Nation: A Luncheon in Philadelphia

If, as Dick Nixon said, Bill Scranton was the man to take a look at, some influential Republicans were following his advice. About 20 of them traveled recently to Philadelphia for an unpublicized luncheon meeting with the Pennsylvania Governor. It was held in the office of Tom McCabe, vice president of Scott Paper Co., longtime Pennsylvania Republican money raiser and an ardent Scranton admirer.

The guest list read like an East Coast Republicans’ Who’s Who. Among those attending: former U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell, political strategist for Tom Dewey and Dwight Eisenhower; CBS Board Chairman William Paley; Du Font’s Pierre S. du Pont III; General Electric’s Ralph Cordiner; former Defense Secretary Tom Gates, an Ike intimate; New York Herald Tribune President Walter Thayer; Philadelphia Inquirer Publisher Walter Annenberg, and party officials from Delaware and New Jersey. Invited but sending regrets were George M. Humphrey, Eisenhower’s Treasury Secretary, and former G.O.P. National Chairman Meade Alcorn.

Scranton was ostensibly on hand to deliver his standard, bring-industry-to-Pennsylvania pitch—and did. But everyone there knew the real reason for the luncheon. “It was an effort,” conceded one of the luncheon’s planners, “to give Scranton some exposure.” That effort paid off handsomely. Said a guest: “I got the impression he was capable of running a good show. To me, Scranton is an impressive guy.”

Back in Harrisburg afterward, Scranton seemed somewhat less adamant in his insistence that he is not in the least interested in presidential politics. Asked about attempts by Pennsylvania’s Goldwater forces to get an early nod from the state G.O.P. organization, Scranton replied: “Pennsylvania should, at least for the present, remain uncommitted.” He noted that a private poll he had ordered showed that he would run better in Pennsylvania than either Rocky or Barry.