ABSTRACT
Symbols are effective precisely by being concrete, woven into the texture of events, not quite able to stand on their own. Richard Nixon's ability to turn symbols around: to make himself an object of sympathy and to make his accusers seem immoral. Nor should one underestimate the power of future presidential actions to make today's events recede into memory. The American people have seemed to love eight qualities, such as, action, honesty, goodness, self-control, genuine emotion, administrative control, decisiveness, and an instinct for ends and means that are "characteristically American" in presidents, at least until the present. The office of the presidency today demands a strong executive, swift to act in international affairs and vigorous in domestic policy. The nation's defense against dictatorship rests, to this point, less on restrictions under law than on internal restraints upon the presidents themselves. The instinct of a president for ends and means "characteristically American" remains subject to searching judgment and trampling retribution.
