Nation: REPUBLICANS: Campaign from Mission Bay

While memories of Miami Beach faded like a vacation tan, Rich ard Nixon and his staff spent most of their time last week ministering to G.O.P. moderates, who still smarted at the winner's choice of Spiro Agnew as No. 2 man on the ticket. On the surface, at least, Nixon's efforts seemed remarkably successful. There was plenty of lingering bitterness, particularly in the Rockefeller camp, and some veteran Republicans even muttered that they would rather vote Democratic or not at all than vote for Nixon. But in general, and certainly with the professionals, party unity remained the big goal. One by one, the moderates vowed full, if not devoted, support to the Nixon-Agnew team. "All we see," noted one jubilant Nixon aide, "are smiling faces who want to win."

Michigan's George W. Romney, Pennsylvania's Raymond Shafer and Illinois' Senator Charles Percy pledged their help, while Washington's Daniel Evans, Rhode Island's John Chafee and Colorado's John Love—all three Rockefeller men—signed up for posts on the candidate's "key issues" committee. Nixon, comfortably ensconced at San Diego's Mission Bay resort, talked by phone with John Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller, inviting Rocky to his Fifth Avenue apartment (which, as it happens, is right next door to the Governor's) this week for a chat on his role in the campaign. Kentucky's Senator Thruston Morton, an early Rockefeller man, was named a special assistant to the candidate, with a reserved seat on the campaign plane. New York's Senator Jacob Javits and Mayor John

Lindsay were the only prominent G.O.P. liberals to hedge support. In response to 40 questions from reporters, Lindsay could find not one good word to say about the G.O.P. ticket.

Seeing White. The Nixon people have been planning their fall campaign since June—with the basic outline going back as far as the summer of 1967—and the Republican strategy is now all but complete. In essence, the pitch will be to whites, with the Negro vote a very secondary consideration. "You can't build a campaign on Negro votes that you don't have and probaoly can't get," says a top Nixon strategist. "We're going after the middle-class Democratic urban voter, and the buttons you push there are Viet Nam, law and order, taxes, inflation, and so on."

While expecting to receive much less of the nonwhite vote in 1968 than he did in 1960 (32%), Nixon at the same time hopes to do a little better than Barry Goldwater's minuscule 6%. "We may get 7%," says one adviser, "and we'll be lucky if we get 10%." But that tiny margin, reason the strategists, might be enough to tip the balance in a few closely contested states. Consequently, says one aide, "the boss" will be "talking a lot about black capitalism. He'll be going into the ghettos."