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THE COURT. Almost as disquieting and perhaps of even longer-lasting effect has been Nixon's indifference to the need to appoint men of the highest legal standards to the Supreme Court. After Congress quite properly rejected two of his appointees and forced him to raise his sights, he successfully elevated men who, although better, were of uneven quality. They share his constitutional philosophy, voting as a bloc in 53 out of 70 of the court's recent nine-man decisions. Nixon quite likely will be able to make more appointments in his next term: William O. Douglas is 74, Thurgood Marshall is in shaky health at 64, William Brennan, 66, has talked of retirement. A great need in the emerging Nixon court is for sharp intellects who can write good law; the court is short on intellectual conscience and independent scholarship.
CRIME. Street crime is one social problem that is most fittingly a local responsibility. But because it is one that bothers many people the most, Nixon has campaigned hard on the issue so hard, in fact, that he has made it a White House concern. There can be endless arguments over selective statistics. Based on an FBI index of seven serious crimes, the annual rise in the crime rate has dropped sharply from as much as 17% in the 1960s to 1% this year. Yet there have been more than 6,000,000 such crimes committed in the past 12 months, compared with 4,500,000 in L.B.J.'s last year, an increase of fully one-third under Nixon.
He has pumped some $1.5 billion into state and local law-enforcement agencies, although much of it has gone for riot-control gear and other unproductive frills. Far more effective has been the Administration's drive against organized crime. This is expected to continue, as is a new emphasis on antitrust prosecutions, including jail terms for corporate price fixers, and new attention to such white-collar criminals as stock manipulators, tax dodgers and perpetrators of consumer frauds.
DRUGS. This is the domestic front on which Nixon has been most effective. His drive against the importation of her-oin has been tough. He has increased federal funds for drug-abuse prevention from $112 million in his first year to $714 million this year. The total should approach $ 1 billion next year.
ENVIRONMENT. The first President to face environmental issues seriously, Nixon took up the challenge with ringing rhetoric and some admirable action. He put fragmented activities into a new Environmental Protection Agency, gave it a vigorous director in William Ruckelshaus. Nixon proposed commendable measures ranging from air-pollution control to wiser land use. He stopped a cross-Florida barge canal and an Everglades jetport, rushed new measures to create more parks.
But as the recession grew, environmental concerns began to be balanced against business interests and the costs of protective measures that were often too heedlessly demanded by ecological crusaders. The Administration supported the SST, more offshore oil drilling, and fought some air and water cleanup proposals made by Democratic Senators. Nixon's credibility on environmental issues was hurt by his veto of a really rigorous, and expensive, $24.7 billion bill to clean up the nation's waters by 1985. Congress overrode the veto, but whether Nixon will spend the money is in doubt.