U.S. PRESIDENCY Fire-Eating Candidate For G.O.P. Nomination

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30172, 2 July 1963, Page 18

U.S. PRESIDENCY Fire-Eating Candidate For G.O.P. Nomination

(By

SIMON KAVANAUGH]

A NEW CHAMPION has enitared the American political lists for Presiderrtial nomination in the 1904 election—a six-foot, silver-haired senator with a passion for flying jet-plames and driving fast in gadget-loaded, highpowered cars. He is Arizona’s Senator Barry Morris Goldwater, an extreme conservative, lean and deeply 'tanned, who holds the rank of major-general in the Air Force Reserve and who, ait 54, still radiates a youthful charm. What are the facts behind his swift emergence as a possible candidate and the main devetopments that have

strengthened his hand? Shrewdly. Senator Goldwater aimed at winning over the youth of the country by urging them to return to the simple virtues and the older ideas of America’s founding fathers. To everyone’s surprise, this straightforward, old-fashtoned “Americanism”

has won him strong support. Among several recent events that have favoured him is the remarriage of Mr Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, and the former favourite for the Republican Party, nomination. A divorced man himself, “Rocky” married a divorcee, Mrs Margaretta Murphy. How damaging this alliance could be to Mr Rockefeller’s reputation among ordinary voters is, as yet, unknown. It is certain that, in the next few months, the Republican Party bosses will be looking hard for the most likely candidate. Prospects are poor for the former candidate, Mr Richard Nixon, who was defeated for kie Governorship of California. His bitter tangle with the press following that defeat finished his political aspirations. Two other possibilities are Governor George Romney, of Michigan, and Governor William Scranton, of Pennsylvania. Neither has shown the drive essential to provide a formidable challenge to a man of President Kennedy’s calibre.

Superficially, Mr Goldwater looks to be the answer, but there are many Republicans who have doubts. They fear that, in spite of his forceful arid commanding character, he lacks the intellectual qualities that would make him an effective President Some charge that he over-simiplifies issues and has not given much deep thought to the Rightist principles which he states so strongly “He’s got guts, but no depth,” is how one western Republican Governor summed him up. Even so, his goodhumoured, easy manner holds that quality which makes his extreme views a little more acceptable. His realistic philosophy has sent shivers rippling down the brines of the weak. He believes that nuclear war is inevitable, but does not seem greatly worried by its promised horrors.

“Every generation,” he says, “has feared the increased devastation of war.” Less than two years ago, he said that Lockheed U-2’s had flown over the Soviet Union for four years and that the “Russians knew they were there, bitt were unable to shoot them down.” Talking of the Cuban crisis, he said to a leading British columnist: “We should have gone in there and wiped toe bastards out. We had enough aircraft down there in the south to sink the State of Florida by sheer weight of numbers. And we could have settled the Cuban problem in a few hours.” He has never ceased urging that marines should be sent to Cuba. He wants foreign aid to the uncommitted neutral countries to be stopped. He believes that recognition should be withdrawn from the Soviet Union and her satellites and that the West should liberate Eastern Europe by fostering underground movements within the various countries. His vast personal fortune—although not on the same scale as Mr Kennedy’s or Mr Rockefeller’s—comes from a family business which was founded by his Russian Jewish grandfather. He still sits on the board.

His father married an American girl and he was brought up as an Episcopalian. This did not prevent him from being snubbed by a golf club when he went to enter a tournament. ■ “Can’t I even play nine holes?” he asked in his , good-humoured way. "I'm ; only half Jewish.” Mr Goldwater is both fas- ; cinated and a little baffled by what he constantly refers ' to as “this President thing.” Recently he said: “The intensity of this President ' thing has surprised me. I ; still say that it isn’t me. ' really, as much as ft is a ■ deep-seated frustration on • the part of Republicans J everywhere, and a lot of De- • mocrats too. Among Republicans it’s a feeling that the , party has no direction.” It

is generally felt that Goldwater would give it solid, down right, conservative, but fair right wing It may appear surprising, even disturbing, that a man so near to having the reputation of a fire-eater should be canvassed as a Presidential candidate. But some Republican Party bosses have a shrewd idea that if Mr Goldwater did run for President his outspoken views of individual State’s rights might well tip the scales in their flavour and woo the southern States from their normal Democratic loyalty. “I’m opposed to discrimination in any form,” he said recently. “But I hold very dear the right of assembly and association. And the issue in the South, you know, is not integration. It’s States's rights—they just like to run their own business down there ... I don’t think it’s my right as an Arizonian to tell a Southerner what to do about this thing.”

This is the sort of statement that the party bosses believe will influence Southern thinking towards Mr Goldwater and away from Mr Rockefeller. And they put forward this argument even before Mr Rockefeller’s marriage created difficulties. Despite the added appeal of this so-called Southern strategy it still remains to be seen whether, it will win over the mass of the Republican Party. A great deal, too, hinges on just how unfavourable the American public reaction to Mr Rockefeller's re-marriage really is.