"The danger in South Vietnam is in negotiating the wrong kind of settlement in the wrong place at the wrong time," former Vice-President Richard M. Nixon said yesterday after-noon.

"We must hold firm until North Vietnam takes its hands off the South," Nixon said. "If we negotiate in a way that rewards the aggressor," he warned in an exclusive interview with the CRIMSON, "we may have peace now but a big war in Asia later." The United States, he continued, should seek "that turning point which allows freedom to survive on the perimeter of Asia."

In Cambridge to interview second and third year law students interested in positions with Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, and Alexander, a New York law firm, Nixon spent the last two days in a bloc of six rooms at the Sheraton Commander. More than 80 students applied to spend 20 minutes with the man who was almost President.

Nixon said he was convinced during his recent trip to Southeast Asia that "the Vietnam war is going better for the United States. It is not going to become a big war like Korea." He urged that the administration "follow a strong policy in Asia and reject the appeasement line." The views of Sen. Wayne Morse (D-Ore.) on Vietnam are "not responsible," he said.

Liberals and Conservatives

Refusing to comment on his own intentions for 1968, Nixon emphasized that the business of the Republican Party in 1966 is to "elect liberals in the liberal districts and conservatives in the conservative districts, avoiding the totalitarians on either side."

While he said he would not take an active part in the New York mayoral campaign, Nixon declared he will vote for Rep. John V. Lindsay (R-N.Y.), rather than Conservative candidate William F. Buckley Jr. He called Lindsay "a fresh new voice in New York."

But he praised Buckley and actor Ronald Reagan, front-runner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in California, for "getting rid of the lunatic fringe and making conservatism more respectable." Although polls favor Reagan for the nomination. Nixon said, the race to oppose Governor Pat Brown is "still wide open." Brown defeated Nixon in 1962.

Nixon, who has been charged with strategic errors involving civil rights in his 1960 campaign, claimed that Republicans can gain in the South "by being conservative on economic issues and moderate on civil rights."

He reaffirmed his support for the 1964 civil rights bill and 1965 voting rights law, but admitted to "grave questions about the current civil rights leadership." Now is the time, he said, "for reconciliation not revolution."

The former Vice-President said President Johnson's extralegal pact with Vice-President Humphrey during Johnson's illness is "a good stop-gap, similar to my arrangement with President Eisenhower." However, he said it is "vitally important" for the states to ratify the 25th Amendment, which provides a permanent mechanism for Presidential succession.