Disowning Richard Nixon, his right-wing former supporters carefully point out, is a decision reluctantly reached. After all, one does not toss off an old ally and champion without shedding tears for what once had been. But the moderate tone of Richard Nixon's presidency—while not liberal enough to satisfy critics in the center or on the left —has so disturbed many of his conservative backers that he appears to be in some danger of alienating a constituency he has counted as his for 25 years. Welfare reform, cutbacks in defense spending, advocacy of deficit spending and Keynesian economics were difficult enough for Nixon's conservative supporters to tolerate, but for many, rapprochement with Communist China was the final straw. In recent weeks, right-wing spokesmen have announced a formal split with the President:
¶ Twelve gurus of the right, editors and officials of conservative groups headed by National Review Editor William F. Buckley Jr., expressed their "personal admiration" and "affection" for Nixon, then said: "In consideration of this record, we, who have heretofore generally supported the Nixon Administration, have resolved to suspend our support of the Administration."
¶ Human Events, a Washington-based weekly that is a barometer of far-right thinking, pointed to years of backing Nixon candidacies, but added: "We fear that the President is not only advocating policies at almost total variance with conservative sentiment on the domestic front, but his 'generation of peace' diplomacy, coupled with his seeming unconcern about our rapidly deteriorating military posture, is literally endangering the survival of the American Republic." — William Loeb, ultraconservative publisher of the Manchester, N.H.. Union Leader, reminisced about the old Nixon, then washed his hands of the new: "The publisher and Mrs. Loeb are very fond of the President and Mrs. Nixon personally, and we thoroughly enjoyed our recent dinner at the White House. We found the Nixons to be fine people. But the first consideration is not personal friendship. This newspaper considers President Nixon's proposal to visit Communist China and the change in policy toward Red China to be immoral, indecent, insane and fraught with danger for the survival of the United States."
Early Birds. The hard-core right wingers have never been well organized nationally and are generally dismissed by politicians as fringe extremists. But the voices raised against Nixon could influence a wider range of voters who stand to the right of center. The danger from the right could easily be overestimated, but Nixon for one did not ignore it. He called his older lieutenants on Capitol Hill—the "early birds" who helped him resurrect his political career for a run at the White House in 1968 —for a cocktail party last week. They included John Tower of Texas, Paul Fannin of Arizona, Robert Dole of Kansas. They met for an hour, exchanged cordial remarks and received presidential gifts. The same day, Nixon held another meeting, this one with New York Senator James Buckley. Neither would discuss the details of the meeting, but the President more than likely sought to answer affirmatively the question Brother Bill had posed about him in a recent magazine article: "Is he one of us?"