THE VICE PRESIDENCY: The Veep Most Likely to Succeed?

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A majority of Republicans still reject that notion, for the record. Republican National Chairman George Bush, who reportedly abandoned plans to run for Governor of Texas next year because of Watergate, nonetheless maintains that Ford's presence has not altered the presidential picture. "I think there's a craving in this country for stability," he says. "I don't see Ford's confirmation as breaking some sort of psychological barrier. What I do see is that Congress is going home for Christmas, and if the President's approach—setting out the disclosure documents, moving around —is successful, then it will be reflected in Congress." If it is not successful—and Operation Candor so far has hardly been a ringing victory—then that will be reflected in Congress's mood as it heads into the new year.

Awesome Alternative. The Administration was still claiming that it does not take seriously any thought of impeachment. "Sure, the Republican guys are nervous," says a top Nixon aide.

"There's no doubt that they are looking with less disfavor on that awesome alternative [impeachment]. But you can't just say, 'We're going to take a bath in November, so we've got to have impeachment.' You've still got to have some hard evidence of criminal involvement." In fact, there is no such requirement; most constitutional scholars believe that officeholders are impeachable for ethical as well as criminal lapses.

Illinois Congressman Tom Railsback, a Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee, predicts that Democrats rather than Republicans will push hardest for impeachment, now that they have helped to assure continuity in the Administration by approving a Republican Vice President. Rails-back's odds that the President will eventually face the impeachment procedure: fifty-fifty. However, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield reports that his colleagues "aren't putting any pressure on me" to press for an oust-Nixon drive. Some anti-Nixon Republicans surmise that the Democratic leadership may decide that the President has been so seriously wounded that the party could profit most by keeping him in office and trying to engineer an antiAdministration election sweep in 1974 and 1976. In House debate, Maryland Democrat Clarence D. Long taunted Republicans: "If you keep the present incumbent in for three more years, the Democrats could win with the Boston Strangler."

Even the G.O.P.'s optimists admit that all pretense of recovery will be lost if any further time bombs are ticking away in the Watergate investigation. Still shocked by the Cox firing and the 18-minute gap in a Watergate tape, Republicans have grown wary indeed. "If it ever bottoms out, we might be all right," says Kansas' Dole. "But the coconuts keep dropping. You have to wear a steel helmet around here."