THE NATION: Ordeal by Campaign

A presidential campaign is more than a debate, more than a chance for the electorate to compare the "views" of candidates. It is also an ordeal, a trial of character. As debate, the Nixon case did not amount to much on either side; the Democrats started an argument, lost it and wound up defending Stevenson's fund which had been brought to light by the Nixon case. As ordeal, however, the Nixon case was by far the most important event so far, in the campaign.

Few verdicts of that obscure judge, public opinion, have ever been plainer than the reaction to Nixon himself. That part of the public that could be convinced (and had to be convinced) made up its mind that he was an honest and thoroughly sincere man. His fund was probably a mistake in political judgment (as was Stevenson's) but by the time Nixon had finished speaking, the snowballing charges against him had melted down to a tactical error—and no more.

Less obvious and more important than Nixon's acquittal was Eisenhower's ordeal in the Nixon crisis. From the start, the central (and unsolved) problem of the Eisenhower campaign was how to get over in public speeches the relationship between Ike's essential character and the problems facing the nation. What the speeches had failed to do, the Nixon crisis did.

Ike had two courses easier to follow than the one he took: 1) he could have fired Nixon instanter; 2) he could have promptly announced that Nixon would stay on the ticket. Most of the advice that Ike got was for one of these courses or the other.

Political amateurs, in general, were for the first course, some of them insisting that the Nixon case offered a heaven-sent opportunity to demonstrate Ike's political purity and independence. Reporters assigned to Ike's train were almost unanimous in this view, and many of their stories reflected the fact. The argument was that whether Nixon was right or wrong he had become a liability to the ticket, and should be dumped. Had Ike listened to this view and put seeming expediency above justice to Nixon he would have belied what his friends have said of him: that his character and experience fit him for the decision-making job at a time of moral crisis and leadership crisis in the history of his country.

Professional politicians, in general, urged Ike to take the second course. If he had followed their advice and backed Nixon completely from the start, there is no doubt that Ike would have choked off much of the anti-Nixon clamor simply by removing the element of dramatic suspense from the case. But if Ike had done that, it would have sounded like an echo of the Truman "loyalty," the complacent quality in the Administration that has caused what men of both parties recognize as "the mess in Washington." Ike was neither impetuous nor smug about the Nixon crisis. He admitted a real possibility that Nixon might be wrong, but he waited for Nixon's public defense and he was not afraid of the people.