Nixon’s Tight Grip On Republican Vote

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29263, 22 July 1960, Page 15

Nixon’s Tight Grip On Republican Vote

(Rec. 10.30 p.m.) CHICAGO, July 21. Vice-President Richard Nixon still held a tight grip on the Republican Presidential nomination today with a vast reservoir of committed delegate strength, in spite of the heightened tempo of “draft Rockefeller” efforts.

Press conferences, taunts and challenges stirred the pre-conven-tion scene in Chicago, but Mr Nixon’s aides were still counting on the votes of more than 1000 delegates already pledged, while the most optimistic of New York’s Governor Nelson Rockefeller's supporters put his total delegate strength at 250. The votes required for nomination are 666—a majority of the 1331 delegates. The Rockefeller supporters frayed tempers with an announcement that Mr Nixon could not win the Presidential election because a poll revealed that he was far behind Senator John Kennedy, the Democratic nominee, in such key states as California, New York. Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas.

A Nixon spokesman replied by denouncing the poll as “contrary to all the polls I know about.” The negro leader. Mr R. Wilkins, executive secretary of the National Association for the Advance-

ment of Coloured People, warned that Republicans could not expect to get much negro support unless they at least matched the Democrats on a strong civil rights plank in the platform. Mr C. Mitchell, the association’s Washington representative, supported this warning of the danger of a civil rights plank couched in language seeking to “appease’’ southern voters.

In New York, Governor Rockefeller’s supporters approached President Eisenhower’s brother. Dr. Milton Eisenhower, president of Johns Hopkins University, suggesting he might lead a draft movement, but they were rebuffed. Dr. Eisenhower said he had a “firm policy of not participating in partisan politics.” In “fyannis Port, Massachusetts, the Democratic Presidential candidate, Senator Kennedy, announced plans to create a national “Citizens for Kennedy” organisation to attract the independent voters and dissatisfied Republicans.