Counsel for the Defense

In the U.S. daily press, throughout the great budget debate of the past three months, only one influential voice has been raised in aggressive, consistent and all-out support for the Eisenhower budget. That voice comes not from the ranks of "Modern Republicanism" but from Washington Columnist David Lawrence, a hardheaded conservative who is the respected oracle of the far right and the most widely syndicated political pundit in the U.S.

While some Ike-minded publishers and columnists sat back in unsupporting silence, and others have heaped invective on Government spending or, like Publisher John S. Knight (TIME, May 20), even turned the attack into an offensive on Eisenhower foreign policy, Conservative Lawrence, 68, has systematically and unreservedly defended the budget against the meat ax of Congress. Well before the White House itself stirred into belated action to save the budget. Columnist Lawrence was atop the barricade, shouting "Charge!"

Lives v. Pocketbooks. In a dozen columns in the past month, Lawrence has ridiculed the notions of a tax cut, argued in a summing-up last week: "While a tax reduction--if the budget were cut by as much as $6 billion--would mean a saving to every taxpayer of about $78, it could be at a cost later of such a weakened defense in a possible war as to wipe out overnight any such saving."

Pittance for Peace. David Lawrence, who is also editor of U.S. News & World Report, roundly condemns the ''supposedly alert press" for the misinformation and "emotional antipathy to high taxes" that have stirred budget "hysteria." In the budget debate's first round, said Lawrence, the press generally misinterpreted or overplayed Treasury Secretary Humphrey's celebrated press conference warning of a depression "that will curl your hair" unless the 1958 budget were drastically reduced. Columnist Lawrence, after studying the press conference transcript, pointed out that too many news stories had failed to bring out that Humphrey was referring not to the current budget but to the consequences of continued high spending and high taxation "over a long period of time."

Lawrence also attacks the press for its attitude toward the House's $38 million slash in the U.S. Information Agency budget--a reduction that was handled with complacency at best, and vociferously cheered in some segments of the press, notably the Scripps-Howard chain, which has a vested interest in killing U.S. overseas information operations. Reason: the Scripps-Howard papers and the United Press are parts of the same company; U.P. fears that USIA's free distribution of U.S. Government news abroad cuts into its profits from the sale of news to foreign newspapers. Blaming the press for "the gullibility of many people in this country to the snares of Soviet propaganda," Lawrence pointed out that even the original USIA budget request for $144 million was minuscule compared to Russian propaganda outlays, and "a mere pittance for the dissemination of ideas that could influence people abroad, restrain capricious rulers and prevent war."

Whispering Campaign. An increasingly popular tactic among the pundits has been to quote Eisenhower speeches and extracts from the Republicans' 1952 and 1956 campaign platforms in an attempt to prove, as the New York Daily News's John ("Capitol Stuff") O'Donnell charged recently, that Ike has repudiated his promise to resist "socialist" spending. In fact, argues David Lawrence, Eisenhower --and the Republican platforms as well--coppered their campaign promises of Government economies with the qualification that none would be allowed at the expense of the defense program or vital domestic services.

In'a direct rebuke to the press, Lawrence complained: "Criticism of this sort has attained a nationwide momentum, along with a whispering campaign that the President really isn't in good health, or that he isn't up to the job or is relaxing and doesn't care to fulfill his responsibilities. The persistently adverse propaganda about the President is hard to understand in view of the presence of thousands of alert reporters in Washington who can dispel such misinformation."

Democrat for Hoover. Lawrence, whose column runs in 275 dailies, is a staunch champion of states' rights who has relentlessly criticized the Administration for pushing public-school integration, which he calls "forced association." He has also differed with Eisenhower over fiscal policy, arguing that the Administration's unwillingness to be tough with "labor monopolies" has brought on inflation. A Virginia Democrat (Fairfax County), Lawrence calls himself a "liberal conservative," has voted for every G.O.P. presidential candidate since he supported Hoover in 1932. He is considered a bellwether of the far right, but, while many of his views may be faulted as narrow, or behind the political and social times, he has never been identified with the fanatic right. Thus, unlike some of the Neanderthals he admires, e.g., Nevada's late Senator Pat McCarran, Wisconsin's late Senator Joe McCarthy, Lawrence is a realist in world affairs; he has vigorously supported the League of Nations, the U.N., NATO, the Marshall Plan, long-term foreign aid.

Last week Dave Lawrence was more at odds than ever with his fellow pundits over the budget. The New York Herald Tribune's Ike-minded Roscoe Drummond said that the President "is fighting the wrong battle on the wrong ground with the wrong weapons." Stewart Alsop, also of Lawrence's home paper, the Trib, said: "The betting is still that Congress will do to the popular Eisenhower what it never dared to do to the unpopular Truman--hack away at his whole foreign policy program with a meat ax all along the line." Fair-Dealing Doris Fleeson even started one column: "The President has lost his budget fight." Lawrence, who is still being bombarded with critical mail for his defense of the budget, disagreed. "The tide," he wrote, "is turning. The President is relying on the simple theory that common sense and the facts will win the case in the court of public opinion." Partially joining him in this was the New York Times's James B. Reston, who reported last week that in "what have probably been the two most effective.days of his second Administration, [the President] has regained the initiative . . ."

That Defense Counsel Lawrence may be right was suggested last week by an editorial in the 18 Scripps-Howard papers, which have mounted one of the noisiest and most demagogic budget-cutting offensives in the U.S. press. After Eisenhower's speech on behalf of his foreign and defense programs, the Scripps-Howard editorial conceded for the first time that Eisenhower's reasoning was "difficult to argue against," adding lamely: "All the more reason why major efforts should be made to rid the foreign aid programs of waste, inefficiency anc incompetence."

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