THE ADMINISTRATION: A Sure Touch in Ford's Second Week

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Inside the hotel, the 4,750 veterans warmly applauded Ford's announcement that he had nominated Richard Roudebush, a former V.F.W. national commander and ex-Representative from Indiana, as Administrator of Veterans Affairs. The audience cheered and clapped loudly as Ford departed from his bland prepared text and declared that "unconditional, blanket amnesty for anyone who illegally evaded or fled military service is wrong." But the veterans sat in shocked silence as Ford went on to say that he wanted the deserters and draft dodgers who fled abroad during the Viet Nam War "to come home if they want to work their way back." Pledging to throw "the weight of my presidency into the scales of justice on the side of leniency," he added: "I reject amnesty, and I reject revenge."

Ford did not explain what conditions he would attach to clemency; he will determine that after Attorney General William Saxbe and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger report to him before Sept. 1 on the problem. But it seemed probable that some kind of public service will be the price for amnesty. No one knows for certain how many men would be affected. Ford set the total of draft evaders and deserters at 50,000, a figure perhaps largely based on Government estimates of 4,400 draft evaders, 8,900 men actually convicted of breaking the Selective Service law and 28,600 deserters still AWOL.

A majority of the draft resisters and deserters interviewed by TIME correspondents last week said that they would accept nothing less than unconditional amnesty, explaining that anything less would imply wrongdoing on their part. On the opposite side of the touchy issue, the V.F.W. took an equally adamant stand against Ford's change in Administration policy. The day after his speech, the organization adopted a resolution rejecting any kind of amnesty for those who refused to fight in Viet Nam.

On the way back to Washington, Ford, in shirtsleeves and with his tie loosened, strolled aft to Air Force One's press section to explain his change of policy and why he had picked such a hostile audience for his announcement. He said that his thinking had been shaped in part by the views of his children and those of former Defense Secretary and Close Friend Melvin Laird, who had unsuccessfully tried to get Nixon to modify his hard-line stance. More over, Ford had concluded that his pledge to bind up the nation's wounds required a new approach. He explained: "You can't talk about healing unless you're going to use it in the broadest context." His choice of audience was equally deliberate. Said Ford: "I thought that the right audience would be an audience that might be difficult. It would have been a little cowardice, I think, if I'd picked an audience that was ecstatic."