The Nation: Facing Up to the Indecisiveness Issue

RIGHT after the congressional elections last November, Richard Nixon surveyed the political terrain and told his intimates that Senator Edward Kennedy would most likely be the Democratic candidate for President in 1972. But what of Maine's Edmund Muskie? "The George Romney of the Democratic Party," Nixon scoffed. In 1967, Romney blew an early lead among the Republican contenders by appearing dimwitted when he confessed to having been "brainwashed" about Viet Nam. Now Republicans publicly and Democratic rivals privately are in full cry after Muskie for what might seem to be a similarly fatal failing: indecisiveness.

In some of his political speeches these days, Spiro Agnew has a laugh line that goes like this: "I guess you've heard that Senator Muskie has taken a firm position on a major issue. He has set Dec. 31 as the deadline for the end of the year." The Administration's plan, reports Conservative Columnist Kevin Phillips (The Emerging Republican Majority), "is to hold Muskie's chameleon-like indecision and issue-flipflopping up to the spotlight—and even to ridicule."

Muskie has a problem, but Phillips defined it badly. The difficulty, which could become a serious impediment to his candidacy, is that Muskie often gets in his own way when he tries to explain himself. It is not that he says one thing in one place and another elsewhere. Once he has made up his mind, he normally sticks to his view, though like any reasonable man he can alter his stand to fit new information or circumstances. Where he goes wrong most often is in failing to communicate his views plainly.

Muskie's style is inconsistent. He can be very prim, exuding down-East caution and a lawyer's precision as he quibbles over the exact meaning of something that he has said earlier. On more relaxed occasions, he can be candid to the point of naivete and sloppy in his expression. That variation in the manner of Muskie's answers baffles even his friends; the seeming contradictions in the substance of what he says have made him vulnerable to attack. Pros within his own party believe that Muskie should make his positions plainer.

Among the several issues on which Muskie has sometimes made himself look awkward:

THE MIDEAST. In Israel's Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 war, Muskie answered a kibbutznik's question about that disputed territory by saying: "If I were in your shoes. I would hold on." Was that a pro-Israeli statement? Did that not differ from U.S. policy? In fact, Muskie was impulsively expressing sympathy for the plight of those Israelis. Diplomatic blunder? Yes. Indecisiveness? No.