PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION what will McCarthy do IF HUMPHREY IS NOMINATED ?

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31767, 26 August 1968, Page 12

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION what will McCarthy do IF HUMPHREY IS NOMINATED ?

(By STEWART ALSOP in “Newsweek”) , (Reprinted by arrangement) What will Eugene McCarthy do, after Hubert Humphrey is nominated this week?

The question is important, since the results of the election very probably hang on its answer. It is also interesting because it involves a fascinating human element, and Eugene McCarthy is one of the most interesting human beings, and also one of the oddest politicians, to appear on the scene in a very long time.

What, after all, could be odder than an American politician who writes passable imitations of the poems of W. B. Yeats; who Identifies himself with a saint—Sir Thomas More—and who retires to an abbey for four days of contemplation at the height of a bitter campaign? This odd man may well hold the American political future in his hand. For it is a paradox of this paradoxical election year that Eugene McCarthy, so seemingly languid and passionless, is the

only major-party candidate capable of arousing real political passion. Because he arouses passion, McCarthy controls that most powerful of political weapons, a transferable following. His followers—or a great many of them—will follow where he leads. McCarthy’s transferable following is in all probability enough to make or unmake the next President of the United States. The Scenarios Theoretically, McCarthy might be the next President of the United States himself. It is possible to construct a scenario ending in his nomination. The scenario would involve a disaster for Humphrey and a triumph for McCarthy in both the Gallup and Harris polls; the defection of many of Humphrey’s Southern delegates; a switch to McCarthy by several powerful delegateowners like Mayor Daley of Chicago, and so on. But the scenario would require a whole series of the kind of political miracles that hardly ever happen. Moreover, there are two X factors in the equation which could work strongly against McCarthy—the widely heralded Communist offensive in Vietnam and the threat of violence in Chicago. [This was written before the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries.] It is hard to imagine anything less likely to lead to McCarthy’s nomination than a Communist attack on American forces, unless It might be televised scenes of bloody violence, with bearded radicals, black and white, demonstrating against Humphrey and for McCarthy. Four Possibilities So, what will McCarthy do after Humphrey Is nominated? He can do four things: One. He can accept the VicePresidential nomination, which would make Hubert Humphrey’s election highly probable.

Two. He can head or actively support a fourth party, which would make the

election of Richard Nixon virtually certain. Three. He can actively support Humphrey, which would shift the odds well in Humphrey’s favour. Four. He can sit the election out, which would shift the odds well in Nixon's favour.

What he will do will depend on the kind of man be is. McCarthy has often been compared with Adlai Stevenson. But he has two basic characteristics that Stevenson wholly lacked. One is a strain of mysticism and of deep religious feeling—McCarthy was a novice in a Benedictine order, and there clings to him still a monkish air. The other is a toughness, a vindictiveness, which Stevenson never had.

McCarthy's friends say that, faced with a difficult decision, he is likely to ask himself: “What would Sir Thomas More have done?” It seems likely that in this situation he will also ask himself another question: “What will hurt Lyndon Johnson most?” Poetaster

McCarthy detests Johnson. The best evidence that the word is not too strong Is found in a poem McCarthy wrote about—of all things— Lyndon Johnson’s deer. Like many Texas ranchers, Johnson sees that the deer on his ranch are well taken care of, and then shoots them m the deer season. MfeCarthy’s poem, as interpreted by McCarthy himself, is a savage attack on the President as a murderer of innocent deer.

In 1964, Johnson murdered something else —McCarthy’s political ambition and his selfesteem. That summer, Johnson played one of those cute little games that have made so many people dislike him so much. With an eye on the Catholic vote, he dangled the Vice-Presidential nomination In front of McCarthy. McCarthy rose to the bait, and when Johnson anointed Hubert Humphrey, who bad been his real choice all along, McCarthy was made to look toolish, which is something he cannot bear.

Thus It is almost Inconceivable that McCarthy would take the Vice-Presidential nomination except on one almost inconceivable condition—the repudiation and public humiliation of the Democratic President in the Democratic platform. A Paradox

As for alternative two, McCarthy has repeatedly said that he will not head a “Peace Party” himself, but he has also said that he might support another “Peace” candidate—one who had a chance to attract a "substantial following.” McCarthy defines substantial as about 20 per cent of the total vote. A left wing vote of those proportions would kill Hubert Humphrey’s candidacy deader than any smelt, and ensure Nixon’s election. The possibility has to be taken seriously, all the same, because such a futile and hopeless gesture as.supporting a fourthparty candidate might appeal to McCarthy as a rather More-like act of martyrdom-on-principle. But those who know McCarthy best suspect that he will end up somewhere between alternatives three and four—that he will retire for most of the campaign to some convenient mountaintop or monastery, descending occasionally to support some dovish senator, perhaps endorsing Hubert Humphrey very belatedly and very pallidly. If that Is the course he chooses, many of his

followers will certainly stay home on Election Day. Thus it Is smother paradox of this election year that, just as reactionary George Wallace is likely to prove the greatest asset of the old liberal, Hubert Humphrey, so Eugene McCarthy the dove is likely to prove the greatest asset of the Hawkish Richard Nixon.—“ Newsweek,” August 26.