Woman With Eyes On White House

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30294, 21 November 1963, Page 2

Woman With Eyes On White House

It is highly unlikely that the next President of the Lulled states wiU be a woman. But Margaret Chase Smith has announced that she is “seriously contemplating'’ her candidacy for the Republican nomination tn next year’s Presidential election, writes Susan Vaughan from London. The brilliant Mrs Smith would seem to be a good choice. America’s only woman senator, she was born

62 years ago in the small mill town of Skowhegan. Maine, the eldest of six children. Her father was a barber. At 13. when she was tall enough to reach the shelves, she started work in a local

department store. Later she worked as a telephoneoperator, book - keeper, teacher and mill-manager. She gained a college degree and became a journalist. Married to a rising young politician. Clyde H. Smith, she acted as his secretary, and on his death in 1940 succeeded him in the House of Representatives. She has been a senator since 1947. Trim, silver-haired and sft 4in, Senator Smith is an authority on supersonic flight. She flew at 1000 miles . an hour in a jet when she 1 was 60. She has the reputation of being a good administrator and an original thinker. She once called for a world peace conference of women. “The men have been given their chance,” she said. "Women might avoid the seemingly dangerous impasse reached that men have created.” On the other hand, she drew the wrath of Mr Khrushchev when she reproached the American Government for “not being determined enough” to defend West Berlin with nuclear weapons. “It is hard to believe.” said Mr Khrushchev, “that a woman, if she is not the devil in disguise, can make such a malicious man-hating call.”

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