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Running for Governor of Alabama last year, hard-jawed young (37) John Patterson could match racist slogans with the best of his opponents--and he had a record of action to back up his stump talk. As Alabama's attorney general, Patterson had helped get the N.A.A.C.P. banned from the state, taken legal action against a Tuskegee Negro boycott of downtown stores and against Montgomery Negroes when they boycotted city buses. On that basis, Patterson was elected Governor. But by last week, John Patterson had discovered to his embarrassment that the irresponsible promise held out during a campaign is not so easy to live up to while holding responsible office.

As Governor, Patterson had to raise money for his state: he went to New York, worked out financing details on a $60 million state bond issue with Lehman Bros., the famed Manhattan international banking house. Because the Lehmans are Jews, Governor Patterson's dealings aroused Alabama's anti-Semites. In June, Patterson spoke to the state legislature, expressed sentiments that seemed heresy to Alabama's rabid segregationists. Said he: "We cannot afford to crawl back into a hole as far as public education is concerned." On a trip to Washington, Patterson met Massachusetts' Senator John Kennedy, whom he admired. Patterson promptly spoke up in favor of Catholic Jack Kennedy's presidential candidacy (TIME, July 13).

For such consorting with Jews and Catholics and for such views on education, John Patterson, as bitter a segregationist as adorns the Deep South, last week underwent the political equivalent of a cross burning. A delegation of 32 racists from around the state descended upon his office to demand his answers to a prepared list of loaded questions. Sample: "Did it ever occur to you that you are being used as a guinea pig by the Communist-Jewish integrators to sample the political sentiment of the South for a most distasteful candidate, John Kennedy?" Patterson, caught in a web he had helped spin, retorted a bit helplessly. "Kennedy is a friend," he said, "and so far as I know, I'm not being used as a guinea pig by anybody." As for the schools, he returned to his old, pre-gubernatorial stumping grounds. Said he: "No Alabama school will be integrated unless they pass over my body."

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