Nation: I Just Long to Have Alone in Debate

NEW ROUND IN AN OLD FUED

THE feud’s first showdown came in 1916 when Henry Cabot Lodge narrowly defeated John F. (“Honey Fitz”) Fitzgerald for the Senate by 33,000 votes. In a battle of grandsons, John Fitzgerald Kennedy restored family honor in 1952 by knocking Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. out of his Senate seat by 70,000 votes. In a 1960 rematch of sorts, Democratic Presidential Candidate Kennedy took Massachusetts by 510,000 votes against the G.O.P. ticket carrying the name of Vice-Presidential Candidate Lodge. But in a state where politicians nurse their grudges like old wine, even these family jousts of the past are likely to seem insipid compared to the campaigns George Cabot Lodge, 35, and Teddy Kennedy are preparing to stage in their battle for J.F.K.’s old seat in the Senate.

Tall (6 ft. 5 in.), lean and darkly handsome, George Lodge has a striking physical resemblance to his father. While Teddy was becoming an extraverted Kennedy, Lodge was a childhood loner. “I kept pigeons and spent nearly all my free time sailing and fiddling with my boat by myself.” In his junior year at Harvard, Lodge married pert Nancy Kunhardt, hauled her off on a month-long honeymoon cruise up the Maine coast to Canada in an open sailboat. When a hurricane whirled by, they anchored in the lee of a desolate island and ate clams for three days.

After graduating from Harvard in 1950, Lodge caught on as a cub reporter for the Boston Herald (his father had started out as a reporter for the now defunct Boston Evening Transcript). In 1953, Lodge got a chance to interview Secretary of Labor James Mitchell, asked him 96 probing questions, and was offered a job in the department’s public information office.

What Dynasty? In 1958, Lodge moved from Director of Information to Assistant Secretary of Labor for International Affairs. He did such a commendable job that he was asked to stay on for six months under the Kennedy Administration, despite his Republican ties, earned the warm praise of Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg.

To win the G.O.P. Senate nomination. Lodge had to run against seasoned Congressman Laurence Curtis, 69. With ten years in Congress and 16 in city and state government. Curtis sniffed at Lodge’s claims of experience. In both parties, said Curtis, “I am the only candidate running on his own name and own record of experience.”

In reply. Lodge said he was getting no help from his father, pointed out that “if anything, I come from a dead dynasty.” At the G.O.P.’s convention, Lodge won the party’s endorsement on the first ballot. Campaigning against Curtis in last week’s primary, Lodge barnstormed Massachusetts in a three-bus caravan, won by a vote of 245,000 to 197,000.

Blandness & Buses. In private, Lodge minces no words about Teddy. “I consider it a base impropriety that Teddy is so blatantly using his relationship with his brother for selfish purposes. What has he done to understand the world or Massachusetts? I first met Teddy in Nigeria during a meeting of the African region of the I.L.O. Teddy was there for a day and a half. He talks like that made him an expert on Nigeria. Well, I know what he learned there because I briefed him. He does not know Nigeria. He pretends he does. It’s a phony.”

But Lodge does not plan to attack Teddy personally during the campaign and thereby risk alienating the independent vote he needs to win. “You can’t tell where votes are coming from,” says Campaign Manager Paul Grindle, “so you can’t irritate anyone. We’ve got to keep George bland. He can’t offend anybody, and that includes anyone who might be offended by an attack on Teddy.”

For Lodge to become Senator, his followers know he must beat Teddy at the Kennedy game. Says Grindle: “We’re running against a guy who’s almost as popular as the President. That’s the premise: Teddy’s a celebrity. So our big problem is familiarity, to get people as familiar with George as they are with Teddy. We’re not using any billboards and not much TV or radio time. We’re using the buses, and we can go anywhere in those damned things.”

Self-Punishment. Lodge has his own squad of pretty girls, his own staff of bright young men, his own army of volunteers, his own attractive wife, and, for good measure, a houseful of six children. To get Lodge ready for Teddy, Grindle put him through two grueling day-and-night weeks during the Curtis campaign. They brought on dizzy spells and nausea, but Grindle was delighted that Lodge survived without collapsing. Says he: “George has confidence in himself now that he can do anything he has to do—even when he’s totally dead on his feet. The Kennedys have this brutality. They do it to themselves. You can’t beat them unless you have this brutality in you.”

An excellent speaker, despite occasional traces of a childhood stammer, Lodge hopes to debate Independent Hughes (“to expose him for what he is—a socialist pacifist”), but is looking forward even more eagerly to getting Teddy on TV. “I just long to have him alone in debate. I would like it to be just the two of us and a moderator. Oh, how I would like that.” But Lodge is also a realist. Says he: “I’m the underdog now at no better than 6 to 4.” Vows Grindle: “We’ll campaign 16 hours a day and pray eight.”