LOS ANGELES TIMES SYNDICATE

Times Mirror Square / Los Angeles, California 90053

STATE OF AFFAIRS by Clayton Fritchey

RELEASE DATE: Monday, November 22, 1971

FAREWELL TO AN OLD ISSUE

by Clayton Fritchey

WASHINGTON--As the presidential election year of 1968 rolled around, Lyndon Johnson's stiffest opposition came from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. And now, on the eve of another national election year, Richard Nixon finds himself being hit hardest by the ultraconservatives of his own party.

Their criticism takes various forms, but the most anguished and spontaneous complaint is expressed by Human Events, the blunt, but candid, voice of the GOP right wing. Commenting on the President's rapprochement with China, and his failure to keep it out of the United Nations, the conservative weekly says:

> "In view of the debacle that occurred at the United Nations, the Republican Party has probably lost forever one of its favorite campaign issues: accusing the Democrats of being 'soft on Red China.'" The issue, it laments, is now dead--"Another Nixon legacy for the Republican Party."

Well, it is true that accusing Democrats of being soft on communism has been a favorite--and often successful--GOP campaign tactic for over 20 years, so it is not hard to understand the right-wing reaction to Mr. Nixon's abandonment of it in favor of goodwill trips to Moscow and Peking.

The President's critics are probably right in believing that his overtures to Russia and China preclude another GOP soft-on-communism campaign in 1972, but whether this is bad politics is another matter. Despite the conservative complaints, all of the recent public opinion polls show that Mr. Nixon's general popularity has increased since announcing his forthcoming trips to the capitals of communism. (MORE)

Los Angeles Times Syndicate
Los Angeles, California

Page Two . . . STATE OF AFFAIRS . . . Nov. 22, 1971 . . . capitals of communism.

Regardless, however, of the President's motives for reversing his old, rigid, anti-Communist policy, or of how this will ultimately affect his political fortunes, there is little doubt that the country itself will be the better off for it. More than anyone else, Mr. Nixon, in a few brief months, has freed the United States from the anti-Communist fixation which has dominated American foreign policy for two decades.

Other postwar Presidents have also wanted to establish a detente with China and Russia, but fearing the domestic political consequences they hesitated and, in the end, drew back. Mr. Nixon has already secured a place in history by daring to do what his predecessors shrank from doing.

Considering that Mr. Nixon virtually built his career exclusively on anticommunism, it could not have been easy for him to relax on it, knowing that his critics would undoubtedly try to make him eat many of his old words. The ultraconservatives particularly relish recalling Mr. Nixon's 1968 campaign statement that "I do not believe we should admit it (Communist China) to the United Nations because that would be in effect putting the seal of approval on Communist China's very aggressive course against India and against our forces, of course, in Vietnam, and against all of its neighbors."

Another frequent complaint, well-expressed by a prominent Nixon campaign contributor in a letter to the chairman of the Republican National Finance Committee, is this: "If Hubert Humphrey was in the White House, Republican leaders would be bitterly condemning him for the actions which have been and are being pursued by a Republican President." Maybe so, but Humphrey is not in the White House, and even if he were, he, like other postwar Democratic Presidents, would probably not have been as bold as Nixon.

The writer of the letter concluded by saying, "Regretfully, as of now, I could not again support Richard Nixon." There is always the danger that if the present opposition spreads beyond the right wing, the President, as in the past, may get cold feet and feel obliged to appease his critics.

(MORE)

Page Three . . . STATE OF AFFAIRS . . . Nov. 22, 1971 . . . appease his critics.

He has, in fact, already made a few gestures in that direction by his
criticism of the United Nations after the China vote, followed several days ago by
a critical response to Peking's opening statement in the U.N. General Assembly. On
the whole, however, the President has not yielded any substantial ground. He seems
to think that he can keep the opposition in his party safely contained, and apparently
he can. At least, up to now, such leading conservatives as Gov. Ronald Reagan of
California, Sen Barry Goldwater of Arizona and Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina
have not been piling on.

William F. Buckley warns Mr. Nixon that "the backbone of the Republican Party is to his right," which may or may not be so, but the President can--and does--take comfort in the fact that none of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, except Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington and Mayor Sam Yorty of Los Angeles, are attacking him for his Moscow and Peking initiatives. After all, it's the Democrats that Mr. Nixon must run against next year.

Copyright 1971, Los Angeles Times

Institut für
Wirtschaftsforschung

Eidgenössische
Technische Hochschule Zürich

Institut de Recherches
Economiques

Ecole Polytechnique
Fédérale Zurich

Center for Economic
Research

Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology Zurich

(051) 26 67 92
Scheuchzerstrasse 68
8006 Zürich

March 17, 1971

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Special Adviser to the President
White House
Washington, D.C. / USA

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

Dear Henry,

In connection with our research work which is currently
conducted at my institute on a <u>World Simulation Model</u>
I will see some of my colleagues of the World Bank and
the IMF in Washington during the time of April 5 to
April 9.

Since I am writing a study on the future role of <u>Trans-national Dispersion of Power Potentials</u> I would very much appreciate having the chance of seeing you for a few minutes while I am in Washington. Any hour you suggest would be o.k. with me.

Looking forward meeting you, I am

Yours

RECEIVED

MAY 7 1971

CENTRAL FILES

25 632/1

Center for Economic
Research

0 (051) 26 67 92
Scheuchzerstrasse 68
8006 Zürich

April 23, 1971

EXECUTIVE

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Special Adviser to the President
White House
Washington, D.C. USA

FGG-11-1/KISSINGER, HENRY A.
KISSINGER, HENRY A. |F*

Dear Henry,

After having returned home I should like to thank you for
having seen me in spite of your tremendous load of work you
have to carry.

My visit to Washington, New York and to Cambridge was of
great importance for the further extensions of my research
which will go in the direction of an integration of poli-
tical and military factors into our World Trade Model, thus
making it a tool of continuous surveillance of the current
developments of such economic, military and political factors
which are important in our present world system.

Since you are able to read only classified material I shall
write on each of my study from now on "classified". With my
best cordial wishes, I am,

U.S.News & World Report

WASHINGTON

01-493 4643

72·NEW BOND STREET,
LONDON.W.1.

April 5, 1971

Mr. Henry Kissinger
Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20500
U. S. A.

Dear Henry:

I am coming to Washington on April 24th for
several weeks before I go off on a lecture tour
around the country and I hope very much that this
time we can arrange to get together.

Hal Sonnenfeldt, to whom I have written, probably
will take this up with you as last time I was in
Washington he suggested that I send him advance warning
of my next trip.

I have been doing a good deal of travelling
around the Continent in recent weeks and have returned
to London much more reassured about the state of U.S.-
European relations than I have been for some years.
In extensive talks with scores of people in and out of
government, I found a greater tendency to understand
America's problems both at home and in Vietnam than in
the past, far less tendency to criticize, a much better
appreciation of America's problem in maintaining its
forces in Europe and a somewhat more realistic assessment
of the prospects and limitations of detente with the
Soviet Union.

/continued ...