Nixon: Steady as He Goes

By Hugh Sidey

THE PRESIDENCY

He is Richard Nixon the Durable.

Ohio Republican Congressman Sam Devine, a former Columbus prosecutor, was on the yacht Sequoia with the President and eight other conservative congressional friends last week. Devine cast his courtroom eye over the man, looking for the signs of pressure. A little older all over, thought Devine. The crow's-feet around the eyes were deeper. Gray in the presidential eyebrows. He watched Nixon's hands, an old courtroom tactic. "No tremors at all," said Devine later. "His gestures were good. When the President talked, he looked me directly in the eye."

Nor did Devine see any diminished appetite. Nixon ate his crab claws with gusto as the Sequoia plied the waters of the Potomac. He chewed through a good slice of roast beef, ate carrots and beans, polished the meal off with ice cream.

"The only thing I saw him turn down was a second cup of coffee," said Devine.

Illinois Republican Congressman Robert Michel, also on board that evening, had anticipated that there might be a little tenseness, given the events of the past days in Washington. "It was," he reported later, "the most open kind of uninhibited meeting that I have had with him since he was Vice President." Michel was at the President's side. The first thing he noted was that Nixon was in a checked sports coat. The President obviously had considered the occasion, and since he was going out on a boat, decided to be a little sporty. Good, thought Michel, as he watched the way the President sat, how he crossed his legs. Nixon was a relaxed man that evening.

Usually on such cruises, a burdened President has confined himself to ginger ale. Michel, on a liquor-free diet, thought he would have a companion again. "Oh, now, come on," Nixon urged the Congressman, who heads the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, "break down a bit." Nixon did. He had a couple of Scotches and water. Then there was a nip of light white Bordeaux with the crab claws and some hearty California Cabernet Sauvignon with the beef. Michel unlimbered his camera and took some snaps of the men on this special excursion into history.

Glenn Davis, Wisconsin Republican, catalogued Nixon too. Steady voice, emotions under control, he thought, but always tough. When talk of resignation came up, the President hammered it home. Never, never, never. When Nixon found out that Michigan's Elford Cederberg had a daughter in the hospital, he insisted that the Republican Congressman take the floral centerpiece out to her. "I wish that we could do more," he said. Cederberg felt that the Nixonian sense of humor was sound, and so was the President's mental condition. Nixon was ready to talk about problems from the Soviet Union to congressional politics. "What stamina," Cederberg said later in the week.

That also was the report of Conservative Columnist James J. Kilpatrick, who had been invited into the Oval Office a few hours before for an exclusive hour-and-20-minute interview, the first of its kind for more than a year. Kilpatrick looked at the long Nixon fingers for tremors of the kind Kilpatrick sometimes gets himself.

"Not a single quiver," he said. The President displayed good humor. He mentioned his fear of a "gap" in foreign policy leadership, halted, then grinned: "You understand this gap would be longer than 18 1/2 minutes."

Nixon was up on Kilpatrick. One recent column suggested Nixon was innocent of criminal acts. But after a more thorough reading of the transcripts, Kilpatrick wrote another column deploring the White House squalor. When the writer hit the President with a question about the tapes, Nixon said, "I suppose that is some of that amorality you were talking about yesterday."

Once Kilpatrick mentioned Julie, who had faced a crowd of reporters in defense of her father. Nixon raised both arms, doubled his fists and then, after a few seconds of poignant silence, said one word: "Julie." It was as if she were a part of what keeps him going.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.