The Head Honchos

Most of Barry Goldwater's top political aides are hardy types who can cuss in Navajo or quaff bourbon with the best of them. Among these, Denison Kitchel, 56, a wispy, introverted, hard-of-hearing mining-industry lawyer seems as out of place as a Boy Scout on a bronco. Yet Kitchel served as Goldwater's pre-convention campaign manager and will undoubtedly continue to be, in Barry's own words, "my head honcho."

Sense & Judgment. The son of a prosperous lawyer, Kitchel was born in Bronxville, a New York City suburb, was educated at St. Paul's, Yale and Harvard Law School, set up practice in Arizona in 1934. At first, the young lawyer had "every intention" of returning to Manhattan. "But every time I did," he recalls, "I rode the subway for five minutes and was confirmed in my decision to stay in Arizona." In Phoenix he met Goldwater, then general manager of the family department store, and by the time Barry was elected to the Senate in 1952 the two were fast friends.

"For a long time," says Kitchel, "I'd been interested in what he stood for--stopping the centralization of federal power and firming up our foreign policy. When he got to the Senate, we began working together quite a bit. I'd try to give him advice on legislative problems he was facing." In May 1963 Kitchel left his lucrative Phoenix law practice to join the Goldwater staff, later set up in a small Washington office as Barry's manager. Many of Candidate Goldwater's backers were aghast at the appointment of a political amateur whose sole experience had been as counsel to the Arizona state Republican committee. Says Kitchel of such criticism: "I'm inclined to think that the term 'professional' in politics has been a little misunderstood, or misused. As I see it, this is mostly a matter of common sense and judgment."

Ready to Resign. In his exercise of common sense and judgment, Kitchel's sensitivities are sometimes staggered by the folkways of American politics. During Barry's New Hampshire primary campaign, Kitchel watched disgustedly as an eager mother pushed her baby into the candidate's arms. He murmured: "If he kisses that baby, I resign." (Barry didn't kiss and Kitchel didn't resign.) He has also developed a simple expedient for avoiding political arguments that offend him; he simply tunes down his hearing aid.

When Goldwater's campaign seemed to be going badly, Kitchel received much of the blame. He readily admits that he is not much of a political administrator, that much of Goldwater's grass-roots organization sprang up and operated with little help or coordination from his office. But it was Kitchel who made the decisive campaign decision that Goldwater should stop sloshing around like a candidate for alderman, devote his major energies and funds to major appearances, thereby lessen the opportunity for the off-the-cuff remarks that were landing Barry in trouble.

Kitchel is also one of the few men who exercise sufficient intellectual sway over Goldwater to shape his opinions or persuade him to change his mind. It was Kitchel who convinced Goldwater of the crucial value of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (now one of Barry's main pitches) and who argued Goldwater into reversing his stand against the use of federal troops to enforce the Supreme Court's 1954 school-desegregation decision. In his own quiet way, Kitchel downgrades his importance in the Goldwater lineup. "My position," he says, "has been that of a friend who counsels." This week's convention results should show that he has counseled well.

Among the other leading Goldwater lieutenants:

> Richard G. Kleindienst, 40, director of campaign field operations. As extraverted as Kitchel is introverted, Kleindienst rose through the G.O.P. ranks in Arizona to become state party chairman and, as one friend puts it, "a full-fledged political animal." As Goldwater's advance man, Kleindienst has displayed a tendency to whirl off handshaking and backslapping in all directions. When he first barnstormed into Chicago, complains one Goldwater man, he rushed about making deals only to find he had missed the real party leaders, later had to do some fancy backpedaling. Kleindienst also finds time to promote his own political fortunes, has announced as a candidate for Governor of Arizona in November, hoping to succeed Paul Fannin, who plans to run for Goldwater's Senate seat should Barry win the nomination. At a state G.O.P. rally in Arizona recently, the band of Kleindienst's straw hat carried a slogan for his own campaign, not Barry's.

> F. Clifton White, 45, co-director of field operations, who has shared with Kleindienst the job of beating the bush for delegates. A New Yorker who enlisted in the Air Force as a private and emerged in 1945 as a captain with the Distinguished Flying Cross, White is the tenacious kind of fighter who draws the natural respect of Barry Goldwater. Co-founder of a Manhattan firm called Public Affairs Counselors, Inc., which offers corporation employees advice about how to make their muscle felt in the political world, White was also a founder of the "Draft Goldwater" movement. Since then he has put his special talents for cajolery--and political arm twisting--to work at G.O.P. state conventions. Persistent rumors have it that White's reward if Goldwater is nominated will be the chairmanship of the G.O.P. National Committee, succeeding fellow New Yorker William Miller.

> Dean Burch, 36, deputy campaign director. A Goldwater booster since undergraduate days at the University of Arizona, Burch joined the Senator's Washington staff in 1955, became a close personal friend, and even got his flying license after lessons from Old Pilot Goldwater. The youngest of Goldwater's top aides, Burch plunged into the thankless job of scheduling campaign appearances, aided Kitchel in a notable job of offending the fewest possible Republicans despite the candidate's disturbing penchant for last-minute cancellations.

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