The New Minority Leader

"I've been through adversity before," growled Charles Halleck, "but I've never had to run in a beauty contest." It was not in any beauty contest that he was defeated as House minority leader, despite the obvious differences between Indiana's jowly Halleck, 64, and Michigan's rugged Gerald Rudolph Ford, 51, a onetime college all-star football player. It was a fight between Halleck's long-entrenched, static Republican style and a new, activist, articulate trend in the G.O.P. symbolized by Jerry Ford.

Ford's strategy as leader of the House Republicans this session will be based on the conviction that his party must devise "attractive, workable alternatives to Administration proposals." In South Viet Nam, for example, he favors destruction of Red supply lines from North to South. "If we have to go above the border, then we have to do it. We must stop the erosion of our position."

In other fields, Ford foresees strong Republican opposition if the Administration "tries to emasculate the Taft-Hartley Act," and promises to take a sharp look at the anti-poverty program, which Ford says is "loosely drawn." While he concedes that the President's State of the Union address well "expressed the dreams of Americans," Ford cautions that "as legislators, our responsibility is to see how the Administration intends to do it and what it's going to cost. I'll wait before passing judgment."

Early Mentor. Waiting does not come easily to Ford, although it took him 18 years to fulfill a childhood ambition to be a Congressman. Born in Omaha and christened Junior King, he was barely two when his parents were divorced. His mother took him to her home in Grand Rapids, Mich., where she married a paint manufacturer named Gerald Rudolph Ford, who adopted Jerry and gave him his name. In high school he earned pocket money by working in restaurants and in his father's factory.

A strapping kid--6 ft., 197 Ibs.--he went out for football, later won his letter as a well-disciplined lineman in two successive undefeated University of Michigan seasons. He turned down pro offers, headed for a law degree at Yale, where he earned his way as assistant varsity football coach and coach of the freshman boxing team. Among his gridiron players: Ohio's former Republican Congressman Robert Taft Jr. and Wisconsin's Democratic Senator William Proxmire ("Bob was a better tackle than Bill was an end").

After putting in 47 months in World War II with the Navy, 24 of them in the Pacific, he went home with the rank of lieutenant commander and barged into politics. With the help of Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who was one of Jerry's early mentors, Ford knocked off Isolationist Congressman Barney Jonk-man in the 1948 Republican primary, easily defeated his Democratic opponent in the November election. With his bride of three months, pretty ex-Model Elizabeth Bloomer, he headed for Washington.

The High Road. In the years since, Ford has got himself re-elected eight times, allied himself with House Republicans who were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the old-style party leadership. It was as a "constructive conservative" and strong Eisenhower supporter that in 1959 Ford helped engineer the removal of Massachusetts' venerable but ineffectual Joe Martin Jr., who had been G.O.P. leader for 20 years. The man who replaced Martin, ironically enough, was Charlie Halleck.

Critics complain that Ford is ruled solely by ambition, but they acknowledge that he has worked exceedingly hard, notably in the House subcommittee on defense appropriations, and served well as a member of the Warren Commission. Many liberals fault Ford for his straight-out support of Barry Goldwater. Ford, who would have preferred to see Richard Nixon get the G.O.P. presidential nomination, says: "I agreed with Barry 85% or 90% of the time. The other choice was Lyndon, and I disagreed with him 50% of the time. So I worked my fanny off for Goldwater."

Ford himself regards his role as an "affirmative" one, and has identified himself with the "high middle road of moderation." As the No. 1 House Republican, he sees a new era of participation in party affairs by all wings. "No single Republican, not Barry Goldwater or Dean Burch, should assume all the blame for the November disaster," he says. "But the moderate-to-liberal wing has earned a larger voice in making policy. The Republican Party must be active, articulate, dedicated. The American people aren't going to reinstate a two-party system by giving the Republican Party something. We've got to earn it."

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