"This President Thing"

(See Cover)

Outside Phoenix, Ariz., in the shadow of Camelback Mountain, stands an ultra-modern $100,000 house made of Moenkopi sandstone that is, by the conservative estimate of its owner, 160 million years old. On the property is a fishpond with a little waterfall. The sound of the waterfall is picked up by a microphone and piped into the house; the owner likes to sleep to its music. In back of the house is a 25-ft. flagpole hooked up to a motor with a photoelectric cell. When the sun rises over the Arizona desert, its light activates the cell, which sets off the motor-and up to the top of the pole runs Old Glory. At sunset, the flag automatically comes down.

This is the home of Arizona's Republican Senator Barry Morris Goldwater -and he loves it. Last week he gazed out at the red-glowing desert land at dusk and spoke reverently. "God," he said, "it's beautiful out here. You wonder what kind of insanity it is that makes you go away and leave it." Whatever it is, Barry Goldwater, 54, has traveled a long way from Arizona-and he may go a lot farther. For if the Republican National Convention were to be held today, Goldwater would almost certainly be its presidential nominee.

The Plunge. From state after state last week came reports of Goldwater's surging strength. Yet that strength can only be explained in terms of the plunging political fortunes of Goldwater's chief rival for the 1964 G.O.P. nomination-New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

The political reaction to Rocky's recent remarriage has been disastrous. Last week, obviously striving to reverse the tide, Rockefeller and his bride, the former Margaretta ("Happy") Fitler Murphy, undertook a strenuous social schedule. In Albany, the Rockefellers were guests at a luncheon for 44 (top state officials and their wives), a press reception for 84, and a dinner for more than 400 persons. Smiling, attractive and informal, Happy charmed almost everyone. Asked how she felt about her husband's running for President, she frankly wondered whether "one would want the man she loves to have such awesome responsibilities."

At a fund-raising Manhattan dinner attended by some 3,000, Happy continued to make a good impression. New

York's Republican Senator Kenneth Keating had a two-word description of her: "Lovely, charming." Said G.O.P. National Committee Chairman William Miller: "I think she's great." The Rockefellers also joined several hundred people for a charity affair aboard a ship that steamed outside the three-mile limit for an evening of gambling and dancing. Among those present were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, with whom the Rockefellers were photographed. The Duchess said she thought Happy was "gracious," and expressed the hope that "they will be very happy, as we are after 26 years of marriage." It was a nice, normal thought. But people kept comparing Rocky to that other man who gave up high office for the woman he loved.

Rockefeller himself insisted that he was still very much in the presidential running. He recognized that there was criticism of his remarriage. That criticism, he said at a press conference, was "very understandable. One has to see life and the problems of life from other people's point of view. I think love and understanding are the two greatest forces, and if we have that, then we can understand how people feel, regardless of the situation."

"They're Disgusted." But for all Rockefeller's pleas for understanding, public criticism was rising to a pitch not often heard in U.S. politics. Basic to the criticism was the widespread impression (which neither Rocky nor Happy has refuted) that Mrs. Rockefeller surrendered legal custody of her four children by her first marriage. Across the U.S., Republican comments about Rocky raunged from sadness outright hostility v. In Denver, a women

snorted that shoe would "rather Liz Taylor in the White House that Happy." In Arkansas, Mrs.

William Lee committeewoman Jarne&son, a plugging G.O.P. for ' nationality , added tartlfly: "I've been marriage to the same manny for 40 years." In Texas, R Randall County G.O.P. 'Chairman John Kenehan said: "I don't know what I'd do if Rockefeller nominated. I might just have to quit

post." Said Mrs Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Im illinois Federation of IT Republican Women: "I've been taking! I private poll of Republican women meet all over tithe state, and their reaction is nearly unanimous --they're gusted with Rockefeller. A man who broken up two If homes is not the kind want for high public office. The part not so hard up that it can't find so body who stuck by his own family .

In Minnesota, where Rocky & have expected support from a sir contingent of moderate Republics State Chairman Robert Forsythe plained the dragmatic descent in the Yorker's populalarity: "It was the marriage. That -meant another home . . . YOU know, this guy quite a hero o to a lot of Peo Said California Republican Asse Leader Charleses Conrad: "When you married to a woman for years dump her a head later take I other woman v who has dump & lt; band, it's certainly going to effect." In Long Island, c Rockefeller territory, Republician governor John Chafee said, " there are small children of hers involved is extremely unfortunate." Added Kent Shearer, energetic Young Republican leader in Utah: "The married women in the 40s and 50s won't have him. Some of them who are lifelong Republicans warn us, 'Don't make us choose between Kennedy and Happy.' "

"Phooey." And from Rocky's own Northeastern neighborhood came one of the most wrathful public lashings in memory. In Connecticut, once regarded as a hands-down Rockefeller state, onetime U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, a moderate Republican, delivered the commencement address at Greenwich's Rosemary Hall, a school for girls from upper-income families. Said Bush: "Have we come to the point in our life as a nation where the Governor of a great stat-one who perhaps aspires to the nomination for President of the United States-can desert a good wife, mother of his grown children, divorce her, then persuade a young mother of four youngsters to abandon her husband and their four children and marry the Governor?

"Have we come to the point where one of the two great political parties will confer upon such a one its highest honor and greatest responsibility? I venture to hope not. What would Abraham Lincoln think of such a chain of events?

"Have our standards shifted so much that the American people will approve such a chain of events? I venture to hope not ... It will depend on whether our people are ready to say 'phooey' to the sanctity of the American home and the American family. Are we ready to say goodbye to the solemn pledge 'To have and to hold until death do us part'? Young ladies, I hope not, for your sake."

Many sophisticated political observers argue that this sort of feeling about Rockefeller has already reached its crest. They believe that time, and public evidences of the fact that Rocky and Happy are two nice people who happen to be deeply in love, will cause the whole issue to evaporate. New York's Thomas E. Dewey, for one, greeted the Rockefellers warmly at a Republican reception last week, and said: "I wish them long lives, great happiness and great success for many years." Rockefeller, insisted Dewey, is still "the logical nominee." Perhaps so. But in the meanwhile, Republicans can hardly be blamed for casting their gaze around the rest of the political horizon.

George? One place they look toward is Michigan, where Governor George Romney, 55, appears to be a Republican of great determination, ability, and integrity. Unseating a Democrat in 1962 after 14 years of unbroken Democratic rule, Romney inherited an all but bankrupt state. Since then, he has had a little bit of luck: the auto industry is booming and, as a result, increased state tax revenues have begun to move Michigan out of the deep red.

But George Romney knows as well as anyone that Michigan cannot permanently depend on auto-industry prosperity, that what is really needed is a broad program of state fiscal reform. Romney did not present such a program to his first legislative session, which was brief and inconclusive. He will make his major effort next fall (although the details of what he will ask for have not yet been worked out), and upon the results may depend his national political future.

Romney vehemently says that he will "not be a candidate" for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964. But he would certainly accept a "draft," and those who saw him during two recent speechmaking trips to Washington figured that he was already measuring himself for Jack Kennedy's rocking chair. Many Michiganders resent this; they insist that Romney ought to live up to his gubernatorial campaign promises and solve state problems before he tries to move out into national politics. Last week the Detroit News, one of Romney's strongest supporters during his 1962 campaign, gave him unshirted hell in an editorial: "Governor Romney's stature as a public servant who speaks in words without double meanings suffers each day he fails to say flatly that he would not accept the 1964 Republican presidential nomination if it were offered . . . Romney's procrastination-or, as his critics inevitably will say, his fascination with national publicity-threatens Michigan's best interests ... A simple statement that he will not permit his name, whatever the circumstances, to appear on the 1964 national Republican ticket -made now-is what Michigan expects, and has a right to expect from the Governor."

As a Mormon, Romney already has some presidential support in states with sizable Mormon enclaves-Utah, Idaho, California and, curiously, Hawaii. But Romney's Mormonism can also be a political nobble, particularly in view of the Mormon Church's longstanding refusal to admit Negroes to its hierarchy. Moreover, in most regions, regular Republicans look askance at Romney as one who has stressed his role as a "citizens' candidate" and has seemed somewhat embarrassed by his Republican Party label. Says a veteran Senate Republican: "If he wants to get anywhere, George is going to have to forget that citizen-party garbage." As things presently stand, Romney can break through only if Goldwater and Rockefeller kill each other off.

Bill? Another possibility-at least on paper-is Pennsylvania's Governor Willi,am Scranton, 45. Unlike Romney, Scranton has convinced his closest friends and most of his devout admirers that he really does not want his party's 1964 nomination. In fact, he would really like to quit politics at the end of his term in 1967.

Like Romney, Scranton inherited from a Democratic Governor a bundle of trouble in his state. Since he became Governor, most of his time has been taken up in dealing with unemployment and economic depression. Only last week he managed, contrary to almost all predictions, to push through his state legislature a sales-tax raise from 4% to 5%. So far, his popularity does not seem to have suffered. But raising taxes is not ordinarily considered the best way to get to the White House. Scranton is not well known outside of Pennsylvania, and even if he were to display more presidential ambition than he has, he would still be considered an outsider in the 1964 Republican sweepstakes.

There are several other such outsiders, most notably Kentucky's Senator Thruston B. Morton and Oregon's Governor Mark Hatfield. But any realistic political estimate must consider them much more likely as vice-presidential nominees than for the top place on the G.O.P. ticket.

Thus, if only by a process of elimination, Arizona's Goldwater moves far toward the front.

A Real Choice. Goldwater has plenty going for him-entirely aside from Rockefeller's remarriage and the problems confronting other G.O.P. possibilities. At 54, with a trim build (6 ft., 185 Ibs.), a bronzed face, silver hair and a man's-man personality, he is one of the most attractive politicians in the U.S. today. He has earned for himself a label as Mr. Conservative. Yet at the same time, as a dashing, fast-driving, jet-flying, adventuring, hobby-loving good fellow, he has shattered the shibboleth of the conservative as a starched-collar fuddy-duddy.

In past decades, Republican National

Conventions have refused to nominate presidential candidates from the party's conservative wing. The reason has been that "a conservative can't win." Today, Barry Goldwater is profiting from a realistic admission in Republican circles that any G.O.P. candidate, whether conservative or progressive, is going to have to run uphill against John Kennedy. That being the case, the argument goes, why not give a real conservative a chance for a change? Says Texas Republican Leader Kenehan: "This is the first time we've ever had a real choice between a conservative and a liberal candidate. Not in my lifetime have I had a chance to vote for a real conservative for President." Says Harry G. Taylor, Macon County (111.) Republican chairman: "If the conservatives are ever going to elect anyone, perhaps this is the time to give it a test."

The Republican feeling that the chances of taking over the White House next year are less than fifty-fifty has led to increased party emphasis on electing lesser candidates-Senators, Congressmen, Governors and other state and local officials. Toward this end, Republicans feel that their candidates would be helped by the presence at the top of the ballot of a presidential nominee who is readily identifiable as a "real" Republican. And nobody quite fills that bill as Goldwater does.

So reasoning, Republicans have made Goldwater the top prospect for their 1964 nomination. Last week a regional rundown showed him running ahead everywhere except in Rocky's own Northeast and the Pacific Coast-and even in those areas, Barry was moving up fast.

Northeast. In New England, Rocky's forces are shaken. Maine, where the Rockefeller family has summered for years, still likes Rocky. But, says Portland's Fred Scribner, general counsel of the G.O.P. National Committee: "Re marriage will really hurt Rockefeller." In Massachusetts, Harvard Business School Lecturer George Lodge (son of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.), a liberal Republican says, "I don't at this stage have a candidate." Frederick Dumaine Jr., newly elected Massachusetts G.O.P. chairman, represents Goldwater people. Says Lloyd Waring, a four-time National Convention delegate and an influential Massachusetts Republican: "Goldwater is definitely strengthening. There is a big independent demand for him. I think they're looking for a real other-side-of-the-coin conservative to put up this time. That way they'll settle this liberal-conservative business once and for all." In Vermont, leaders and voters are still for Rocky, but, says G.O.P. State Chairman Theodore Corsones: "Goldwater could make it if he gives the go-ahead signal for a real fight."

New Hampshire, whose early-bird March primary makes it one of the most politically significant of the New England states, now appears to favor Goldwater. Similarly, Rhode Island, once a strong Rocky state, has softened.

The womenfolk, says National Committeewoman Mary Jackson, simply "don't like" Rocky's remarriage: "Goldwater is out in front." As of now, Rocky could probably still count on New York, plus Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.

South & Southwest. This is almost completely Goldwater territory. Says Alabama's 32-year-old State Chairman John Grenier, who masterminded a near upset of veteran Democratic Senator Lister Hill last fall: "I figure Goldwater won't lose 15 [out of about 325] delegate votes in the South. Everything's coming up roses." Adds Grenier: "Even if we wanted someone else, we couldn't go up to the convention and sell out our people. They want Gold-water." Says Oklahoma's Republican Governor Henry Bellmon: "I know personally of perhaps half a dozen people in this state who are for Rockefeller. But I know thousands who are for Goldwater." "The people need a strong hand in Washington," insists Texas Committeewoman Mrs. Charles Gibson, "and I feel that Goldwater will just set us straight."

Midwest & Mountain States. As of now, Goldwater probably would get nearly all the convention votes of Utah, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. "This guy," says Barry-Booster Frank Whetstone of Cut Bank, Mont., "can sell-and he can win." In California, former Governor Goodwin J. Knight, a Rockefeller man, admits Goldwater gains over Rockefeller in his state, but insists that Barry "couldn't possibly win." Nonetheless, California has a huge assortment of conservatives -from mild to Birch. They are well organized and gave Richard Nixon a tough fight in the gubernatorial primaries last year. If the delegation goes to the convention uninstructed-as may well happen-California might split its votes down the middle, with half each for Rocky and Goldwater.

A Matter of Direction. Being human, and far from a fool, Barry Goldwater is fascinated by what he repeatedly calls "this President thing." He is also a bit baffled by it. "Sure," he says, "the intensity of this President thing has surprised me. I still say that it isn't me, really, as much as it is a deep-seated frustration on the part of Republicans everywhere, and a lot of Democrats too. Among Republicans, it's a feeling that the party has no direction."

Goldwater could certainly give his party direction-solid, outspoken, conservative direction. For he is nothing if not straightforward about his views. Take, for example, Cuba. The island, says Goldwater, should be quarantined. "We should aid anyone who wants to go in there and let Castro have it-overtly or covertly-and we ought to do all this in conjunction with the Organization of American States. If we did all this, I think we could avoid an invasion. And if it hurts Mr. Khrushchev's feelings, that's just too bad. If the Kremlin should react by heating up Berlin, that's just a risk we have to take. The darn trouble is that this Administration won't take risks. Now I don't mean we have to go to war. I just say the world's strongest nation doesn't have to go around acting like the world's weakest nation."

Then there is tax policy. The graduated income tax, says Goldwater, is wicked; everybody, regardless of income, ought to be taxed an equal percentage: a man earning $100,000 and one earning $10,000 would each pay, say, 10%. He insists that advocates of "World Peace through Law" are mere dreamers who would subject their freedoms to the whims of a world court. "It is perfectly conceivable that the world court might go even so far as to declare null and void some sections of the U.S. Constitution." He wants to wipe out all farm subsidies "and let the farmer stand on his own two feet." He wants an end to federal aid to education and to urban-renewal programs; such matters, he says, should be left up to the states.

The Episcopal-raised son of a Jewish father and a Protestant mother, Goldwater sincerely believes in equal rights for the individual. He is a former member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. But he thinks the Federal government should nonetheless keep hands off. "If I were a Negro," he says, "I don't think I would be very patient. I'm opposed to discrimination in any form. But I hold very dear the right of assembly and association. And the issue in the South, you know, is not integration. It's states' rights-they just like to run their own business down there . . . I don't think it's my right as an Arizonan to come in and tell a Southerner what to do about this thing."

"Those Guys Around Him." As for the New Frontier's economic policies, Conservative Goldwater thinks that the business community "doesn't follow the Administration at all. The only business people Kennedy can siphon off to follow him are some of the big businessmen who play both sides of the fence, who are gutless enough that the dollar is more important to them than principle, so that they cuddle up to whoever's in. Now Kennedy himself is a hell of a lot more conservative than those guys around him, but it's another case in which the President can't make up his own mind. So he listens to what they tell him, and in his public utterances he indicates that he believes in Keynes, that he believes the Federal Government can prevent depressions by monkeying with the economy, that Government spending can solve economic problems-air this in the face of fundamental facts which prove that this isn't right, and never was. Why, you can't credit Kennedy and the New Frontier with modern economic thinking-they're reactionaries. These things they're endorsing were tried back in the '30s and failed even then."

The Goldwater approach? "Well, we have to increase capital investment. The immediate need is for 'correction' in the tax code-not cuts. We need even more liberal depreciation allowances, and we need to broaden the tax base so that we can draw what money the Federal Government needs from a wider range and then reduce the tax rates. That would then leave more leeway for local and state governments to tax more, and set up local programs where needed instead of all this federal welfare-state stuff. The whole reason that we are a federal republic is that it was recognized in the Constitution that the powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government remain with the states. Now you can't let the central Government start controlling your economy without having it control the lives and actions of your people-without having it control your freedoms. I just don't believe that the states are so ignorant that they can't fill the needs of the people without the central Government getting into it."

Such sentiments have a fine, straightforward ring to them. But there are charges that Goldwater oversimplifies issues, that he has not really thought very profoundly about the practical ways of carrying out the principles which he endorses so strongly. It is the fear that Goldwater, notwithstanding his strong character, does not have the intellectual qualities to become an effective U.S. President that bothers many Republicans far more than his right-wing conservatism. A Western Republican Governor sums up such doubts about Goldwater: "He's got guts, but no depth."

A Casual Hint. If that be so, the fact will surely become apparent in the months to come, when Goldwater will be exposed to all the white-hot testing of a leading presidential possibility. In the meanwhile, his attractive personality is enough to carry him forward. Last week Goldwater slipped out to Arizona for a quick round of speaking engagements and a little relaxation at his Phoenix home. He was up and dressed at about 5 a.m. (he keeps fit on four or five hours of sleep a night), watered some of his favorite cactus plants, checked on his beloved gadgets: the waterfall pump was on the fritz; so was the electrical gizmo that drops his movie screen from the ceiling. Drifting over to his ham radio set, he put out a CQ call, picked up a fellow ham in Fort Worth and began talking. "It certainly is a pleasure to work with you, Ron . . . The handle here is Barry . . . that's Baker Adam Roger Roger Yankee . . ." The two conversed for a while about inputs and outputs, antennas and split-stator capacitors. Then Barry dropped a casual hint. "I also operate out of Washington, too, Ron . . . Say, before we sign off, I want to do a little business with you . . . There's a bill in the United States Senate that I'm interested in. I want to send you a copy, and if it sounds all right to you, I wish you'd write your Senators and push it." By this time, Ron began to suspect that Baker Adam Roger Roger Yankee was no ordinary ham. Could it be that his last name was Golf Oscar Lima Delta Whisky Adam Tango Echo Roger? "Say," he said, "would you have anything to do with pushing that bill personally, Barry?" Delighted that Ron had caught on and was properly impressed, Goldwater owned up to his identity, and Ron promised to read the bill. "Well, Ron," said Barry, "it's been mighty good working you. So I'll say the best of 73s [regards]." With that, Barry signed off.

At a G.O.P. gathering in Tucson, Goldwater got caught in a crush of admirers. "We're working and praying for you," gushed one woman. "I hope you'll accept a draft," said a man. At last, he broke away from a little old lady who had been bugging him to repeal the repeal on Prohibition, and drove over to the airport. There Pilot Goldwater, a major general in the Air Force Reserve, piled into a twin-engined Beechcraft Bonanza (one of two small planes that he owns with his brother), took the controls, said, "Let's see if this thing will fly," gave her the gun. In the air, he decided that the control wheel was stiff, told the plane's regular hired pilot, "Let's get it fixed. Remember now, a new wheel if we have to, but let's get it fixed."

Landing at Phoenix, Barry hopped into his wife's new blue Lincoln Continental, toyed happily with a new gadget that adjusts the outside rear-view mirror from inside, and purred off to his house. (He keeps a Corvette Sting Ray in Washington, is fitting it out with enough gauges and gadgets to make it look like Faith 7). In the evening, he was off again to address R.O.T.C. students at nearby Arizona State University, gave them a talk about freedom and the necessity of manned aircraft in the space age, went home again to sip bourbon and water and fiddle with his ham rig. Soon he was talking up his pet Senate bills to two hams in the Pacific's Marshall Islands. When a house guest went off to bed at 2 a.m., Barry and his son Mike, 23, were fiddling with a new kind of stereo tape cartridge. Barry's dinner was still untouched.

Tom & Harry. He spoke at lunch next day to patrons of the Phoenix Neurological Institute, rapped the Kennedy Administration, adding "The more I think about it the more I think Harry Truman will go down in history as one of the greater Presidents."Off to the airport soon afterward, Barry flew his Bonanza to a commencement address at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. This time the subject was again patriotism and conservatism, with a generous portion of praise for an old Democrat named Thomas Jefferson.

Afterward, the crowds of parents and graduates swarmed to him for a handshake. Said one suntanned rancher to his wife: "You know, he even looks like Thomas Jefferson!"

Minutes later, the Senator was at the controls of a trim twin-jet Air Force T-39 cabin job, climbed to 45,000 ft., and headed for Washington. Reluctantly, he gave the stick to his copilot and took a seat in the cabin to chat with a newsman about "this President thing."

Watch the Ball. "I'm just watching the ball bounce," he said. "I'm just going to sit around and see what happens. It's far too early for anyone in his right political mind to decide to really go for it. This sense of frustration which makes people talk about me is something that's constantly on my mind. But there are a lot of things I have to consider. I don't want my political life cut short-I'm too old to go back to business now. But then I have to face the question of whether I'm letting down conservatives, particularly the young people.

"You have to consider the effect it could have on the conservative cause. Now nobody from a state as small as Arizona is ever going to get the nomination. I just don't think it's in the political cards. So what if I try and can't get it? What kind of slap in the face is that-not to me, but to conservatism? Or suppose I get in and then get the living hell beaten out of me by Kennedy? What would that do to conservatism? It would hurt it-it might even kill it. But if after looking it over I figured that I could make it a real horse race, then that's something else again. If I could come within 5% of a majority, that would be really a victory for conservatism even if we lost. It would enhance conservatism, and make the Kennedys take in their sails."

That Old Feeling. "But what about timeliness? Is '64 the conservative year, or would '68 be better? I think '68 might be the year, but it's too early to say yet. Even if I wanted it, now would be the wrong time to show that. The minute it becomes clear that a man is trying to get the nomination, he's a prime target for all his enemies. Being in the Senate, I'd be a sitting duck for everyone who didn't like me or who wants to hurt conservatism. And there are even Republicans who would go after me.

"Another thing that has to be figured out is how strong is the old feeling among the party pros that a conservative can't win? I haven't had any contact with the party pros from the big states like New York and Pennsylvania. I know I wouldn't be strong in the East or on the Pacific Coast. But this surge for conservatism is running strong in the South and in the Rocky Mountain West and some parts of the Middle West. But the big-money boys in the party don't want any part of me, and they don't want any part of the kind of amateur groups that are growing up for me. Now, historically, the Eastern fat cats have been able to move in and head off the nomination of a conservative candidate on the grounds that he couldn't win. A lot of people think they don't have that much power any more, but I don't know yet how strong they are.

"I've never believed in presidential primaries-people don't win nominations that way. Jack Kennedy was an exception. But if somebody sticks my name in a primary, depending on how it comes out, I might at least give tacit approval to a movement for me if there was a good showing to start with."

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