Republicans: Pen Pal for Dean

However tattered Barry Goldwater’s influence may be in the Republican Party, he put every shred of it on the line last week to save his beleaguered national chairman, Dean Burch.

In an extraordinary two-page letter to each of the 132 Republican National Committee members who will meet in Chicago on Jan. 22 to vote on Burch’s future, Barry proved that he, at least, still had a powerful faith in his cause. “I feel the removal of Dean Burch now would be a repudiation of a great segment of our party and a repudiation of me,” wrote Goldwater, “and in this sense would be harmful rather than beneficial to the future of our party.” Things could get even worse than that, Barry warned. “For the Republican Party to turn its back on our cause now would be to destroy the two-party system — and that would be the prelude to the destruction of our nation.”

He offered neither excuse nor explanation for his Election Day defeat, insisted that his cause was noble and patriotic, proclaimed bleakly that the G.O.P. would become “meaningless” if it wandered from Goldwaterism into “the vanity of today’s popularity.”

Later, Dean Burch himself sent a long, hopeful letter to committee members. “Let me assure you,” wrote Burch, “that my interest in continuing to serve as national chairman is not simply a personal one. My concern is not financial, nor even primarily a loyalty to a particular leader or ‘faction’ of the Republican Party. I am dedicated to just three things: the unity, the strength and the achievements of the Republican Party, across the board and throughout the nation.”

Still, it was highly questionable whether the Goldwater pen-pal plan would save Burch. Moderate Republicans were confident last week that they had a firm committee majority ready to vote against him.