The Nation: Nixon and Kissinger: Triumph and Trial

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agreement had finally seemed possible because the military and political issues of the war were to be separated: a cease-fire now, then politics and maneuvering among the Vietnamese for the ultimate control of Saigon. By raising the sovereignty issue, among others, Nixon sharpened a deliberately fuzzed point, bringing the detailed politics of the settlement back into the present negotiations. In other words, he insisted on nailing down specifics where Kissinger and Tho had purposefully left them vague, subject to future negotiations, as the only means of reaching agreement.

When Hanoi refused to buy, Nixon ordered the bombers aloft to try to pressure the North Vietnamese. The heavy military gamble, in his view, had paid off before, when he invaded Cambodia in 1970, Laos in 1971, and mined Haiphong last May in the face of criticism and protest in the U.S. The atmosphere around the White House was even similar to last spring's, a mood of coolness and toughness only occasionally soured by the fulminations of the "doom and gloom brigade," as the Washington press corps is called. Gambling had, in fact, become part of Nixon's international style — to seem deliberately unpredictable, to let Hanoi, Moscow and Peking know that he was capable of almost anything, to keep them off their guard. It may be that he felt doubly confident this time in re-escalating the war, for the U.S. election six weeks before may have persuaded him, rightly or wrongly, that public opinion would be solidly behind him.

The Election and Nixon's America

The President, in fact, was spending much of the time last week working on his Inaugural Address, taking as his thematic starting point Teddy Roosevelt's two Inaugurals emphasizing the responsibilities of the U.S. as a world power and of individuals as citizens. Its tone and confidence would surely reflect the scale of his victory last November. With 49 states and 60.7% of the ballots cast, Nixon's landslide ranked with Lyndon Johnson's in 1964 and Franklin Roosevelt's in 1936. The appearance of a mandate was there, but it was in some sense deceptive. Nixon's men claimed the endorsement of a "new Republican majority," but they were ignoring the widespread ticket-splitting that occurred at the polls. In the House, the G.O.P. picked up only 13 seats, and in the Senate, where Republicans needed five to claim control, they lost two seats. That left the Democrats ahead 57 to 43 in the Senate and 243 to 192 in the House, where three seats will be declared vacant. The Democrats also made a net gain of one governorship.

It was, as everyone said, a peculiar election. Aided by the Democratic reforms that he himself had helped to institute, George McGovern seized control of the nation's majority party and then so mishandled it that the election became a referendum less on issues and ideologies than on the personal competence of the two men. Issues of economic and social justice became lost in a tangle of doubts about McGovern himself. First he proposed a $1,000-a-year guarantee for every American, only to revise the suggestion later. Then came the Eagleton affair. McGovern never could shake the charge, however unfair, that he was the candidate of "amnesty, acid and abortion." He was, too many voters believed, an indecisive radical — the worst kind.

Somehow McGovern deeply