition by moving to make the
nomination unanimous.

     Although the minirevolt against Agnew's selection may have
satisfied bored delegates' desire for combat and excitement, it
was not only futile but unwise as well. Both party tradition
and U.S. history since Aaron Burr's day dictate that the
President must have a No. 2 man whom he wants and trusts. And
if by some fluke the convention had forced Romney or someone
else on Nixon, and the ticket had gone on to win, the unwanted
Veep could have looked forward to even more frustrations than
the incumbent normally suffers.

     Underrated. At week's end, as Nixon and Agnew went to the
L.B.J. ranch for a briefing on national-security affairs, it was
uncertain how much permanent damage to the ticket's chances in
November had been caused by the scuffle. Initially, Nixon was
forced on the defensive, arguing that Agnew was an "underrated
man." Later Agnew complained that he was being unfairly tagged
as an opponent of civil rights merely because he opposed civil
disobedience.

     Certainly the Marylander will be no asset to the ticket
among Negro voters, although it is doubtful that Nixon will get
much black support in any case. Agnew may be helpful, on the
other hand, on the border regions and some Southern states,
such as Virginia, Texas, Florida and North Carolina, in which
Nixon has a fighting chance to beat George Wallace. This is what
Nixon men call a "peripheral strategy," more or less conceding
the Deep South to Wallace. To capture the Presidency, however,
the Republicans must sweep much of the West as well, while
carrying some of the vote-heavy states, including Ohio, New
Jersey and Michigan. New York will probably be an insurmountable
problem for Nixon. Illinois will be nearly as tough. California
figures to be a tossup.

     Humphrey's Problem. Nixon maintains that he will fight hard
for all the crucial states, and says of the major industrial
states: "I don't think we gave them adequate attention in 1960."
He will avoid his 1960 mistake of barnstorming all 50 states.
His mode of attack is best suited to opposing Hubert Humphrey.
He sounded eager for it. "Two tough fighters like Hubert
Humphrey and Dick Nixon," said Nixon after his nomination, "are
going to slap each other around pretty hard on the issues. But
I'm going to keep it on a high level -- no personal attacks,
just on the issues." In an interview with TIME last month, he
indicated his strategy: "Humphrey's problem," he said, "is that
he carries the past on his back. He is the candidate of the past
no matter how much he talks about his programs and the future."
Nixon is hardly alone in his conclusion that "if there is one
thing the American people don't want, it's what they've got."

     Having won the Republicans, Nixon now has to win the
Republic. Some of his friends and most of his foes are dubious
that he can do it. At Rockefeller's headquarters before the
Miami Beach convention, Gordon MacRae sang: "Richard Nixon's
going far, In his snappy Edsel car. General Custer's coming in,
Gonna show Dick how to win."

     Rockefeller's people have company in thinking that Nixon
is a permanent loser, and Nixon knows it. Just after the Oregon
primary, he described his feelings: "You know, politics is the
cruelest sport of all. There are few loyalties, very few
friends. But coming off the floor, that meant something to me.
I kind of get a bang out of demonstrating that the old saws, the
old myths about Nixon have no validity." He has yet to prove
that, of course, but he is perhaps in better shape to do so now
than ever before. In the weeks to come, the nation will observe
a fascinating and peculiarly American human drama, the final
testing of a man who almost had everything, almost lost
everything and is now given a rare opportunity to try again.