Word: dissent
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...blast-off for man's second moon landing, of yet another massive outpouring of sentiment over Viet Nam. TIME deals with them both. Yet as the days went by, it became increasingly clear that the biggest, most intriguing news was the Nixon Administration's mounting counteroffensive against dissent in the U.S. The speech attacking the television networks by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, whom TIME discussed in last week's cover story, was only one broadside in a campaign directed from the White House and involving many members of the President's official family...
...demonstrate to Hanoi that the protesters do not speak for the American public, and so gain time and leverage for his plan for a gradual U.S. disengagement from Viet Nam. In the process, the Administration is splitting conservatives from liberals, drawing a line between dissenters and Americans who are sick of dissent-more so than of the war itself...
...short run, Nixon's politics of polarization are paying off. What will happen in the longer haul is more problematical, both at home and vis-a-vis Hanoi. He argues that dissent weakens the U.S. bargaining position. But not only is he stimulating dissent among many moderates and on the left by his new belligerence, he also risks stirring up the hard-line right to renewed cries of "Not peace-victory!" He may exacerbate the tensions of a nation distraught and confused as it has not been since the Depression. That danger augurs ill for both his presidency...
This is not the first time Americans have seen their President respond to dissent by ignoring the issues and seeking to discredit dissenters themselves. But the Nixon scenario has a new and dangerous twist. By initiating unnecessary and arbitrary "safety" measures, the Administration has generated a threat of violence where none had existed before...
President Nixon has met the voice of dissent with a vicious campaign of threat and insinuation. Americans should not permit his twists and turns to blunt the edge of their anger...