Summer Daily
Summer Edition of
T HE MICHIGAN DAILY
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Saturday, June 23, 1973. News Phone: 764-0552
NiXon turns 'sof
[T IS INDEED ironic that Richard Nixon should be the
American leader to help usher in a new era of nego-
tiation With the Soviet Union.
Yesterday's declaration of mutual intent between
both countries to avoid nuclear warfare, preceded by
Thursday's announcement of impending nuclear arms
control, could mark the official end of the Cold War once
and for all.
This means of course that we can quit looking for
commies under our beds, that government agencies can
quit worrying about infiltration of student groups by red
agents, and that we might possibly. prefer being red to
dead.
AND INCREDIBLY enough, it was Nixon, who along
with Russian leader Leonid Brezhnev, signed the
declaration making inoperative the "Red Menace." Rich-
ard Nixon, the same Richard Nixon who in the late for-
ties and early fifties won election victories on a reputa-
tion as a communist baiter, hater, and proponent of the
Cold War.r
In 1946, Nixon won his first election as Congress-
man for California. In his campaign, he charged his op-
ponent, incumbent Jerry. Voorhis, with being "soft on
communism." A Nixon campaign leaflet read, "A vote
for Nixon is a vote against ... socialization of free Amer-
ican institutions.
Nixon won a Senate seat in 1950, by charging his com-
petitor, Helen Gahagan Douglas, with having a "soft at-
titude of communism."
As vice-president, Nixon's foreign policy statements
all spoke out fiercely against the "commie conspiracy."
And in his 1962 election campaign for California
governor, he again resorted to red scare tactics, charging
that Pat Brown had many "commie friends."
FORTUNATELY, Richard Nixon began to warm up to
the Communists, in both the case of Russia and
the People's Republic of China, after being elected as
President in 1968 to a country that was weary of war.
Always the opportunist, the President decided to seize
peace overtures to keep the public happy, not to mention
earning a place in the history books as a great world
leader.
And the timing was perfect. His historic trips to the
Soviet Union and China both occured in a re-election
year, boosting his pre-election popularity.
And even today, we suspect that the reason for delay-
ing the signing of nuclear arms limitations to 1974 is to
give the Republican party some well needed favorable pub-
licity shortly before the '74 elections, to counteract the
plague of Watergate on the house of GOP.
WE GLADLY welcome the improved relations between
our country and the Soviet Union. But if Nixon
thinks that we're going to forget about Watergate, he'd
better not hold his breath waiting.
Defending Watergate: God blames
America, Buckley cites McGovern
Ry JAMES WECHSLER
FORT WORTH, Texas - The
Rev. Billy Graham said today that
it was "too early" to make a moral
lodgment about the Watergate
ma-ndal bit suggested that it may
be a sign of the beginning of "the
j0fdrment of God on America ..."
"I have confidence in President
Nixon." Mr. Graham said. "I be-
lieve he will survive [Watergatel
and that he will be our President
for the next three and a half
years . .
Mr. grah-rn aid he had ot dis-
cixsoed the Watergate scandal with
Mr. Nixon.
-From a dianatch to The Times
DTT l.V GRAHAM has consistently
fo~ind it "too early" to sneak
ont in great moral crises. His voice
was memorably muted daring the
historic civil rights battles of the
1960s while many other clergy-
men were literally risking t h e i r
lives in the front lines of that con-
flict. He was similarly silent when
reliions leaders of diverse faiths
were crving ont against the es-
:alation of the Vietnam war (ex-
^ent for one indiscreet moment in
the Johnson era in which he ex-
nressed confidence that Christ
woild have been a hawk).
So it cannot be considered start-
ling news that Mr. Graham is de-
-rving any moral assessment of
Wtereate at this juncture, at-
thogeh his avowal of "confidence in
President Nixon" must itself be
read as a form of oremature moral
-or amoral-verdict.
Bt what must have rendered
Graham's sermon especially ap-
pealing to the President was his
assertion that the Watergate woes
herald "the judgment of God on
America." For if that is the case,
all of the investigative labors of
the Ervin committee, of special
prosecutors, and journalists are es-
sentially irrelevant. It is "Amer-
ica" - not any man or group of
men - that has invited divine
wrath, and now faces collective re-
prisal.
THERE IS A certain lack of logic
-- among other things - in this
:octrine because Mr. Graham
seems to grant solitary immunity
to the President. If that totality
he calls "America' is guilty, how
:oes Mr. Nixon merit a special
vote of "confidence" and assur-
ance of political survival?
The evangelist, sounding as if he
had consulted his lawyer before
:elivering this ttterance,cautious-
Iy emphasized that he had at no
point in time "discussed the scan-
dal" with the President. Presum-
ably this would enable him to de-
clare his statement inoperative at
a later date.
For the moment, however, he
seems to be holding to the view
that the arrangements for Water-
gate and allied crimes were devis-
ed by Providence as retribution
for our national sins. A perverse
observer might conclude that Mr.
Graham was letting God take the
rap for the whole business, which
might be described as the summit
of scapegoat-hunting.
AS THE SCANDAL unfolds, oth-
er Presidential apologists will
evolve equally bizarre - if per-
haps more worldly - rationaliza-
tions for the espionage and sabo-
tage and ensuing coverup.
, Even as the dimensions of the
case expand and the trail leads
closer to the Oval Room, there are
spreading suggestions that all the
transgressions were primarily a
defensive response to the anarchic
tumult of the time.
That view received extraordinary
expression in a recent William
Buckley column. Describing Jeb
Magruder's retrospective comment
on the insidious influence of the
law violations of Rev. William
Sloane Coffin Jr., Buckley observ-
ed:
"The threat of McGovern taking
over the country was at least as
great a threat to America as the
threat of the North Vietnamese tak-
ing over South Vietnam."
Since Buckley was one of those
who long preached that U.S. se-
curity was vitally menaced by the
prospect of defeat in Vietnam, he
must appear to be arguing t h a t
almost anything would have been
warranted to prevent a McGovern
triumph. By that standard, the
burglary at Democratic headquar-
ters must be deemed a minimal
measure; why didn't they drop
bombs on the place, as if it were
an enemy capital?
Perhaps Buckley was really par-
odying the Magruder thesis; yet
on other occasions he has admon-
d that a McGovern vic t o r y
would have been as great of a
threat as a North Vietnamese
victory.
]shed Mr. Nixon to stress that "na-
tional security" was the urgent,
conscious motivation behind all the
plotting - instead of involving him-
self in vulnerable disclaimers.
IN THE END, when all the dis-
crepancies and contradictions in
the coverup and the attempted ob-
Graham views Water-
gate as "devised by
Providence as retribu-
tion for our notional
sins.
struction of justice have been air-
ed, that is the line where Mr.
Nixon may well make his final
stand. In a way it may be the heart
of the matter. Obviously, the true
Nixon loyalists were convinced that
his reelection represented the only
hope for survival of the republic.
They had been brainwashed by
the rhetorical panic of John Mit-
chell, Spiro Agnew and the Presi-
dent himself. They were prepared
to undermine the whole structure of
constitutional liberty under the
moral sanction of saving America
from McGovernism.
The macabre thought is how much
farther they might have gone if
in mid-October of 1972, it had
looked as if Nixon faced a real
chance of defeat. That somber
speculation, above all, makes full
disclosure of Mr. Nixon's role the
central mission of all inquiry.
lares Wechsler is edi/ortial d rec-
for for the New York Post. Copy-
right 1973, New York Post Cor-
Pora/ion.
lieves that the Watergate woes
herald "the judgment of God.
on America."
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