See How He Runs

Despite a barrage of denials -"I have not made a decision and I am not a candidate" -Michigan Governor George Romney last week began running like a man who likes a good distance between himself and the field. In one of the busiest weeks of his political career, he all but openly entered the lists for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968.

In Charlotte, N.C., to address a Chamber of Commerce dinner, Romney took on the Southerners in their own territory. "As far as I am concerned," he said, "states have no rights. Only people have rights. I know that some of those who shout the loudest about states' rights are laggards in state responsibility. Obstructionism masquerading as states' rights is the height of folly." Then he flew to New York, where he held a full-blown, big-league press conference during which he knocked the Johnson Administration's economic policy ("We should have had a tax increase a year ago") and called the President's sudden announcement that Viet Nam costs would double an example of L.B.J.'s "political expediency."

Appearing before the National Association of Manufacturers, Romney praised the organization for becoming less obstructionist (he took American Motors out of it because of its obstructionism in 1956), and issued a rather old-fashioned warning about the dangers of "overcentralization" in government. At a United Jewish Appeal dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria,-he sounded like Lyndon Johnson's favorite Great

Society author, British Economist Barbara Ward, when he warned that "the scientific, technological and economic gap between the rich and poor nations is widening." Before leaving New York, he managed to lavishly praise Nelson Rockefeller, Senator Javits and Mayor Lindsay. Then he jetted off to the Republican Governors' Association conference in Colorado, where he again lambasted Lyndon Johnson for having created "public disillusionment."

Admitted Ignorance. George Romney thus showed clearly last week that he can be an aggressive and peripatetic campaigner, a must for any presidential candidate. But the farther he pulls ahead of other Republican hopefuls, the more people are bound to wonder about several aspects of his campaign. For one thing, he seems almost too deliberately to leave his views about Viet Nam vague and couched in terms of readily admitted ignorance.

At his New York press conference, he fielded a question about the war, said hazily: "I have been following it as closely as a man can follow it in the position I've been in. And I've been there. I've had briefings and I've read and I've talked with people outside of this nation who have had experience closest to ours, and I just want to say to you that I'm profoundly concerned about the situation in South Viet Nam. Until I have the opportunity to get into it in the depths needed to satisfy myself, on certain points, I'm not going to take a specific position and I'm not going to state specific proposals." He said that he may travel to Japan, France, Germany, the Philippines and Britain because "there's more information to be secured from them that will relate to the sound handling of our situation in South Viet Nam."

Rotarian Rigidity. If Romney's views on Viet Nam are hard to pin down, his rhetoric is frequently even harder to follow. Far from being eloquent, it has a kind of Rotarian rigidity to it, as if it were left over from the days when he was a bang-up salesman and Washington lobbyist. He tends to use and overuse empty, heavy terms, such as "national rededication," "problem-solving power" and "total action programs." He quotes from unimpressively mediocre sources. When he is not reading his speeches verbatim, he often trips over his own syntax, uttering Eisenhower-like sentences that leave his listeners baffled. Says a Detroit reporter: "George's only sin is his syntax."

Sometimes it is more than that, as witness the windup sentence that he delivered at the N.A.M. banquet last week: "You, as national and local leaders, are best qualified to innovate, initiate and organize the political, social and economic action necessary to strengthen the root sources of total problem-solving action in America and thus preserve America as the 'last best hope of earth.' "

* It was what is known as a "call dinner." Invitations read: "Minimum Contribution $10,000. Black Tie. R.S.V.P." Each of the 500 guests was called upon to rise and announce his contribution.

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