Richard Nixon Slept Here

For the ninth time since he acquired his California seashore spread, Richard Nixon last week was ensconced in his Western White House in San Clemente. For the President, San Clemente is more a change of scene than a change of pace. He still starts his office appointments at 8:30 a.m., and it is often 6 p.m. before he can get away in his golf cart to the nearby villa. Cabinet ministers, aides, politicians and Republican candidates churn in and out of the small city (pop. 17,000) as the business of state continues. Nixon's changes of scene, of course, inevitably alter San Clemente's own scene for both good and ill. To assess the changes, TIME Correspondents Simmons Fentress and Timothy Tyler collaborated on this report:

BEFORE Nixon's arrival in 1969, San Clemente was just another sleepy oasis on the luxuriant Southern California coast, a little-known haven for retired naval officers, wealthy businessmen and occasional refugees from smog-bound Los Angeles. Its most well-known citizen was Patrolman Bruce Crego, a red-haired giant known as "the Red Rider" for his prodigious feats with the summons pad. Until his retirement three years ago, Patrolman Crego handed out more than 5,000 speeding tickets a year to motorists passing through town on El Camino Real highway, which links Los Angeles with San Diego.

Only Twice. Now, when Nixon is in town, San Clemente hums with the business of the most powerful nation on earth--and of the camp followers. Camera-laden tourists by the hundreds cruise the once-quiet, mimosa-lined boulevards in the hope of spotting the President. The San Clemente Inn provides maps of the quarter-mile route to the gates of the Western White House, but all the tourist gets is the gates; a grove of palms hides Nixon's offices and home.

"I doubt that there are 200 people in San Clemente who've actually seen him," says Mayor Walter Evans. "We never know he's in town unless we've been reading the papers," adds W.E. Buckmaster, a longtime resident. Indeed, Nixon has only been in San Clemente proper twice. Once, when he and Bebe Rebozo were driving in the President's white Continental, they stopped off at Taylor's Pharmacy on Del Mar Avenue so that the Chief could buy a box of Russell Stover candy for Pat. Another time, the two dropped into the Bay Cities Ace Hardware Store, where Nixon bought three beach balls.

Awake Nights. San Clemente is doing its best to take a resident President in stride. "I personally think it's kind of small-town hinky-dink," says Mayor Evans of the big welcome banners that used to greet Nixon on arrival. Still. Nixon watching is a full-time occupation for many. Mrs. Doris Dennis, a San Clemente housewife, last year waited for two hours at Nixon's helicopter pad in hopes of taking his picture, and was doubly rewarded when he shook her hand. "After that, I wrote Mr. and Mrs. Nixon, and I told them that they liven up the town," Mrs. Dennis says. "Then they sent us an official picture. They're hard to get, you know."

Mrs. Dennis has a detective's instinct for charting the President's movements that would probably keep the Secret Service awake nights if they knew. "You can tell which church he's going to go to," she confides, "because the Secret Service checks it out for about a week beforehand. So that's where I go on Sunday, and sometimes he goes and sometimes he doesn't. Last week he didn't, but he's very fair about it, I think. He said he would go to all the largest churches in San Clemente this visit, and I'm sure he will."

Mrs. Dennis' interest is not unusual in heavily Republican San Clemente, which last year sent a John Bircher to Congress. Bob Kutcher, owner of the hardware store visited by Nixon, is equally rapt. "He was dressed casually, a dark suit and tie; he looked very nice," Kutcher recalls. "They had just put the pool in, and I guess he thought he needed some beach balls, so he bought four dollars' worth." A frame containing a picture of Kutcher talking to the President, as well as the four dollars, now hangs in the store. "And he sent us his official pictures," Kutcher adds. "They're almost impossible to get, you know, so it's very nice to have those."

Scrapple. Even some of those who have not met the President seem inspired by Nixon's presence. Says Nelda Sharp, owner of Nelda's Card Shop: "No, I haven't met him, but he got out of the car across the street to go to the hardware store. I didn't get to meet him but I know he's very nice. After all, he's the President." Pharmacist William Taylor, the recipient of Nixon's only other visit to town, agrees. He says that ever since Nixon's visit, "people come in to shake the hand that shook the hand, and we sell a lot of Nixon postcards." Secret Service men also come around frequently to Taylor's shop in order to keep Pat supplied with Russell Stover candy.

Others have also profited from the White House invasion. The Alpha Beta Supermarket, part of a chain, on El Camino Real takes in an extra $500 a week when the President is in town. Sometimes the White House orders put the manager, Leon Riley, on the phone to his food broker in Los Angeles, as the time when the chef ordered macadamia nut ice cream (it comes from Hawaii). "They've picked that up here and taken it back East with them," says Riley. And it took Alpha Beta a day and a half to get in Gruyere cheese. The store also had to call for longdistance help when the White House ordered scrapple. Another beneficiary is the Patio Furniture Center, which sold $2,500 worth of tables and chairs for the Western White House's outdoor mess.

Snoop Scope. Still, despite the wealth, the excitement, the glamour, there are those who are less than happy with the Nixon presence. One group, though hardly in a position to complain, is the Mexican wetbacks, who since time immemorial have used the beach past the Nixon compound as an invasion route. Situated about 70 miles north of the Mexican border, the San Clemente beach had always provided an excellent detour around the Government checkpoints on the freeway northward. Now the beach is manned by dozens of Secret Service agents with infra-red lenses and every kind of detector imaginable. One night last week four illegal migrants were spotted on the beach by a snoop scope. But rather than turn on the floodlights and wake up the Nixons, the Secret Service men silently chased down the Mexicans.

The town's local maverick is Gregory Joannidi, former head of the local Democratic Club ("all six of us"). Joannidi owns the concessions at the San Clemente Greyhound bus depot, including the clothing store, a cafeteria and assorted pinball games. "These big shots, the President, Agnew, they mean nothing to me," Joannidi says. "All I know is I'm losing business." Joannidi's business comes from the Marines on weekend passes from nearby Camp Pendleton. When Nixon is in town, 1,000 fewer Marines get passes--allegedly the number kept on tap in case the President is attacked, even though the residents of San Clemente do not seem likely to rise in revolt any time soon. "Now I make $2,400 a weekend less than I did before," Joannidi claims. "This fall I'll hafta lay off three people [out of seven]. The sandwiches go bad, the chartered buses just sit there on weekends, and I gotta pay for 'em. My business is off 40% ."

Perhaps the most numerous of the anti-Nixon forces are the surfers. Two of the best surfing spots in California, The Trestles and Cotton Point, have been closed to them for security purposes. The local paper, the San Clemente Sun-Post, and Surfing magazine, whose publisher John Severson lives next door to Nixon, have mounted a campaign to reopen the surfing beaches. They have enlisted an unlikely ally in their cause: Governor Ronald Reagan.

Such conflict notwithstanding, President Nixon and San Clemente are a good match. San Clemente is Nixon's kind of town. It is clean and attractive, prosperous and Republican. Nixon can count on a warm reception from the community, and he returns the compliment. In their overzealousness, the Secret Service at first did not allow surfers to use Cotton Point even when the President was off in Washington. Nixon personally rescinded that restriction.

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