Happy to Be There

President Kennedy looked across the flat land toward the Missouri River, its waters imprisoned behind the world's largest rolled earth dam (Oahe: 242 ft. high, 9,300 ft. long). Behind the river rose the brown buttes of South Dakota's cattle country. The President opened his speech to some 9,000 persons with a deeply heartfelt cliche: "I want to express my great pleasure and tell you what a privilege it is to leave Washington these days and come out here." Kennedy had every reason to enjoy being away from Washington: the Democratic Congress was still giving him fits, and the U.S. space lag was apparent.

Thus it was a relief for Kennedy to take off on what White House staffers, with straight faces, called a "nonpolitical" weekend trip. In speeches in South Dakota, Colorado and California, he stuck mainly to bipartisan subjects of interest in the West: conservation and reclamation, water and power, floods and dams. But he well knew that for a politician there is no such thing as a nonpolitical handshake --and that the folks beaming up at him would suffer no amnesia on election day.

Powerhouse Performance. In small Pierre, S. Dak. (pop. 10,500), Kennedy paid his respects to welcoming officials-then broke for the airport fence to shake at least 200 hands among some 2,500 people pressing to see him. He was in South Dakota, ostensibly, to help dedicate a new 595,000-kw. Oahe Dam powerhouse. But the real reason for his presence was right at Kennedy's elbow: Democrat George McGovern, South Dakota Congressman from 1957 to 1961, Kennedy's Food for Peace director until last month, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate. McGovern, running neck and neck with Republican Incumbent Joe Henry Bottum (who is filling the vacancy created by the death of Republican Francis Case), greeted Kennedy at the airport, rode beside him in an open convertible to the dam, sat on the speech platform.

On the presidential plane, as Kennedy flew into Pueblo, Colo., for a speech about a $170 million project to divert water from the Fryingpan and Roaring Fork rivers on the western slopes of the Rockies into the Arkansas River valley on the east, was Colorado's Democratic Senator John Carroll. A loyal Kennedy backer in Congress, Carroll faces a stiff re-election challenge this year from Republican Representative Peter Dominick. It was Carroll who introduced Kennedy to some 8,000 cheering spectators in the Pueblo High School Stadium.

Sharing the Plunger. The most conspicuous greeter, as Kennedy arrived at California's Castle Air Force Base, was Democratic Governor Pat Brown, who needs all the help he can get from all the Kennedys he can lure West in his re-election fight against Richard Nixon. Aft er an overnight stay in Yosemite National Park, the President ignited explosives to break ground for a dam and reservoir in the $500 million San Luis water project in the San Joaquin Valley -- a vital link in Brown's plan to meet the multiplying water needs of Southern California.

Brown sat beside Kennedy during the ceremonies, made a speech of his own, shared a twin plunger with the President to set off the dynamite and send red, green and purple smoke over the valley.

Said Kennedy in his speech: "I believe all Californians will long remember the water leadership of Pat Brown." Greater tribute no politician could hope for.

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