THE VICE-PRESIDENCY: Southern Discomfort

Battlers in the cause of prohibition read Tap & Tavern, a trade journal of the liquor industry, with the same horrified avidity that anti-Communist crusaders bring to the Daily Worker. Last October Tap & Tavern announced with pride that Robert L. King, vice president and general manager of the Southern Comfort Corp.* in St. Louis, was going to Washington to be the top administrative assistant to Vice President Nixon. In his new job, Nixon announced, King would handle “considerable legislative matters.”

Temperance organizations across the land rose to the attack like blind tigers. A hurricane of protesting letters swirled into the Vice President’s office and the White House. Meeting in Chicago, the Council of Bishops of the Methodist Church got off a wire: “No man connected with the liquor industry should be placed in such a position … We do not feel that organized liquor traffic should have a place of honor and power in your Administration.” Amen, cried the W.C.T.U., the National Temperance League and the National Temperance and Prohibition Council.

The storm caught the Vice President, a fairly temperate man himself (he drinks an occasional martini or Scotch highball, loathes champagne, and had only five drinks during his arduous electioneering in the fall), by surprise. King, he assured the temperance groups in a form letter, was a World War II Communist fighter, a former FBI agent and a man of distinction. He had resigned from Southern Comfort, moreover, and had never had any financial interest in the company.

The Vice President’s explanation was enough to take the curse off King (who is also a moderate drinker) with some of the critics. “We still think it’s not too good,” said a W.C.T.U. spokesman, “though a man can always adjust himself and change his views.” But most of the drys were unmoved. Nixon’s letter, a Methodist Board of Temperance official felt, was “cocky.” “It is the mind-set of a distillery general manager which matters,” editorialized the respected Christian Century. The drys were particularly disturbed lest ex-Southern Comfortman King bring his wet influence to bear on legislation (e.g., the Langer bill, which would put restraints on TV and radio advertising of wine and beer; the liquor lobby’s efforts to reduce taxes on distilled spirits).

This week, as the battle raged on, Nixon held firm; King will report for duty next week, as planned.

*Its product, a fruity concoction of trade secrets (rumored to be apricot brandy and bourbon), is a favorite of elderly ladies, is sometimes served with cracked ice and a canned peach in a solid-stemmed goblet.