Consensus by Any Other Name

"This meeting," said Michigan's George Romney, after a 90-minute lunch with New York's Nelson Rockefeller in a poolside dining room in Puerto Rico, "is purely coincidence." It was about as coincidental as Stanley's confrontation with Livingston, or Wellington's with Napoleon. But that was beside the point.

What the two Republican Governors had on their minds was the future of the G.O.P. and, more immediately, its strategy for 1968. Romney, by virtue of his 600,000-vote third-term victory and potent coattail strength, is the early-form favorite for the 1968 G.O.P. presidential nomination. Rockefeller, a big upset winner in New York, is eager to at least play a prominent role in choosing the candidate and fashioning the platform.

The two men agreed that the G.O.P.'s first task is to erase the aura of narrow exclusivity that it acquired during Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign, and to establish itself as a broad-based party with ample room for ideological differences and leaders as far apart as a Rockefeller and California's Governor-elect Ronald Reagan. If that prescription seemed predictable, they did not agree on it without engaging in some caustic casuistry that did little to help the party or the disputants.

Never on Sunday. On the eve of Romney's arrival, Rocky, ensconced in a three-bedroom cottage alongside Brother Laurance's palm-fringed Dorado Beach Hotel, called newsmen over for a chat about the prospects of Republican unity and success. To Rockefeller, the 25 G.O.P. Governors "provide a very unique starting point" for a comeback. But Rocky thought--and said repeatedly--that they should achieve a "consensus" on objectives and attitudes before they begin worrying about a candidate. After the umpteenth reference to "consensus"--which, after all, has become virtually a Lyndon Johnson copyright--he admitted: "I hate to keep using that word, but I can't think of a better one."

Romney clearly thought that Rocky should try. When the Michigander arrived from San Juan, he was asked what he thought about the New Yorker's notion of a party consensus. His face clouded. "That is Rockefeller's word," snapped Romney. "I associate it with someone else who hasn't fared too well with consensus. I think we need leadership." With that, Romney went off to Suite 701 in the Dorado Beach Hotel, changing into plaid trunks for a swim. When he finally did phone Rockefeller, 90 minutes after arriving, he suggested that they wait until the morrow for their meeting. "I never talk politics on Sunday," he explained.

A Little Allergic. Next day, sportily attired in mustard slacks, matching shirt and yellow canvas shoes, Romney drove in an American Motors Rambler to Rocky's cottage for a buffet lunch. By the time the meal was over, the two Governors had achieved a consensus, so to speak, on consensus. "It was an apparent and not a real difference," Romney told reporters on the broad green lawn fronting the cottage. "Personally, I would not have chosen the word consensus.* I was just a little allergic to the previous association of the word. But I agree the Governors should reach an agreement on programs." Pointedly, both Rocky and Romney expressed the belief that Ronald Reagan would agree to agree. Rocky still did not think that consensus was that inappropriate a word. "Johnson was pretty successful at it," he said, but conceded: "If we are going to have agreement, there's no sense using words that are divisive."

A Vague Letter. That semantic spat settled, another divisive word promptly popped up to plague the G.O.P. This time it came from Reagan. Asked by a television interviewer whether the party should nominate in 1968 a man who had not backed the 1964 ticket, Reagan said: "Well, a lot of that would deal with whether the individual repented or not. I don't think that a convention would support someone who stayed aloof or who actually opposed the will of the party and then was completely unregenerate."

The party's two most prominent impenitents, of course, happen to be George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller. Romney retorted that his purpose in 1964 had been to do "the best job I could to get Republican results" in Michigan, and that this year's G.O.P. successes there only vindicated "the soundness of this decision."

Romney is likely to hear a lot more about that decision. Shortly after the 1964 election, he spelled out his position in a twelve-page letter to Goldwater--written at Barry's request. The original is believed to have gone to Dean Burch, then G.O.P. national chairman, with a microfilm copy in Goldwater's personal files and a carbon in Romney's possession. The letter's contents have not been made public, but the New York Daily News's perceptive Washington columnist, Ted Lewis, quoting "hearsay" reports, said that it criticized the "extremist" tone of Goldwater's campaign and the ultra-conservative planks written into the platform by his supporters. However, Goldwater aides claim the letter is so vague that their man is still unable to figure out just what Romney was trying to say.

Winning Direction. Despite his 1964 apostasy--which still irks many Republicans--and regardless of lingering Alibis about his intellectual depth, most party leaders nonetheless concede Romney a substantial edge for 1968. "He is indisputably the leading candidate now," said Wisconsin's Melvin Laird, chairman of the House Republican Conference and a longtime skeptic about Romney's presidential qualifications.

Among the other potential candidates, Reagan says: "I have a four-year contract with the people of California, and I intend to keep the contract"; Rocky insists that he is really "out of the picture" this time; and such newcomers as Senators-elect Charles Percy of Illinois and Mark Hatfield of Oregon, as well as New York's Mayor John Lindsay, are considered more promising for 1972. That leaves Richard Nixon, whose chief support comes from precisely those regions where Romney is weakest because of his 1964 defection--the South and parts of the Midwest.

Among Republicans whose objective is to win rather than to witness a shriving for sinners, the 1964 schism is ancient history. Asked whether he could conceive of the G.O.P.'s nominating a man who had not supported Goldwater, Chuck Percy (who did) said "Yes." He reacted as nimbly when a Washington reporter asked him which way he wanted the party to go. "In the winning direction," said Percy, adding: "You weren't referring to ideology, were you?"

Disaster & Disarray. The G.O.P.'s new direction and drive prompted a dire warning last week from one of the most articulate Democrats around. Address ing New York's Democratic Forum, former J.F.K. Speechwriter Ted Sorensen said that the 1966 election had plunged the Administration party into such "disaster and disarray" that Johnson's chances for re-election have been gravely "endangered." Sounding for all the world like an oldtime Tammany ward heeler, Sorensen bewailed the fact that "the unions can no longer deliver their members; their preachers can no longer deliver the Negroes; and the ward captains can no longer deliver the precincts." In truth, the increasingly sophisticated and independent U.S. voter has not been "deliverable," in Sorensen's terms, since the decline of melting-pot politics (see TIME ESSAY).

Sorensen particularly deplored the fact that the Democrats had no "bright new faces emerging from this election --unless you count Lurleen Wallace and Lester Maddox," while the Republicans came up with a carload. "Let us be frank," he said; if men like Hatfield, Percy, Romney and half a dozen others "had the word Democrat after their names, we would be boasting about them as outstanding figures in today's political scene."

Next Round. Even so, Sorensen cautioned, nothing would be "more stupid and self-defeating than any effort to run Senator Robert F. Kennedy against either President Johnson or Vice President Humphrey in 1968."* Sorensen was aware that it would take a bloody, party-wrecking battle to deny renomination to Johnson. On the other hand, the vice-presidency is not an inconceivable possibility for Kennedy--who badly wanted the second spot in 1964, but may resist it in '68. If Lyndon is in trouble two years hence and Bobby's luster seems capable of pulling him through, the President may well insist on having Kennedy on the ticket.

Distant as 1968 may seem, speculation about the tickets is not likely to subside soon. Another round will ensue next week when Rocky, Romney and Reagan confer at the Republican Governors' Association meeting in Colorado Springs. The week after that, Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater and G.O.P. congressional leaders -- along with Rocky and Romney -- will convene in Washington for a meeting of the Republican Coordinating Committee. The question at both gatherings will be whether the party can proceed from the semantics of consensus to its practice.

* Webster: originally, "harmony, cooperation or sympathy in different parts of an organism"; currently, "a unified or convergent trend."

* Though Bobby, according to the latest Harris Poll, is still more popular than either. In September's survey, he surged ahead of the President, 39% to 37%; now his edge is 44% to 37%. Against Humphrey, his margin is 61% to 39%.

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