University of Virginia Library

Rough Going

Never known as one to really
push hard on Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties, Mr. Nixon found the
going rough from both the
professional bureaucrats and the
lobbyists. The advice that he
got was progressive and unfamiliar.
Not only were those difficulties
enough, but the bureaucracy had
become so large that it was no
longer enough for a department
head to be familiar with his field,
but more importantly an expert in
public administration (witness the
near revolution in HEW and the
rapid exit of Robert Finch.

Even Presidential orders became
lost by the wayside. An example of
this was Mr. Nixon's order to
destroy our stockpiles of nerve gas.
Several months ago, the first
anniversary of that order had seen
one small shipment disposed of by
the Army.

A weakness became apparent in
the government if either someone
down the line had stopped the
order or an outside lobby group
had silently killed it. The President
does not have the time and effort
to trace down all of his orders and
ideas. He must use some political
favors in almost anything he does.

Some endeavors can be very
costly as he found out with
Haynesworth and Carswell and the
D.C. Crime Bill. How could he
overcome these problems that he
faced after less that two years in
office?

His political analysis told him to
take his story to the people. He
evidently took either the wrong
story or took the right story to the
wrong people. The plan worked to
some degree because he fared
much better than the average
President for a non-Presidential
election. He did suffer though
because he offered some of his best
Representatives to the Senatorial
races and lost almost everywhere
but Tennessee. Mr. Nixon and Mr.
Agnew also went about cleaning
their house of liberals.

When the election results came
out and showed that Americans still
voted an overall middle-of-the-road
ballot, the President found that he
had wasted much of his own, his
party's and his country's time,
money and effort.