Nation: Making It Harder

After ten terms in the House, Minnesota’s Republican Representative Walter Judd was determined to retire. He was unhappy because the state legislature had tacked some heavily Democratic Minneapolis wards onto his previously safe Fifth District. He was even unhappier with the hundreds of constituent-pleasing chores that consume the time of a Congressman, and he wanted to devote full time to talking to youth groups around the U.S. But after he announced last April that he was quitting, Judd got more than 5,000 letters —many from outside his district—urging him to stay on. He changed his mind, and last week the old campaigner was running harder than ever before.

Conservative v. Liberal. Judd, 64, is one of the Republican Party’s most respected House voices on foreign affairs. An M.D. who spent ten years in China as a medical missionary, he is a fervent anti-Communist and an enthusiastic internationalist. Says Judd of his views on domestic issues: “I’m a conservative. I go to the Federal Government last, not first, unless there’s no other way to get the job done. I am afraid of concentration of power in Washington or anywhere else, because this is the way people lose their freedom.” He adds: “The Bible says, ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’ The New Frontier says, ‘Sit down, and we’ll give it to you.’ ” Judd’s opponent is Minneapolis’ Donald Fraser, 38, a personable lawyer who has served two terms as a state senator. A Navy veteran, Fraser goes right down the line with President Kennedy and the New Frontier. “The principal issue in this campaign is what kind of Congress do American voters want in Washington. Do they want to continue the power of the obstructionist coalition of Dixiecrats and Republicans who oppose important social programs? Or do they want to elect a liberal Democratic majority responsive to the needs of our decade?”

The Other Issue. Throughout his campaign, Judd has talked constantly of Cuba, denouncing the President bitterly as “a weaker person than we realized.” Fraser replied in a fashion he must now regret, attacking Judd’s discussion of Cuba as “a calculated and cynical effort to divert attention from the domestic issue of this campaign.”

Last week’s events caused both candidates to backtrack. Though Judd hinted that President Kennedy’s blockade timing may have been political, he greeted the decision with relief. “At long last the U.S. is going to stop retreating,” he declared. “The situation is not worse than it has been. In fact, if anything it is less dangerous. As in the past, firmness and strength in support of our principle, our commitments and our security offer the best, perhaps the only hope of peace and freedom in the world.”

Though Fraser got some indignant mileage out of Judd’s suggestion that Kennedy acted partly for political reasons, there seemed little doubt that he had been hurt. An aide said that the President’s action (‘at least eliminates the weakness and indecisiveness issue.” But, he admitted ruefully, it did “make things much harder.”