KENNEDY WINS Invitation To McCarthy

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31680, 16 May 1968, Page 13

KENNEDY WINS Invitation To McCarthy

(N.Z. Preet Aisociation—Copyright) OMAHA (Nebraska), May 15. A jubilant Senator Robert Kennedy celebrated bis Nebraska primary triumph last night with an invitation to the supporters of Senator Eugene McCarthy to join his camp, the Associated Press reported.

On the strength of his third presidential primary triumph in a week—in Columbia, Indiana and Nebraska—he fired a heavy salvo at the “politics of happiness” of Vice-Presi-dent Hubert Humphrey and said it was not a time for “happiness.” With 68 per cent of the vote counted, Senator Kennedy had received 53 per cent of the total. Senator McCarthy 31 per cent, Mr Humphrey nine per cent. President Johnson six per cent, and the former Alabama Governor, Mr George Wallace, one per cent In the Republican primary, with 69 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Richard Nixon had received 70 per cent, the Californian Governor, Mr Ronald Reagan 22 per cent and the New York Governor, Mr Nelson Rockefeller, five per cent.

As the Nebraska returns showed him receiving a majority of the vote, Senator Kennedy issued his all-is-for-given invitation to McCarthyites in several different ways. He even indicated he would welcome the unlikely support of the Minnesota Democrat himself.

“I would hope perhaps we could join together ... to work together in Oregon and California,” he said at one point Senator McCarthy promptly rejected the overtures for an alliance.

“The Vice-President represents the policies that have been carried on for the past several years,” Senator Kennedy said later. “Senator McCarthy has to decide what he wants to do.

If we could join forces in some way, we could move the Democratic Party in a different direction and we could move the country in a different direction,” he said.