COVER STORY
THE men suggest cool competence I rather than passion or brilliance. They are problem solvers rather than idea brokers. They span the Republican midsection from the moderate progressives to the responsible conservatives, stopping short of ideological extremes. They are mostly affluent, some in the millionaire bracket, but they earned their money rather than inheriting it. There are no blooded patricians in the lot, just strivers who have acted out the middle-class dream. Thus, as much as any dozen individuals can, Richard Nixon's new Cabinet members mirror the qualities of their boss, of the campaign he waged, of the aspirations of the constituency that elected him.
After studying the evolution of Cabinets from George Washington's first appointees onward, Political Scientist Richard F. Fenno Jr. wrote: "The Cabinet is the show window of the Administration, and a favorable reception for the group will be an asset the President can use to augment his own public image." Nixon obviously agrees with that lesson in history. He unveiled his creation as a unit last week, the first time that has been done since Woodrow Wilson's mass announcement in 1913—and the first time ever as a live television show.
As a political What's My Line?, the 30-minute production was a little flat; the news of the nominations had all dribbled out well ahead of air time. But as an indication of Nixon's intention to invest the Cabinet with more prestige and responsibility than most of its recent predecessors, the show was a good beginning. New department heads are rarely well known to the public; now Nixon's men are a little better known.
Nixon also succeeded in conveying to his audience a sense of esprit and solidity at the top, even if most of the appointments did little to add to the public knowledge of the precise directions his policies will take.
A Tested Supporting Cast
If the Nixon Cabinet seems to be constructed more of grey fieldstone than glinting steel and glass, so does its architect. If it is short on commitments on specific issues, so is Nixon. If seven of the twelve live west of the Alleghenies, that was the source of the votes. Though a son of the Pacific Coast and a man of the Atlantic, Nixon has always had his political heart in the Midwest.
The group is also somewhat more homogeneous than the cross section that Nixon sought. Earlier he had promised to put together "a Government drawn from the broadest possible base, an Administration made up of Republicans, Democrats and independents," one comprising "the very best men and women I can find in the country—from business, from government, from labor, from all the areas." Not by choice, he ended up with a group that is all white, all male, all Republican. As a rather obvious gesture of compensation, Nixon began the TV show by reappointing Walter Washington, a Negro Democrat, to a second term as commissioner, or mayor, of Washington, D.C. Black leaders were not appeased. Said Clarence Mitchell, N.A.A.C.P. director in the Capital: "Johnson, a President from Texas, desegregated the Cabinet, while Nixon, a President from California, resegregated the Cabinet."
The new Cabinet is heavily weighted with men of business backgrounds. Three got rich in the construction industry: Massachusetts Governor John Volpe