‘Goldwater Undermined Unity’

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30625, 16 December 1964, Page 21

‘Goldwater Undermined Unity’

(N.Z. Press Assn.— Copyright) ALBANY (New York), Dec. 14. Governor Nelson Rockefeller, of New York, today claimed Senator Barry Goldwater had “undermined Republican unity and threatened public confidence in the very future of the party,” the Associated Press reported. He was replying in a statement to an interview with the “U.S. News and World Report” yesterday in which the Senator blamed Governor Rockefeller and Governor George Romney, of

Michigan, for his defeat in the Presidential election. Senator Goldwater said that his Republican primary election opponents, chief of whom was Governor Rockefeller, had branded him a trigger-happy and a foe of the social security system. He said he was unable to escape this “caricature” after his nomination and that Governors Rockefeller and Romney did nothing to erase the public image of him. Governor Rockefeller said today that his primary election comments about Senator Goldwater were based on Senator Goldwater’s book, “The Conscience of a Conservative,” and his newspaper articles, speeches and television appearances.

“His position on key issues of the day,” said Governor Rockefeller, “did not reflect traditional Republican thinking nor a point of view acceptable to a great majority of the American people. It is this, and this alone which, in my opinion, resulted in his defeat.” Governor Rockefeller said that, in the November election, the Republican Party had sustained losses across the nation of such magnitude

that it shook “the very foundations of Republican strength at the grass-roots level.”