Republicans: Toward the Day of Reckoning

The cream-colored draperies parted, the glass door slid open, and there, on crutches, stood Barry Goldwater. Hobbling out to the flagstone patio of his home near Phoenix in the shadow of Camelback Mountain, Goldwater faced scores of Arizona G.O.P. leaders, reporters and television crewmen. Said he: “I want to tell you that I will seek the Republican presidential nomination.”

That night, in snow-covered Portsmouth, N.H., Nelson Rockefeller, a presidential candidate since November, stood before an audience of 1,200 cheering people in a high school auditorium and cried: “The campaign has begun!”

Election Year 1964 was indeed under way, and quite a year it promised to be. The shadow maneuvers of 1963 were over. Barry and Rocky were in the race, while other Republican possibilities jostled for position, all looking toward that day of convention reckoning just six months away.

“A Real Rough Go.” Despite some idle talk to the effect that Goldwater did not really want to run and that President Kennedy’s death would give him a graceful way to stay out, his announcement was no surprise. As his family watched near by, Barry leaned against a lectern to favor his right heel, which had recently been operated on for a calcium deposit. He read his formal statement more slowly and clearly than usual. He had, he said, decided to run “because I have not heard from any announced Republican candidate a declaration of conscience or of political position that could possibly offer to the American people a clear choice in the next presidential election.

“I will not change my beliefs to win votes. I will offer a choice, not an echo. This will not be an engagement of personalities. It will be an engagement of principles.”

Answering questions, Goldwater displayed the candor and earthy humor that make him an engaging political personality. He would, he said, enter primaries in at least Illinois, California, New Hampshire and Oregon. But, he said, “it’s gonna be a real rough go. It’s difficult for a Westerner from a small state, population-wise, to get the nomination. And I’m willing to take that chance.” He said that he saw “no incompatibility” in filing for re-election to the Senate while running for President. Reporters reminded him that he had been sharply critical of Lyndon Johnson for running for Vice President and the Senate at the same time in 1960. Well, grinned Goldwater, Lyndon was a good teacher, and “I would like to be a good student.”

Did he feel that Kennedy’s death hurt his chances for carrying the South in November? “Oh, I think you’d have to be honest and say that it would. You have now a President who is a Southerner—at least he calls himself a Southerner.” But wouldn’t the South be essential to a Goldwater win next November? “I don’t buy that, and I don’t buy that the South will necessarily go with a Southerner.” Would he concede Texas to President Johnson? “I don’t concede anybody anything. I’m a Republican who’s won in a Democratic state, and mister, Democrats don’t know what a dogfight is till they do something like that.” Did he consider Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. a rival for the G.O.P. nomination? “I consider anybody who has visited with General Eisenhower in the last few weeks a potential candidate.”

Later, Goldwater was asked where he and Rockefeller differ—and quickly made clear where. “Governor Rockefeller believes in compulsory unionism. I don’t agree. The Governor believes in the social security approach to medical care for the aged. I don’t. Rockefeller believes in federal aid to education below the college level. I will go with him on federal aid to colleges, but I disagree in the lower grades. He believes in the sale of wheat to our enemies. I don’t. He favors a limited test ban treaty. I oppose it.”

All Smiles. If Barry wanted a fight, Rocky was ready. Early last week he announced that he would enter Oregon’s May 15 primary. In that state he has a warm friend in Republican Governor Mark Hatfield and a campaign staff already functioning; but Goldwater has county and lesser leaders almost solidly committed to his cause and is considered ahead. Rockefeller had already said he would run in both the March 10 New Hampshire primary and the June 2 California contest, and he thought his chances were looking up. Said he: “The polls in California showed Goldwater 2 to 1 over me last fall. Two weeks ago, he was only 5 to 4 above me. That’s quite a shift.”

Standing next to Wife Happy in a New Year’s Day reception line in the Albany Governor’s mansion, Rocky suddenly plucked a two-year-old boy from his father’s arm. Cradling the lad, Rockefeller said: “It feels good to hold a baby.” Then, all smiles, the Governor, 55, and a grandfather ten times over, commented on the news that Happy, 37, and mother of four from her first marriage, was expecting in June. Chortled the prospective father: “With the Rockefeller luck, it’ll probably be twins.”

And then, on to New Hampshire, which is going to be seeing a lot of would-be Republican Presidents in the next few weeks (Goldwater planned to go there this week). A formidable campaigner with a person-to-person, hand-to-hand style, Rocky spent most of two days in the state, squeezing adults’ shoulders or patting children’s heads, and saying again and again, “If you’re registered in the Republican Party, I sure would appreciate your support.”

His major appearance was in Portsmouth on the evening of the day that Goldwater announced. There he read a telegram he had sent off to Phoenix, challenging Barry to direct debate: “I hope you will join with me in making arrangements for such face-to-face discussions as soon as it is convenient. May I hear from you?” Goldwater turned Rocky down. Said he during a stopover in Los Angeles before returning to Washington: “Debating him would be more like debating a member of the New Frontier than like debating another Republican. I see no sense in Republicans berating other Republicans.”

Continuing with his Portsmouth speech, Rockefeller wanted to set the record straight on one thing. Months ago, he had inadvisedly indicated that he might not support the Republican Party candidate if Goldwater were nominated. That enraged a lot of Republicans. But now Rocky insisted that he would back whomever the G.O.P. selected. Said he: “I did not enter the race for the presidency to ‘stop’ anyone else within my own party . . . I am in this race all the way. I am in this race because I want my party, the Republican Party, to be a strong, dynamic and responsive force for good government in America. I am neither a ‘summer soldier’ nor a ‘sunshine patriot’ of the political wars; neither am I the foe of any other Republican.”

But in the best spirit of the political contest, he did get in a few slaps at Goldwater without mentioning Barry’s name: “America will not—and it should not—respond to a political creed that cherishes the past solely because it offers an excuse for shutting out, the hard facts and difficult tasks of the present. The people of America want to know how the Republican Party proposes to meet the problems and opportunities of today—and not some notion of how it might re-create yesterday.” And at a press conference in Concord, Rocky cut loose with a vengeance. Said he: “How can there be solvency when Goldwater is against the graduated income tax? How can there be security when he wants to take the United States out of the United Nations? How can there be sanity when he wants to give area commanders the authority to make decisions on the use of nuclear weapons?”

Who Can’t Lose? Goldwater and Rockefeller were far from being the only Republicans in the presidential news. Pennsylvania’s Governor William Scranton, who until a recent talk with Ike really sounded as though he wanted no part of the White House, now let it be known that he would not request that his name be withdrawn from the Oregon primary if it were entered. Michigan’s Governor George Romney still maintained that “I will not be a candidate for the nomination, and I will not seek it.” But he scheduled a series of out-of-state speeches and television appearances for the next few weeks.

Campaign headquarters for a move to draft Lodge, the U.S. Ambassador to South Viet Nam, had started in Boston, but Lodge sent a letter to a Rochester radio newsman saying, “I have no intention of running for any office.” As for former Vice President Richard Nixon, he was off in Miami, looking happy.

And where would it all lead? The Gallup poll last week conducted trial runs between Johnson and Nixon and Johnson and Goldwater, found that the President had overwhelming leads—69% to 24% against Nixon, 75% to 20% against Goldwater. But such polls are patently absurd so early in any election year. And despite growing talk that Johnson can’t lose, some ready, willing and eager Republicans were plainly ready to prove it wrong.