Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-03-01
Guessing Game
Now Revolving
Around Nixon
By MARTIN s. HAYDEN

worth AmetlCah newspaper Aluhnee
President Eisenhower's second
term decision has written a
climatic finish to one guessing
game and started another that
revolyes around Vice President
Nixon.
That Mr.. Eisenhower he
insists-can keep Mr.. Nixon as
a running mate is a political
certainty; that the President,
despite his continuing gesture Of
regard for his young Vice Presi-
dent, will do so is not so sure
Ia political bet.
I Two Eisenhower statements
yesterday emphasized the latter
fact: First, he again passed up
la chance to guarantee Mfr.
INixon's ticket place by saying
that was a matter for the
10. o. P. convention which tradi-
Itionally chooses a Vice President
after it has picked presidential
candidate. Second, he. in effect,
repudiated Mr. Nixon's char
acterization of Chief Justice
Warren as Republican Chief
Justice by saying abruptly that
he eisenhower would never
Iput a partisan tag on any court
member.
Naivete DISCOUNTED
Behind the Nixon problem to-
day lies the basic politics Of the
Vice presidency and the again.
demonstrated truism that Mr..
Eisenhower is not the simple,
easily practicable and politically
naive soldier many thought they
had elected in 1852.
1t is fundamental to American
politics that vice presidential
candidates should not be CON
Itroversial." They can be, and
have been, nonentities (Which
Mr.. Nixon is mott but the basic
rule holds that, if a second man
cannot add a few votes to the
tickets strength, he must at
least not deduct from the popu-
larity of the nominee for Presi-
dent.
This time the general rule is
|magnifled in Importance by the
fact that Eisenhower voters pre-
sumably will be taking more
than a casual look at the man
who would succeed~if a heart
that faltered last September "a
should fail again before 1860.
Increasingly G. o. P. strate-
Igists have been reporting that,
blameless though he may be,
Mr.. Nixon will not look too good
to many of those cautious voters.
Target of Campaign
The reasons are several:
First, Mr.. Nixon has been the
target for a deliberate political
tear-down aimed at the Vice
President because the President
was too popular for safe assault.
Democratic and labor union
!publicists, for example. coined
the nickname ''Trickey Dickey"
and reporters travelling the coun-
try have heard it picked up I'M
odd and Republican places.
When they ask skeptics among
ordinary voters why they do not
like Mr.. Nixon. the answers are
generalized:
81 just don't trust the things
he does" is typical.
Ask What things?" and a.
normal answer is: "Just things"
Secondly, Mr.. Nixon is young.
The fact that, at 43, he would be
starting a second vice-presiden-
tial term at the same age as
Vice President John C. Calhoun
and Daniel D. Tompkins, a year
older than Theodore Roosevelt,
and seven years older than John
C. Breckenridge was in 1921.
makes little difference; voters
still say Hes pretty young" to
be one heart beat from the Pres
idency.
Hatchet Man for G. o. p.
Thirdly, Mr.. Nixon has been
IA political trial balloon and
hatchet man for the Eisenhower
administration:
It was Mr.. Nixon, who once
stood up before a Nationwide
convention of editors and warned
bluntly that America might be
close to intervention in the Indo-
China war. Few in Washington
doubted that Mr.. Nixon was
speaking with administration
approval and authority but when
the crisis passed and the trial
balloon burst it was Mr.. Nixon,
who got the criticism as a brash
young man willing to run where
the more thoughtful Dwight
Eisenhower would not go.
1t was Mr.. Nixon, who. in. the
1854 campaign, made the rough
speeches driving home the Re-