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Show lj3eliind lite Jeadlined Vice President Richard Nixon remained Washington's "Quiet Man" during the excitement in the Sherman Adams-Goldfine case. He barely murmured one word about the headline charges everyone else found it impossible impos-sible to ignore. There wast of course, ample reason for the Vice President's tight lipped attitude about Mr. Adams. The Vice President, himself, along with practically everyone else in official Washington, has accepted gifts. His new home is studded with them, including an expensive oriental rug given him that experience and hesitates to involve himself in anything that could be used as political ammunition ammu-nition against him again. It is said that the Nixons even check their cancelled checks against their monthly bank statements with this in mind. The Vice President has been twice bitten. It is almost forgotten forgot-ten that one of the first exposures expo-sures of influence peddling involving in-volving the White House and the Eisenhower administration also involved Mr. Nixon. This occurred when Murray Chotiner, Nixon's California manager, was accused of peddling his ties with by a foreign government during his 1953 Far Eastern tour which served as a doormat at the back entrance to his home. Lawfully, foreign gifts cannot be accepted by the President or the Vice President. But these also cannot be refused. There is no place for the government to store them, and in any event, custom has permitted recipients to wink at the law. In addition, Mr. Nixon has received re-ceived frequent gifts of clothing although none, so far as can be discerned, has been given by the millionaire Boston industrialist, Bernard Goldf ine, whose generosity gene-rosity so embarrassed Sherman Adams and the whole GOP that rode in on the Truman administration adminis-tration mink coat scandals of 1952. Mr. Nixon's saratorial Santa Claus has been H. Freeman and Sons, Inc., of Philadelphia, and lately H. Daroff and Sons, clothiers clo-thiers of the same city. Until the Sherman Adams case broke, spokesmen for the Freeman Free-man firm freely told that most of some 35 suits (none made of i the Vice President. An atmosphere as spectacular as that surrounding the Adams-Goldfine Adams-Goldfine case developed when the Chotiner charges exploded. This came just before the GOP convention, and when the press crowded into the White House on May 4, 1956, President Eisenhower Eisen-hower declared himself more vehemently against influence peddling than in Adams' case: "Any individual coming to a part of the government for help is assured of courteous treatment. I want no arrogance. But anyone who claims special privilege because be-cause he is a friend or because he is in the family will be thrown out instantly." It's ironic that Adams' GOP foes are quoting this now. The Vice President is anxious to avoid anything that could further fur-ther divide the Republican party. He now feels there is little to bar his nomination for the Presidency Presi-dency in 1960, so that Nixon is now more anxious to strengthen the GOP than bring his few remaining re-maining foes in the administration administra-tion tn hfpl to whom they would appeal their patronage woes. With the exception of Attorney General Rogers appointment key administration jobs carrying real power have also been given to Republicans Nixon is known to have opposed. Many of his key supporters have been able to win only posts without real political power from Adams. So no one expected Nixon to shed a tear whenever Sherman Adams left "the team." vicuna) with which Mr. Nixon had been outfitted were "complimentary," "compli-mentary," although some were announced as purchases at the time. In any event, there has never been the faintest suggestion sugges-tion that Mr. Nixon's clothiers ever asked official favors in return re-turn as Sherman Adams admitted New England textile manufacturer manufac-turer Bernard Goldfine did, nor have Nixon's clothing manufacturers manufac-turers ever been accused of violations vio-lations of the Fair Trade Act, or of mislabeling their products, according to the Federal Trade Commission. There are other reasons why Vice President Nixon maintains an almost studied silence during the affair. One is that he has feared exposures ex-posures of any Republican influence in-fluence peddling that would reopen re-open the "Nixon Fund" charges that almost cost him the Vice Presidency in 1952. He has been scrupulous in his finances since In this connection, Nixon is said to have been especially distressed dis-tressed at those Republican state chairmen meeting in Washington Washing-ton when the Adams-Goldfine charges exploded and who publicly pub-licly demanded Adams' ouster, deepening GOP disunity. Nixon wants a united GOP in 1960. . But there is another reason the Vice President was quiet during the Adams expose. It has been an open secret that Adams did not particularly like Nixon and that he probably even put Harold Har-old Stassen up to his ill-fated effort to block Nixon's renomi-nation renomi-nation in 1956. Nixon's difficulties with Mr. Adams also stem from Adams' refusal to dispense patronage lavishly from the White House, without which many Republicans Republi-cans fear their party is withering away. GOPoliticians also resent Adams' refusal to allow easy access to President Eisenhower, |