Nation: WHITE HOUSE WEST San Clemente, California

FOLLOWING the most hectic fortnight of his presidency, Richard Nixon paused last week to recharge. Accompanied by Mrs. Nixon, he flew cross-country to spend a month at the new summer White House—a ten-room Spanish-style villa on a 75-foot cliff overlooking the Pacific at San Clemente, Calif.

Cotton Point is ideal for the privacy-loving Nixons. Shielded from the road by a stand of eucalyptus trees, the five-acre estate offers both solitude and convenience. A newly built private road links it to the adjacent San Mateo Point Coast Guard station, where communications facilities and private buildings have been set up to accommodate the staff members who will accompany him to summer quarters. The station's ball field has been converted into a helicopter pad. Only a ten-minute chopper flight separates Nixon from El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, where Air Force One is to be kept.

The house itself has undergone considerable renovation since the Nixons bought it in July for $340,000. The somber interior has been brightened and refurnished with provincial pieces by Mrs. Nixon. The tennis court has been replaced by a 22-by-44-ft. swimming pool. Security has been guaranteed by 1,500 ft. of new fencing and several observation posts constructed in the same tile-roofed style as the villa's main buildings. Spotlights have been installed on the bluff to illuminate the ocean at night. Even the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co., whose line runs along the base of the cliff, has cooperated to assure the President's relaxation. It has ordered its engineers to slow down and refrain from sounding their whistles when passing Cotton Point.

These precautions may not, however, prevent the President's vacation from being interrupted. A number of antiwar groups plan to open a "fall offensive" for peace with land and sea demonstrations at the summer White House next week. And Nixon may well be witness to one of the least violent protests ever planned when a group of "Women Against War Toys" marches to the beach below his clifftop castle to construct an edifice of their own: a sand castle for peace.