There is no denying his fine understanding of the American political process. I went to New Hampshire expecting to find a braying ass, and I came away convinced that Richard Nixon has one of the best minds in politics. He understands problems very quickly; you can almost hear his brain working when he's faced with a difficult question. He concentrates so visibly that it looks like he's posing, and his answer, when it flows, will nearly always be right, for the situation -- because Nixon's mind is programmed, from long experience, to cope with difficult situations. The fact that he often distorts the question -- and then either answers it dishonestly or uses it to change the subject -- is usually lost in the rhetoric. “I'm really better at dialogue,” he says, “The question-and-answer format is good for me. I like it on TV. The set speech is one of those things like the Rotary Club luncheon. I can do it, but if I had my druthers, I'd make it all Q and A.” The “old Nixon” would argue in public; the “new Nixon” won't. He has learned this lesson well, even if painfully.

The “new Nixon” is a very careful man when it comes to publicity; he smiles constantly for the cameras, talks always in friendly platitudes, and turns the other cheek to any sign of hostility. His press relations are “just fine,” he says, and if anyone mentions that “final press conference” he held in 1962, Nixon just smiles and changes the subject. He is making a conscious effort to avoid antagonizing reporters this time, but he is still very leery of them. Nixon takes all his meals in his room, which he never leaves except to rush off to one of his “drills” -- the term he and his staffers use to mean any speech or public appearance. His staffers sometimes join reporters in the bar, but never Nixon. He neither drinks nor smokes, they say, and bars make him nervous. Humphrey Bogart would have taken a dim view of Nixon. It was Bogart who said, “You can't trust a man who doesn't drink.” And it was Raoul Duke who said, “I'd never buy a used car from Nixon unless he was drunk.”

People who talk like that are not the sort that Nixon likes to have around, especially when he's engaged in something else and can't keep an eye on them. Perhaps this explains why his staffers got so upset when I tried to attend a taping session one afternoon at a TV station in Manchester. Nixon was scheduled to make some television commercials, featuring himself and a group of citizens in a question-and-answer session. The press had not been invited; I wanted to watch Nixon, however, in a relaxed and informal setting.