THE NATION

SHOWDOWN IN KANSAS CITY

The Republican Party, which has drawn much of its nourishment from the American heartland, struggled to replenish itself in the physically congenial surroundings of the crop-rich plains of Kansas and Missouri. Yet it was a frail and fractured remnant of the party that had swept to an easy victory only four years ago. Political tempers threatened to soar as high as the 100DEG temperatures in Kansas City. Whatever the outcome of its most suspenseful national convention in a quarter century, the party seemed lost in its internal battles over nuances of conservatism (see cover story page 10).

Gerald Ford, the unelected President, had not only failed to set off a bandwagon that would guarantee him the 1,130 votes needed for a first-ballot nomination, he was even doggedly on the defensive against the amazingly persistent challenge of Ronald Reagan. Breaking tradition, Ford planned to fly to the convention city before the proceedings opened so that he could direct the tense fight to hold his dutiful, if uninspired, delegate lines. With 59 White House staffers also on hand (35 would pay their own expenses), Ford was to take charge from a suite in Kansas City's spectacularly modern Crown Center

Hotel. He could instantly reach his floor manager, Michigan Senator Robert Griffin, seated at a command post in the convention's Kemper Arena. Griffin, in turn, would direct eleven regional whips on the floor and key Ford operatives in every delegation. Any slippage in expected voting patterns would lead to a quick request to poll the offending delegation, giving the Ford men tune to try to close the breach.

Reagan, too, planned to reach Kansas City early, settling into the sweeping elegance of the Alameda Plaza to wage his eleventh-hour fight to prevent an early Ford victory. His campaign manager, John Sears, would direct operations from a 50-ft. trailer outside the glistening arena, working the convention floor through Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt and a batch of assistants. Both camps had their carefully prepared charts on how each delegate might vote--and they were poised to pounce on anyone who deviated from the expected. After nine long months of campaign labors, no one last week could be sure of the outcome.

Typical of the unsettled atmosphere in Kansas City, for a time even the order of the balloting was not certain. The

Republican National Committee had proposed that the alphabetical voting begin with a state to be chosen by draw. Since the normal roll would begin with Alabama and be dominated at first by other states heavily favorable to Reagan, the Californian could conceivably get a little lift from piling up an early lead. At week's end, the proposal was defeated by the convention's rules committee, with the result that Reagan would get his early surge.

Such intangible advantages were not meaningless, since the entire last-gasp Reagan strategy was to stop Ford from going over the top on the first ballot. The President's failure to do so would be a damaging psychological blow to supporters who considered him a sure winner. Ford's strength would also presumably wane as delegates not legally or morally bound to his candidacy felt free on later ballots to express their true sentiments.

The key delegations to watch included Mississippi, whose members were expected to arrive in Kansas City still intent on giving all of its 30 votes to one candidate under a unit rule; but if some members did break ranks, Reagan would still need a big chunk of the delegation to keep his chances alive. On the other side, any Ford slippage in the big Northeast delegations--New York (154), Pennsylvania (103) and New Jersey (67)--would provide tip-offs that the President's shaky delegate edge might not hold. The votes of uncommitted delegates in Illinois, West Virginia and Wyoming would also hold clues to how the undecided were going on the roll call.

In all of the maneuvering last week, Reagan's agents probed for some issue they might carry to the convention floor in order to whip up an emotional response that could break Ford's fragile grip on the nomination. Their best chances seemed to rest with:

THE VICE PRESIDENCY. Reagan's selection of liberal Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker had failed to shake loose many pro-Ford delegates in the less conservative delegations, but it had raised the Veep issue as an emotional battleground. Reagan's bold manager Sears pushed for a rule which would force Ford to name his running mate by 9 a.m. Wednesday, the day of the presidential balloting. Some Ford delegates were eager to have the President put all his cards on the table too. Delegation leaders in the Northeast and pro-Ford delegates from Maine sought assurances in particular that Ford would not select Texan John Connally.

Ford seemed determined to resist these pressures. He sought vice-presidential suggestions from 5,427 delegates, party leaders and officeholders round the country. He also dispatched fat envelopes, seeking voluminous personal information from at least 21 prospects. Certainly, Ford was tossing about many more names than could really be under consideration. Among those frequently mentioned were: Governors Robert Ray of Iowa, Daniel Evans of Washington and Christopher Bond of Missouri, Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, Congressman John Anderson of Illinois, Treasury Secretary William Simon, former Treasury Secretary Connally and U.N. Ambassador William Scranton.

RULES. The Ford camp sought a rules change under which the 939 delegates in 19 states that have "binding" state primaries would have to vote for the candidate to whom they were legally committed. This was another attempt to firm up the Ford lines. Under a Supreme Court ruling last year, national party regulations rather than state laws were defined as the final authority on convention procedures. Thus, without Ford's so-called justice amendment, all delegates would be legally free to vote for whomever they wished. Reagan delegates fought the change on the ground that state laws differ in the delegate-selection process and are not really clear on whether delegates are firmly bound. The convention, Reagan aides warned, could bog down in wrangling over interpretations, case by case. Yet Rhode Island National Committeeman Fred Lippitt pointed to the probable futility of the Reagan position: "I don't think anyone believes someone should violate his state's laws."

THE PLATFORM. After some early faltering, the Ford forces proved well in control of the preconvention maneuvering over the platform. Ford's aides gave just enough to avoid a clear opening for the Reagan forces to commit themselves to an all-out floor fight on any specific issue.

Some minority reports were expected to be introduced from the floor, but not with Reagan's prestige behind them.

The biggest fuss came over the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. To the chagrin of both Gerald and Betty Ford, conservatives won an 8-to-7 subcommittee vote against taking any stand this year. But despite the efforts of ERA opponent Phyllis Schlafly, the full committee voted to support the amendment, which is intended to ensure equality under the law to women. Although Reaganites seemed to see little possibility of gain for their candidate on the issue, some conservatives may try to knock out the pro-ERA stand on the floor.

The most potentially sticky platform planks involved foreign policy. Reagan had sharply assailed Ford during the long campaign on such issues as the Administration's policy of detente with the Soviet Union, its rapprochement with Communist China at the probable expense of Taiwan and its negotiations with Panama to relinquish gradually total U.S. control over the Panama Canal. The platform committee took up the canal issue first, rejecting Reagan language banning treaty modifications that would "in any degree impair or relinquish U.S. sovereign rights and control over the Canal Zone." Ford backers instead accepted vague wording under which the G.O.P. acknowledged that the U.S. now has rights in the zone as "if it were the sovereign" and should not give up any power crucial to U.S. security.

Once that issue was decided, the Reaganites seemed to lose any keen interest in the infighting. Ford's men gave some ground, however, in agreeing to explicit language supporting the U.S.'s mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. As for detente, Ford's supporters were able to fend off any direct criticism of current Administration policy. An intriguing sidelight: a draft by the platform-committee staff mentioned Richard Nixon's opening to China, but subcommittee members voted to delete this only reference in the platform to the disgraced former President.

As Reagan leaders waged their surprisingly gentlemanly drive to find an explosive issue, they faced the touchy task of controlling some of his more zealous conservative supporters. "I don't know if all those emotional conventioneers are as interested in electing a President as they are in slaying a dragon," fretted a top Reagan aide. North Carolina's ultraconservative Senator Jesse Helms, who was not even a delegate, was one such purist who was off on his erratic own. He first proposed 22 platform planks on which he vowed to fight --until Reagan assigned two of his top advisers to work with Helms on just which planks were worth pushing. The Reaganites feared they might kill their chances if they forced a battle on an issue and then lost in a humiliating way.

Helms and a small group of congressional right-wingers also were behind the week's most sensational development: New York Senator James Buckley's announcement that he was seriously considering letting his name be placed in nomination for the presidency. Perhaps naively, the Conservative Senator had been persuaded to believe he might become a serious factor in the contest if Reagan and Ford were to deadlock. The move was widely seen as a tactic by which uncommitted delegates and those not really enthusiastic about Ford would have a place to put their votes in a kind of parking orbit--thus depriving the President of his needed votes on the first ballot. Indeed, that is what Helms and his cohorts seemed to have in mind. But Reagan aides sounded convincing with their insistent claims that the Buckley boomlet was ill-prepared and not their idea. It was, in fact, designed in part as a protest against Reagan's selection of Schweiker; some conservatives hoped that if Reagan pulled off the nomination, he could yet be pressured into abandoning Schweiker. To these diehards, Buckley was a far preferable choice.

Amid all the serious jockeying for advantage, both combatants warned against party fratricide. Said a top Reagan aide: "You can win something in such a way as to tear up the party so you cannot put it back together." That was, indeed, the ever-present danger in Kansas City--even as Ford Campaign Chairman Rogers Morton told some fellow Republicans that the convention was going to be "one of the most exciting adventures of our lives."

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