The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1968. Senator McGovern’s Aims

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31761, 19 August 1968, Page 16

The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1968. Senator McGovern’s Aims

There is something almost quixotic in Senator McGovern’s late intervention in the United States Presidential campaign as a candidate for the Democratic nomination. He can have no serious expectation of weakening the position of Vice-President Humphrey, or of attracting to himself much, if any, of the support already pledged to Senator McCarthy. He hopes to secure a broader acceptance of the principles for which Senator Robert Kennedy stood, and thus to influence the shaping of Democratic Party policy, particularly on Vietnam. Mr McGovern apparently feels that many Democrats who fervently endorsed Mr Kennedy’s attitudes on the war and on the central domestic issue of racial tolerance would prefer to transfer their support to someone other than Mr Humphrey or Mr McCarthy. It is Mr McGovern’s belief, as it was Mr Kennedy’s, that Administration policy on Vietnam should look more closely to the possibilities of settlement and withdrawal. In the event of a reasonably close Humphrey-McCarthy contest, the McGovern group hopes to obtain a following large enough to deny Mr Humphrey a win in the first ballot; a more flexible Vietnam policy might then be made the price of a transfer of votes to ensure his nomination in the second ballot.

Both Mr McCarthy and Mr McGovern believe that the money and resources being poured into Vietnam should be used to relieve poverty and unemployment at home. These beliefs will no doubt find much support throughout the electorate. But neither the Republican nominee, Mr Nixon, nor Mr Humphrey will be disposed to admit that the ending of the war is not a major policy object of his own. The Republican policy pledges Mr Nixon to “peace in “Vietnam ... a positive programme that will offer “ a fair and equitable settlement to all ”. Democratic aims are stated in much the same terms. “ Senator “ McGovern wants peace in Vietnam ”, Mr Humphrey has said. “So do I”. Mr McGovern, however, has implied that peace should be sought even at the price of an American withdrawal, regardless of the loss of prestige involved in a virtual hand-over of South Vietnam to Hanoi. He cannot expect the party convention to follow with him on that road. The best he can really expect is to win enough support to compel the re-statement of a peace policy based on compromise.