The infirmity of the President
Because the freedom and security of the western world depends Upon the strength df the United States of America, the conduct Of American government is of great concern to us all. The disPosition in some quarters in this country to treat the Watergate affair, its overtones and undertones, as a domestic American Concern, although understandable among the most resolute supporters of the United States (among whom we count Ourselves), is not helpful. It presumes that the conduct of American foreign and defence policies can and will continue more or less unaffected by political scandal in the White House. The president' Of the United States is very much his own foreign secretary; the President is also the commander-in-chief. Foreign and defence Policies may be executed by the secretaries of state and defence, but these policies flow from the decisions of the president. A President of the United States who, for whatever reason, is infirm is a source of weakness; and everyone who is neither a fool nor a Communist must hope that a recovery is made from infirmity, or, if the infirmity becomes incapacity, that a replacement be found. Were the present infirmity of President Nixon to be physical rather than political, this would be easily seen to be the case, the question as to whether his sickness was curable or incurable could be left to the doctors, and, if necessary, arrangements fot the succession of a 1). ew president could be made. The difficulty in the present situation is that the infirmity is political, there are no doctors to hand, the Patient diagnoses and medicates himself, and his forced replaceMent could make matters worse.
President Nixon's broadcast to his nation on Monday evening as unconvincing. It is not so much the question, Did he speak rtne truth? — the answer to that may be left to the historians — nut, Will the American people, by and large, accept that he told 1.!le truth? It is easier to answer "Yes" to the second than to the orst question. People in the United States will want to believe that their president is not a liar.. A more brazen, a less apologetic _Performance last Monday would have been better. The face and words of Nixon were those of a man, who, protesting his inn9cence, knows full well that not only is he responsible but that he Is guilty at the very least of complicity. He may not have known Pre. cisely and exactly what was being done in his name; but if so, ignorance was that of a man who did not want to know. "Do ;vhat must be done" he may well have said, "and I will be three orass monkeys in one. I will see no evil, hear no evil, speak no In such circumstances his loyal and politically ignorant bervants can easily understand it to be their highest duty to coneiseal from their master all that which it would be most seemly for n"IM not to know and to continue adamantly with such con`„!alments even after he had rhetorically demanded of them that i',HeY tell him the truth. It is unlikely that Nixon will be caught out ,.", a direct lie; and the American public may settle for this. But "v111 they be allowed to do so?
T Dh e matter is far from coming to an end. It is not just the Water ItVte bugging, and the subsequent cover-up attempt: if it were, 1....._ s,_en the matter could be allowed to drop. Daily, almost hourly, 1;aSe Monday's broadcast, more evidence has appeared, estabN7ffing beyond any reasonable doubt that the court of King; `x°n was rotten, run by men with no conception of public duty and with no respect for the due process of law. The chief courtiers have left the court; but Nixon has not yet grasped the nature of their offence, and sheds tears over their departure. His last two Attorney-Generals have resigned; yet even now, when the absolute necessity of restoring the public's trust in the Department of Justice should have been apparent to a political simpleton, the President transfers Mr Elliot Richardson from Defence to Justice. Mr Richardson's integrity may well be "unimpeachable"; but he nevertheless is a member of Mr Nixon's administration. He is a Nixon man. So are they all. Some may look more respectable than others — and some undoubtedly are — but all of them are Nixon's men. Nixon has not yet grasped the nature of his own offence, which is that neither he nor any of the men around him are clear of or above suspicion. FBI agents move into the White House. The Senate demands nem con the appointment of a prosecutor outside the Administration. But what did the President say? "In any organisation the man at the top must bear the responsibility. That responsibility, therefore, belongs here, in this office. I accept it. And I pledge to you tonight, from this office, that I will do everything in my power to ensure that the guilty are brought to justice, and that such abu ses are purged from our political processes in the years to come, long after I have left this office." He has not grasped that it is not enough to declare that "1 accept" responsibility and that "I pledge" that abuses are purged. At every stage of this crisis, as it has slowly built up, the President of the United States has acted too feebly and too late. He is still doing so. He is at the mercy of 'events and in no evident sense their master. This is the measure of his infirmity; and the ground for international concern.
In this situation little solace is to be derived from the sophistry which argues that the revelation of the American political system's scandals establishes the system's inherent virtue. According to this notion the worse (which in political terms means the more weakening) the scandal of the system which the system has • revealed then the better (the stronger) this demonstrates the system to be. Given the present condition in the White House, there is little to be gained from complacent reflections on the virtuous vigour of the system. The system, after all, sustains in power a man who, in this country, would undoubtedly have resigned by now; and to make matters worse, the system would replace Nixon, should he go, with Vice-President Agnew. This prospect, if nothing else, must make those who would otherwise have sought to force Nixon's departure, on the ground of his acceptance of responsibility, pause. Impeachment of the President of the United States is nowadays in any event an extremely dangerous course, removing the capacity for swift decision from the man who is, for better or for worse, the leader of the western alliance. At this time, the instinct of those who seek to rally round President Nixon is sound. The system allows no other rea listic choice. The President has failed; the system has failed; but the world cannot afford to run the risk of using the one forcibly to replace the other. If President Nixon is unable to grasp that it is his duty to retire, and he is very unlikely to be able to grasp this,, .then the United States and the rest of us will have to put up with him, and hope that he recovers something of his strength and resolution.
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