NIXON TO STAND FOR PRESIDENT

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29269, 29 July 1960, Page 13

NIXON TO STAND FOR PRESIDENT

Lodge Selected As Running Mate :

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 1030 p.m.) CHICAGO, July 28. The Republicans last night chose a grocer’s son to battle a man bom to riches in November’s United States Presidential election. * The Vice-President, Richard Milhous Nixon? aged 47, was nominated by the party convention to contest the race for the White House with Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, aged 43, chosen by the Democratic Party two weeks ago.

Early today Mr Nixon announced that he had chosen the American Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Henry Cabot Lodge, aged 57, as the Republican candidate for Vice-President. The party is expected to endorse his choice today. Mr Nixon, the son of a California grocer, has been President Eisenhower’s Vice-President since 1953. Senator Kennedy is a member of a wealthy Massachusetts family.

The choice of Mr Nixon, a Quaker, to fight Senator Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, in November’s elections, had been a foregone conclusion. But he demonstrated his political skill this week by: Winning to his side the Governor of New York State, Mr Nelson Rockefeller, who up to the last week was saying he would accept a genuine draft for the Presidency. Overcoming the conservative wing of the party, led by Senator Barry Goldwater, who objected to the liberal platform. Senator Goldwater’s name was placed in nomination in opposition to Mr Nixon, but the Senator took the floor to withdraw in favour of the Vice-President. At a well-controlled and organised session last night the convention closed ranks behind Mr Nixon by giving quick approval to a party platform tailored to meet the views of Mr Nixon and Mr Rockefeller. No Floor Fight Southerners and other conservatives decided not to make an open floor fight against the platform plank on .civil rights for negroes. This went further than they wished, but still fell shott of the original Nixon-Rockefeller proposals put forward after their secret meeting in New York last week. Mr Nixon and Mr Rockefeller agreed on this “treaty of Fifth Avenue’’ in an eight-hour conference at which Mr Rockefeller in effect announced his support for Mr Nixon In return for acceptance of most of his own liberal views on the party platform. President Eisenhower early today congratulated Mr Nixon on his first ballot nomination and expressed the prayerful hope that he could pass the responsibilities ol the Presidency to Mr Nixon. Mr Nixon read excerpts from a telegram—but not certain, sections described as personal—to reporters as they were leaving his hotel suite after the convention balloting. “My astonishment at your nomination on the first ballot is something less than complete,” the President said, adding that .he was grateful nonetheless. “To your hands I pray I shall pass the responsibilities of the Presidency and will be glad to do so.” Mr Eisenhower said Unanimous Vote

Mr Nixon won an easy victory —without a fight—at the convention last night. The name of Senator Goldwater was put in nomination, but only long enough for him to pull it back. Ten Louisiana delegates still held out and rang up theii votes for him. But the one and only roll call. 1321 for Mr Nixon. 10 for Senator Goldwater, was just a formality and in the end the convention voted to make it unanimous. After his selection, Mr Nixon went into conference with top party leaders to select the VicePresidential candidate. He nominated Mr Lodge Senator Thurston B. Morton, of Kentucky, Representative Walter Judd, of Minnesota, and the Treasury Secretary, Mr Robert Anderson. The Vice-President told reporters be assumed Mr Lodge’s

answer “will be in the affirmative.” The decision was reached, he said, after discussions representing “all segments of the party and all parts of the country.” Mr Lodge had been considered by most observers as a virtual certain choice in spite of what some considered his handicap of having been defeated for re-elec-tion to the United States Senate in 1952 by Senator Kennedy, the Democratic nominee. When he lost his Senate seat, Mr Lodge served as manager of the campaign to win the Republican Presidential nomination for General Eisenhower. Mr Lodge is a former newspaperman and had 13 years' of service in the United States Senate. He resigned to serve in the Army in World War 11. He is a grandson and namesake of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who won fame for his battles with President Woodrow Wilson over United States participation in the League of Nations. The Republicans, gathered in the vast amphitheatre, chose Mr Nixon with pride and a thundering, dazzling ovation. Mr Rockefeller, who once had ideas about challenging Mr Nixon, lent an applauding hand from his seat as a member of the New

York delegationMr Nixon’s mother watched the great moment unfold. To 75-year-old Mrs Hannah Nixon, sitting beside her two granddaughters in a special box, “it seemed like a dream come true.” If he should succeed Mr Eisenhower in the White House next January, it will be the first time in nearly a century and a quarter that a Vice-President has so advanced as the choice of the American electorate. Mr Martin van Buren, in 1836, was the last Vice-President elected to the Presidency. The Governor of Oregon, Mr Mark Hatfield, put Mr Nixon’s name in nomination. He called Mr Nixon “a man to match the momentous need” of the times, a man who has “demonstrated courage in crisis from Caracas to the Kremlin.” a man who has known hard times, hard work and the path of peace-makers. "May I present in nomination,” he said, “a fighter for freedom, a pilgrim for peace, the VicePresident of the United States, the honourable Richard M. Nixon.”

It was one of the shortest nominating speeches of all times. But it ignited the loudest, most enthusiastic demonstration of the convention.