At Half Time: Shifting the Bodies Around

IT is political half time for Richard Nixon. Coming off a relatively bad second quarter culminating in the Democratic gains of Nov. 3, Nixon has already begun rejiggering his offense for the drive to his own re-election two years hence. He has yet to announce any formal changes in the first-team lineup, but his lieutenants are gesturing frantically from the bench. At a breakfast meeting with some 15 newsmen last week, one important Nixon aide let it be known that as many as three Cabinet officers will soon be pulled out for good. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat who has served as a liberal goad to Nixon--notably on the welfare reform bill, one of the Administration's few major domestic proposals--will be dispatched to New York to replace Charles Yost as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

The Moynihan shift was unexpected, for the urbane urbanologist had indicated several times that he meant to return to Harvard when his academic leave of absence expires at the end of this year. The choice was Nixon's own idea; the President is much taken with Moynihan's Irish wit and persuasiveness, and he thinks that the U.N. post will be upgraded by sending to it a trusted adviser who is a veteran of his personal inner councils. Early in the Nixon Administration, Moynihan established a reputation as an articulate counterbalance to the conservatism of many of the President's other advisers on domestic policy. Actually, his liberal credentials came under some question last winter with the publication of a private Moynihan memo to Nixon that recommended "a period of 'benign neglect' " of the subject of race in the U.S. Wrote Moynihan: "We may need a period in which Negro progress continues and racial rhetoric fades."

Benign neglect seems too mild a phrase for Nixon's treatment of the men he aims to replace. Ambassador

Yost, a competent career diplomat who is widely respected at the U.N., was not informed that he was to be bounced to make way for Moynihan --or anyone else. Nor was there any direct word from the President or from his staff to the three Cabinet officers on Nixon's drop list: Interior's Walter Hickel, Treasury's David Kennedy and Agriculture's Clifford Hardin. The likely explanation is that Nixon wants to pressure the three men into resigning on their own. Says one staffer in the Office of Management and Budget: "It's our theory that the President cannot stand confrontations."

Stirred Flurries. Hickel's case is the least baffling, for the outspoken Alaskan has been on thin ice since his renowned letter to Nixon last May was leaked to the press even before the President had seen it. With the nation's campuses in an anti-Administration uproar over the Cambodian invasion, Hickel wrote Nixon that he had failed to give the young a hearing, and was ignoring some of his Cabinet members, Hickel included, into the bargain. (Hickel took up pen only when he was denied a meeting with Nixon.) During the fall campaign, Hickel traveled more on behalf

Republican candidates than any Nixon lieutenant except Vice President Agnew, though he made it plain that ie disapproved of Agnew's style and of e Administration's get-tough political Pitch. Hickel said he preferred a positive campaign.

After the election, the purge was on. Communications between the White House and Interior slowed down: tele-- calls went unanswered, even though there were important budget questions to settle. Hickel asked to the President, but once more he was refused. He began to get mixed messages from other high-level Administration Officials. The White House officia1 who listed Hickel first among the

Cabinet Secretaries to be sacked observed that Hickel's is the only "punitive" firing.

While Hickel truculently proclaimed that "the President hired me and he'll have to fire me," he moved rapidly to bolster his own position and prestige. This week or next he will announce an important preliminary agreement in the dispute over how the controversial 800-mile Alaska oil pipeline will be built. To lessen the danger that a thaw in the permafrost or an earthquake would break the line and flood the landscape with crude petroleum, nearly a third of the pipeline will be elevated aboveground.

Treasury Secretary Kennedy, a gentlemanly Mormon, stirred a flurry in his own department as a response to hints that Nixon wants a more vigorous voice to defend his economic policies. Kennedy had been planning a tour of European capitals for conferences with finance ministers and prime ministers. After the Nixon aide let it be known that Kennedy was a candidate for oblivion, his juniors quickly nailed down an eleven-day itinerary and released it with special fanfare earlier than was first intended. Kennedy kept an appointment with Nixon the day his departure was reported. While he was willing to submit his resignation if Nixon asked for it, the President made no such request. Kennedy would not mind leaving the Cabinet; his wife is ailing, and at 65 he is not in prime form for the Washington rough-and-tumble. But he is determined not to depart as a discredited Treasury Secretary shoved out the back door.

Leaks and Guesses. Like Kennedy, Agriculture Secretary Clifford Hardin has yet to learn officially that he is to be dumped; he was listed only a likely kill. Hardin's people feel that their man may be vulnerable because farm groups and lobbyists have complained that Hardin has not spoken up for them loudly enough in Washington. White House political operatives may be blaming Hardin for the Republicans' unexpectedly poor farm-belt showing in the Nov. 3 elections. But congressional passage of the Administration's farm bill late last week has probably strengthened Hardin's hand with Nixon. He believes so, at any rate.

The names of several possible additions to the Administration were bruited in the rash of leaks and guesses. Among them was Gabriel Hauge, president of New York's Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. and an Eisenhower economic adviser, who was mentioned as a possible successor to Kennedy Hauge quickly scotched the rumor. "The silly season seems to be starting early this year," he said. Nixon is also said to want to make room for two outgoing Republican Congressmen who ran for the Senate at his urging and lost: George Bush of Texas and Clark Mac-Gregor of Minnesota, both men he admires.

Besides the Moynihan shift, there were two other significant items on the Administration's personnel front. Donald Rumsfeld, chief of the Office of Economic Opportunity, fired Terry Lenzner, 31, head of OEO's program providing legal services to the poor (TIME, Oct. 26). The OEO recently tried to turn over to field offices some of Lenzner's administrative responsibilities. Lenzner accused Rumsfeld of "caving in" to politicians "who are determined to keep us from suing special interests close to them on behalf of the poor." Rumsfeld said Lenzner was "either unwilling or unable" to carry out OEO policies. Lenzner retorted: "The Administration apparently believes in bargain-basement justice for the poor."

The other item was the quiet resignation of Maurice Mann, chief economist in the Office of Management and Budget, known for his doubts about the Administration's efforts to control inflation. There is evidence that the President himself has now grown more concerned about the economic future. Last week he met with Kennedy, Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Paul McCracken, Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans and Chairman Arthur Burns of the Federal Reserve Board.

On the Spot. What has Nixon worried is a letter from Pierre Rinfret, a Nixon economic briefer in 1967 and 1968, who is now a successful New York-based consultant to major U.S. corporations. If the Administration's economic game plan remains unchanged, said Rinfret in his assessment for the President, unemployment will rise to 7.9% by the end of 1971, and to a catastrophic 9.7% a year later. Those figures are somewhat extreme, but not wholly out of line with other expert forecasts. Rinfret wrote Nixon a month ago. Since the President saw his report, a White House aide says, "this place has been in turmoil. He's been walking the halls asking what we're going to do about this."

That is a threat to Nixon's 1972 chances that he cannot solve merely by shifting bodies around in Washington. The most important personnel change he can attempt is the replacement of Spiro Agnew on the Republican ticket, but whether he will do so is likely to remain a mystery until the spring of 1972. That decision will be made in cold political terms: Will Agnew add more than he will detract? TIME Senior Correspondent John Steele reports: "At the White House, Agnew's initial campaign bearing was seen as excellent. But by pounding too hard, particularly in the later stages of the campaign, and especially by his 'Christine Jorgenson' remark about Senator Charles Goodell, he hurt himself where it counts most --the White House." By early 1972, Agnew may have consolidated his position with conservative Republicans so well that dumping him would create more problems than it would solve; or by then he may appear to be an overwhelming liability with liberal Republicans and independents. Agnew is cheerful enough about his situation. Before making a Honolulu speech last week, he remarked: "Any rumors that Richard Nixon will not be on the ticket with me in 1972 are totally without foundation."

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