One Who Isn't?

Arizona's Republican Senator Barry Goldwater insists that he does not want to be President. He is enjoying his life just as it is--leisurely dinners with wife Peggy, midnight chats with fellow radio hams in England, Brazil and Phoenix, tinkering around with his black Corvette sports car, preaching the conservative gospel and taking potshots at liberals.

Yet Goldwater has admirers who do not quite take him at his word; they think he would very much like a crack at White House responsibility. In his native Arizona, the state Goldwater-for-President club has bloomed like a desert flower. A California citizens committee for Goldwater already has 100,000 signatures on informal petitions for his 1964 presidential candidacy. Last week the Massachusetts Young Republican Council named Goldwater conservatives to all of the organization's 13 state offices. In Washington, Texas Republican State Chairman Peter O'Donnell launched a "Draft Goldwater" movement. Columnist David Lawrence declared that all the activity on Goldwater's behalf amounted to "something rather sensational"--a real "ground swell." Columnist William S. White said that if a Republican national convention were held now, Goldwater would have almost all the delegate votes of at least 13 Southern and Southwestern states.

To all this, Goldwater turned a cool public shoulder. Of the Texas group's efforts in Washington, he said: "If they want to waste their time and money, that's their business. I've just given up trying to stop them." Up for re-election to the Senate next year, he will spend an increasing amount of his time back in Arizona. But still, Barry Goldwater is a politician--and it is a rare politician who would really write himself off for the presidency. In his private moments, Goldwater recognizes that fact. Says he of the various Goldwater-for-President movements: "It's very flattering. I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't."

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