Nixon Says War Will End, Predicts Economic Upturn

President Nixon said last night that "one of the good things about the [Congressional] campaign was that the war was not an issue. The American people have realized that we are ending the war."

Nixon made the remarks during an hour-long live interview with four network television newscasters broadcast from the library of the White House.

Nixon cited as the major accomplishment of his administration that "we are now seeing the end of America's combat role" in South Vietnam. But he said that his success in office has been tempered by "the tragedies of Kent State, Jackson State and the University of Wisconsin." He predicted that campus violence will recede as the war "winds down," adding, "but during this administration to have had three such major tragedies as that left a very deep impression on me."

Nixon cited lower American casualties as proof that his program of "Vietnamization" has been a success. He refused to speculate on what action the U. S. would take if the government of South Vietnam fell after U. S. withdrawals were completed.

Nixon repeated that he would bomb North Vietnam again "if necessary to protect American troops."

Asked how he planned to restore the sagging economy, Nixon said that he plans an "expansionary" budget for 1972, and cited recent declines in the wholesale and retail price indexes as evidence that inflation is on the decline.

"1971 will be a good year and 1972 will be a very good year," he said, predicting that the U. S. would achieve "full employment without the cost of war and without the cost of inflation."

Nixon praised Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who is resigning as his adviser on urban affairs to return to his post as professor of Education here, saying that criticism of Moynihan's secret memo proposing a policy of "benign neglect" toward the problems of blacks in America was "a bad rap."

Asked by Nancy Dickerson. correspondent for the Public Broadcasting educational network, why he had not fulfilled his campaign pledge to provide the U.S. with "the lift of a driving dream," Nixon replied that "you can't have a driving dream when you're in the middle of a nightmare."

The "nightmare," he said, is the problems inherited from the Johnson Administration. He said he would solve them by ending the war, "quieting this country down," and achieving a "transfer from a wartime to a peacetime economy."

Asked about the possible effect of the Constitutional amendment granting 18-year-olds the vote, Nixon said, "The young people of America are a very volatile group." adding, "I think we have just as good a shot at them as anyone else."