Although he approves of Nixon's foreign policy moves over the past four years, he says the cause of his switch is more than a negative feeling for McGovern. "The situation of civil liberties under Nixon distresses me," Pool confesses, but he says the foreign policy questions are the crucial ones. The adage he repeats is: "On domestic policy, the president proposes, the Congress disposes." He adds, "I hope plenty of liberal Democrats will be elected to Congress."

Another registered Democrat, Robert Scalapino, professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley and a White House defense adviser, concurs with his fellow converts. "I regard McGovern as an honorable man." Scalapino admits, "but he's the most incredibly naive man to run for the presidency in the 20th century."

Others, such as former socialist Martin Diamond, professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University, find McGovern "overly righteous."

"He doesn't have the strength of character for hard political judgment," Diamond says. "He represents radical chic--or the people around him would."

These professors, with their hard analytical judgments and views of a world in which force must be played off against force, are naturally more suited to what Pipes called the "manipulativeness" of Nixon than McGovern's "righteous" stands. McGovern presents too great a departure from the presidential administrations that these men have studied and worked for. In many respects, he denies the assumptions that they have made their lives around. It is probably this more than anything else that prompts the annoyed resentment that these traditionally liberal scholars express.

"America come home is childish," Pipes says. "We are a world power; we have influence and investment all over the world." He does not, however, take the childishly simple step of asking if this influence and investment is something good for America.