The Viet Nam Race

As the biggest lumber-producing state in the U.S., Oregon has been hard hit by the nationwide slump in construction that resulted from the Administration's tight-money policies. Its voters are also unhappy over issues ranging from the future of the state's water reserves to the depredations of a Soviet fishing fleet 20 miles offshore. Yet the dominant theme of Oregon's leading electoral contest this fall is the Viet Nam war.

A year ago, it looked as if there would be no real race. Mark Odom Hatfield, 44, the trim, Hollywood-handsome Republican Governor, seemed assured of election to the U.S. Sen ate seat of retiring Democrat Maurine Neuberger. Hatfield has eight solidly progressive years behind him in the Salem stalehouse, is well known and well liked throughout the state, and is one of the G.O.P.'s most talked about prospects for national office. Then, last July, his constituents learned that Hatfield had re fused for the second year running to support a motion endorsing the Administration's Viet Nam policy at the annual Governors' Conference. As the cam paign began, it was clear that he was the underdog in a campaign that no one had previously thought he could lose.

A Moral Certainty. The most immediate result of Hatfield's antiwar stand was, in fact, to bring Democratic Representative Robert Duncan charging into the senatorial race. A firm supporter of the President's conduct of the war, Duncan, 45, felt that Hatfield's position could not go uncontested, and he left a safe constituency to take on the Governor. "I am morally certain," he says, "that if we withdraw, we will be involved in a third world war with Communist China. I'm convinced that if we stand firm, we'll bring to Southeast Asia a new experience of freedom without a gun at people's heads."

Though previously little known outside his southern Oregon district, Duncan, a former seaman who still wads his cheeks with snuff and misses no chance to brag about his Scottish ancestry, received nationwide publicity in his primary battle against antiwar Candidate Howard Morgan (TIME, June 3), whom he trounced by an almost 2-to-l margin. Since then, shuttling weekly between House and home, Duncan has become, in his words, "practically a permament resident of United Air Lines."

Curious Ambivalence. For his part, Hatfield is doing his best to forget Viet Nam for the rest of the campaign--if Duncan will only let him. The Governor's statements on the war have taken on a curiously ambivalent tone. He chides both "those who would give the President a blank check and those who make a public spectacle of themselves by protesting more for the sake of protest." He pledges "unqualified and complete support" for the men fighting in Viet Nam, and has suggested economic sanctions against those countries shipping into Haiphong harbor. Like everyone else, he is also for negotiations if and when.

The war issue has served to catalyze the inevitable anti-Hatfield feelings that have been built up during his two terms. Even so, Hatfield has overcome most of Duncan's summer lead, and a poll last week showed Duncan with 49% of the vote, Hatfield with 48%. The Governor has one advantage: a full campaign treasury ($200,000 v. Duncan's $150,000), while Duncan has had to cancel television appearances for lack of money. Hatfield is trapped nonetheless by his Viet Nam statements, and he must somehow convince Oregonians that if they elect him, they will not have "two Wayne Morses" in the Senate--a task made no easier by the fact that Democrat Morse has taken Hatfield into his clammy embrace.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.