CALIFORNIA: Party Truce

From California’s Republican Governor Goodwin Jess Knight at an Arizona vacation spot last week came the nod to go ahead on the political treaty of the year: Goodie agreed to travel to Washington this week, receive the blessings of the White House, and announce that “for the good of the Republican Party” he would run for the U.S. Senate next year, leaving his governor’s chair open for Senator William Fife Knowland.

Goodie Knight’s decision came after weeks of vowing that he would fight Knowland to the death. But Knight, a careful calculator of political odds, was alarmed from the outset by the unsmiling, formidable presence of Bill Knowland in the race against him. Recent polls, showing Knowland far ahead, sent Knight to the edge of withdrawal. Pressure from powerful fellow Republicans did the rest.

Behind the Times. Most of the pressure came from Publisher Norman Chandler of the GOPolitically mighty Los Angeles Times. Fearing a Knight-Knowland battle that could wreck California Republicanism, Chandler sent Goodie three urgent pleas to get out of the gubernatorial race, at the same time promised him support for the Senate. The first came about a month ago. The last was delivered in person by Chandler’s wife Buff. Said she last week: “Goodie and I are old friends. I told him I felt he couldn’t win. If that influenced him, I don’t know, although I heard that it did.” It did—because behind Buff Chandler lay the potential Times influence in drying up Goodie’s press and financial support across the state.

Another source of pressure was Vice President Richard Nixon, who figured that he had much to gain from a healthy, united Republican Party in his home state, even though Knowland’s election as governor of California might build Knowland into Nixon’s rival for the Republican presidential nomination. Working through intermediaries, Nixon sent word to Knight, his old political enemy, that Knight, if he withdrew, could have either 1) near-unanimous party backing for the Senate or 2) a fat Administration appointment.

Under the Gun. Even though he had won his 1954 election by a landslide, even though he still holds broad popular support in a general election, Knight could see that he had hardly a chance of winning the gubernatorial primary—and that his fight could only hurt his party. When word of his decision to run for the Senate seeped out, other California Republicans joined in happy sighs with Norman Chandler: “It will be a relief to get this thing settled.”

If peace was wonderful for Republicans, it was dismal for Democrats. Just before Knight’s move, Democratic Attorney General Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown had announced his candidacy for governor, betting heavily on the fact of a Republican-splitting Knight-Knowland contest. His bet lost, Brown complained of a “cynical deal engineered by a reactionary darling hell-bent for the White House.” But Pat Brown, described by a friend as “a great big Teddy bear who doesn’t want to grow claws,” has never shown any liking for a knockdown drag-out fight. And that was the only kind of fight anyone could expect from Republican Bill Knowland, with his immense California prestige, his boiler-room energy and his powerful friends.