Republicans

The Man on the Bandwagon

(TIME, June 12, 1964) -- In the Royal Suite of Los Angeles' venerable Ambassador Hotel, a man clad only in dark-rimmed glasses and a long white nightshirt with red polka dots sat watching television. On the screen, Richard Dix was battling his way against great odds through a 1941 horse opera called The Round-Up. After many a cliffhanging episode, the Good Guys vanquished the Bad Guys, and the Grand Old West once again was made fit for Decent Folks.

Barry Morris Goldwater, 55, was relaxing, almost oblivious of the fact that on that same afternoon last week, more than 2,000,000 California Republicans were making a decision that would weigh heavily on his personal future as well as that of his party and parhaps his country. "I don't worry about it," said Goldwater. "We take what comes. We've done the best we can."

The best was good enough. When the votes were finally counted in California's Republican presidential primary, Goldwater had defeated New York's Nelson Rockefeller by a dime- thin 59,000 votes--1,089,133 (51.3%) to 1,030,180 (48.7%). And with his California victory Goldwater came within handshaking distance of the G.O.P.'s 1964 presidential nomination.

The Pollsters. In his effort to achieve that nomination, Goldwater has become the central figure in as classic an American folktale as any horse opera. To his admirers he is the very epitome of the Good Guy, fighting to make the U.S. fit for Decent Folks. To his critics he is the personification of the Bad Guy, shooting first and answering questions afterward. In traveling the California trail, he faced not only a direct shoot-it-out with Rocky, but passed through close-call ambushes from the pollsters and the press, which raised about him an aura of defeat.

Rarely have the pollsters shown to worse effect. Take the case of Lou Harris, who, after missing by a total of 13 points in his prediction that Henry Cabot Lodge would beat Rockefeller in Oregon's May 15 primary, announced that Rocky led Goldwater by 57% to 43% in California. Then Harris began having anguished second thoughts. Twenty-four hours before last week's primary, he said that Rocky might get 55% or more. But on the morning of the election, he was less bullish about Rocky, declared, "Goldwater has seized the momentum in the last 24 hours. Dramatic changes now are taking place in California."

One factor that misled the pollsters throughout was the large number of voters who insisted that they were "undecided." Former Congressman Pat Hillings, long a Nixon lieutenant and now a Goldwater leader in California, later explained: "The big undecided vote was not undecided. The undecideds were mostly Goldwater-oriented, but they didn't want to admit it to the pollsters. The opposition succeeded in tying the tin can of extremism to Goldwater's tail, and so a vote for Goldwater was in danger of being considered a vote for extremism. And what respectable Republican businessman wants to be an extremist--much less admit it openly?

"We in the Goldwater camp felt this. We had trouble getting businessmen to allow their names to be used in ads. They wouldn't come out openly for Goldwater. Many of them wouldn't even contribute money because then their names would be on the record. If anyone asked them how they felt, they were undecided. But they voted for Goldwater."

The Press. Part of this tendency to be counted in the polling booth rather than in the polls could be attributed to the attitude of the press. Most major California newspapers opposed Goldwater, including the staunchly Republican Los Angeles Times, which campaigned against him on Page One. Nearly all of the scores of reporters visiting California for the campaign thought that Rockefeller would win, wrote endlessly of the elan in his camp and of the pall of gloom over the Goldwater forces. Some of this stemmed from the personal political predilections of the newsmen. But it was more than that -- for, to the reporter who did nothing more than travel around with the candidates, the atmosphere was indeed deceptive.

To these newsmen, Rockefeller's organization seemed a marvel of efficiency. Nothing was left to chance. At every stop on Rocky's itinerary, accommodations for the press were waiting: typewriters, pencils, paper, telegraph facilities, telephones, press releases. Transportation was there when it was needed. So were the hotel rooms. And so was Rockefeller himself, nearly always available to any reporter who wanted to talk to him. Wherever Rocky went, his smooth public relations firm of Spencer-Roberts saw to it that the crowds were there to greet him; in San Jose, for example, Spencer-Roberts rounded up more than 8,000 people who waited six hours just to shake the Governor's hand. Rocky himself seemed to enjoy every smiling, finger-crunching minute of it. He breathed confidence -- for the simple reason that he really thought he was going to win.

By contrast, Goldwater's contingent seemed a shambles. The campaign management, directed by onetime Senator William Knowland, was at best unsteady. The schedule underwent constant change. The candidate rarely indulged in more than the most perfunctory chitchat with reporters. Barry shrouded himself in an impenetrable diffidence, acting for all the world like a reluctant dragon slayer. In his public appearances he hardly ever exhibited that electric quality which, for example, helped him hold the 1960 Republican National Convention in thrall. He seemed to stay on the defensive, endlessly trying to answer enemies' charges that he wanted to sell TVA for a dollar, that he would take the U.S. out of the United Nations, that he would abolish social security, that he had an itchy finger on the nuclear trigger.

Blow followed blow. With their own man not entered in California, Lodge forces threw their support to Rocky; it made minimal difference that Richard Nixon, William Scranton and George Romney later wired their assurances that they were having no part of a Stop Goldwater movement. Dwight Eisenhower came out with his "profile" of the ideal G.O.P. nominee; the hurt was hardly lessened when Ike later denied that he had meant it to be used against Barry. A Good Housekeeping writer said he had been told by Goldwater's wife Peggy that Barry had suffered nervous breakdowns, due to business pressures, twice in the late 1930s. Columnist Drew Pearson picked up the item and with his characteristic kind of punch, raised the question of whether Goldwater was mentally stable enough to be President. Goldwater's longtime physician denied that Barry had ever suffered any such breakdown. Goldwater himself simply pointed to his record as a World War II pilot and his present rank as a major general in the Air Force Reserve. But the doubt had been planted.

All these troubles, and more, sent the Goldwater entourage into a deep slough of despondency. This was what the newsmen accompanying Goldwater saw, and this was what they reported in their predictions of defeat. Theirs was a limited vantage point. What they missed was the fact that while Rockefeller carried his organization around with him, Goldwater's, as masterminded by Los Angeles Attorney Bernard Brennan, was much larger, infinitely more zealous, and was hard at work in almost every precinct in the state.

"Operation Q." That Goldwater organization was a phenomenon. It included a share of the cranks and zanies that Goldwater critics tend to think of as his only supporters. But these were in the minority. In fact, Barry's ranks were peopled by men and women, young and old, in all walks of life, who held common only one thing: an enormous and uncomplicated faith in Goldwater, and the willingness to work for him as few candidates have been worked for before.

The Goldwater volunteers had been going virtually fulltime since March, when they launched "Operation Q," the effort to secure enough qualifying signatures to get Barry's name on the ballot. So determined were the workers that they greatly surpassed the necessary 14,000 signatures on their petitions, came up with more than 50,000 names before noon on the first day of their drive.

From that time on, they labored fervidly in the precincts, rounding up new recruits. Near campaign's end, one of these was none other than Mrs. Hannah Nixon, Richard's mother. When Goldwater leaders discoverd that she was hustling votes on their behalf, an aide suggested that she be invited to present Mrs. Barry Goldwater with flowers on, say, election eve before the TV cameras. But somewhow, 3,000 miles away, Hannah's favorite son learned about the idea, and Mrs. Nixon headed for a vacation in New York.

The Goldwater drive was concentrated in Southern California, particularly in Los Angeles County, where nearly 40% of the state's Republicans reside. Volunteers swarmed through the county two week before the election, asked more than 300,000 G.O.P. voters how they felt about Barry. The response was immensely encouraging, but just to make sure the voters were leveling, the Goldwater workers phoned a number of them, identified themselves as Rockefeller people, and asked if "the Governor can count on your support in the primary." A good 90% held fast to Goldwater.

In the final days, the volunteer organization was expanded. Official sheets of voters' names, supplied by the state, were programmed into computers, and sheets were made listing G.O.P. voters by street, the side of the street, and the house address. "Community Chairmen" handed out cardboard information kits, with detailed maps and names of known Goldwater voters circled in red. The volunteers made at least two complete door-to-door checks on election day to make sure that the voters had gone to the polls.

The Payoff. As the returns poured in that night, it was immediately apparent that the massive Southern California drive had paid off. Rockefeller forces had hoped to hold Barry to a 100,000 vote margin in Southern California, then more than make up the deficit in the northern part of the state, especially the San Francisco Bay area. But Goldwater took Los Angeles County by 158,000 votes, adjacent Orange County by 49,000 and San Diego County by 16,000.

Rocky could not overcome that lead, and just 22 minutes after the polls in Southern California closed, CBS-TV programmed its vote-analysis computer and declared Goldwater the winner with 53% of the vote. As of that time, the polling places were still open in California, and CBS suffered a few bad moments when the later returns began to arrive and showed Rocky closing the gap and even moving ahead. All the while, NBC, locked in hot competition with CBS, quite nervously stuck by its position that the race was close, and refused to name a winner. In the end it was NBC's less venturesome attitude that gave the viewer a better understanding of how close the race was.

Goldwater's California win was impressive in light of the powerful opposition, but it was about as narrow as a win can be. To some observers it gave further proof that Barry is a poor vote getter. Indeed, his record in this year's previous primaries was unimpressive. He lost to Lodge's write-in candidacy in New Hampshire. He won Illinois, but his only on-the-ballot opponent, Maine's Margaret Chase Smith, got 26% of the vote. He won Indiana, but Harold Stassen, of all people, got 26%. He won Nebraska, but write-ins gave Nixon 31.4%. He all but withdrew from Oregon, leaving Rocky as the only active candidate in the field.

Yet the fact remains that while others were getting the primary votes, Goldwater was getting the delegates in state after state. Why? One answer is that Godlwater's followers, just as in California, were willing to work. Another is that in nonpreliminary states, Barry had no opposition in the form of serious contenders for the nomination. Rockefeller, the only other major avowed candidate, based his whole campaign on the primaries, made little effort to win delegates at state conventions. That left Goldwater confronted only by favorite sons and state leaders who wished to go to San Francisco uncommitted. It was not much of a contest, and while others were making the headlines with their primary showings, Barry was simply moving closer to the nomination.

Faced by Fact. Thus California's 86 delegates very nearly put Goldwater over the top, and his bandwagon was on the move. His national campaign manager, Phoenix Lawyer Denison Kitchel, predicted after the California victory that the wagon would soon be overflowing. Said New York Public Relations Executive F. Clifton White, another top Goldwater aide: "I can hear those adding machines clicking out there in the uncommitted states already. From here in, we just hit those state conventions and rack up the delegates." Noting that Ohio State G.O.P. Chairman Ray Bliss controls 56 delegates who are prepared to give their first ballot to Favorite Son Governor James Rhodes, another Goldwater staffer said: "If I were Bliss, I'd be adding all this up and thinking that I'd hate like hell to be the last one to come over to Goldwater."

All of which leaves the Republican Party, the nation and the world faced with a probable G.O.P. nominee for President of the U.S. who is one of the most controversial politicians in recent history. The reaction to Goldwater's California victory in the foreign press was nearly hysterical. Said the London Times: "The sight of a major party endorsing and promoting a man so blatantly out of touch with reality, so wild in his foreign policy, so backward in his domestic ideas and so inconsistent in his thinking, would be a serious blow to American prestige abroad." West Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau called Barry "not only conservative, but what is more dangerous, a confused and weak man who hides his weakness and uncertainty with fiery speeches." Stockholm's Dagens Nyheter called California "a victory for stupidity and ignorance." The Glasgow Herald said that "Goldwater in the White House would be disastrous. His policies are not merely reactionary, they are (some of them) stupid to a degree that is incredible.

What has Republican Goldwater done and said to arouse such feeling? First of all, he is basically too conservative for the taste of a great majority of important editorialists and commentators. Moreover, he has made some rash statements and taken some reckless stands, only to modify them later. Particularly when talking off the cuff, he is often distressingly imprecise, lending his generalizations to misinterpretation. In some cases, his statements have either been taken out of context or subjected to downright distortion. Just where does Barry Goldwater actually stand on the issues? Items:

--NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN POLICY. Goldwater advocates a strong defense establishment, aligns himself with a foreign policy that matches the Eisenhower-Dulles view. "I think brinksmanship is a pretty good word." In his running fight with Defense Secretary McNamara, he does not question the reliability of U.S. missiles once they are in flight; what he does say is that it is not yet known whether silo doors and other such ground mechanisms could withstand attack from an enemy's nuclear weapons.

--SOUTHEAST ASIA. "The first thing we've got to do is make the decision that we're going to win in Vietnam. The supplies of the Communist invaders have got to be cut off. This means threatening or actually interdicting the supply routes from Red China, Laos and Cambodia." Asked recently just how this might be done, he listed several possibilities, including the use of small nuclear weapons to "defoliate" the Vietnamese jungle and deprive Communist guerrillas of their cover. He did not say that he advocated such a step, although that was the impression that his listeners received, and the headlines made it appear a definite Goldwater proposal.

--UNITED NATIONS. Asked in 1963 if he would like to see the U.S. get out of the U.N., he replied: "Having seen what the United Nations cannot do, I would have to suggest it." But in California he said, "I don't want to get out of the United Nations. I want to make it better."

--FOREIGN AID. Goldwater favors the principle of military aid and technical assistance, but he would halt economic aid.

--SOVIET UNION. "I have always favored withdrawing recognition from Russia. I never favored recognition from the start." In January he said that no President could take such a step without the advice and consent of the Senate. Since then, he has agreed that such consultation is not required by the Constitution, but says he would consult anyway. He now holds that that withdrawal of recognition should be used as a "bargaining device" to gain advantages from Russia. "Russia needs us far more than we need Russia. I would look on recognition as a tool to be used in negotiating for such things as free elections in other countries, for negotiating to get the troops and weapons out of Cuba." He still argues that diplomatic relations with the Soviets are of no value to the U.S. because "we don't know any more about Russia now than we did when we established diplomatic relations 30 years ago."

--SOCIAL SECURITY. In New Hampshire, Goldwater was asked if he favored continuing or altering the social security system. Replied he: "I would like to suggest one change, that social security be voluntary." Almost everyone agrees that a voluntary social security system would be actuarially unsound, and Goldwater's remark was certainly a factor in his New Hampshire loss. But in California a fortnight ago, he said flatly that he does not advocate making the system voluntary, and insisted that "anyone who says I am against social security lies."

--CIVIL RIGHTS. The civil rights bill is "like a three dollar bill -- it's a phony." Goldwater opposes the public accommodations and FEPC sections of the pending civil rights bill, says that they are unconstitutional because they infringe on the rights of private property. He believes that "there are too many old laws which aren't even working. And there is this above all, the oldest law of all: you cannot pass a law that will make me like you or you like me. This is something that can only happen in our hearts. This is a problem of the mind, not a problem of the lawyer and the Senator. If we believe that our rights come to us from God, when the day comes that we act as if we believe it, all differences of the white and white and the black and black will be wiped off the face of this nation."

--INCOME TAX. Though he once condemned the graduated income tax and suggested instead an across-the-board tax of, say, 10%, he has changed his stand somewhat. "I don't like the progressive features of the income tax," but "we cannot do away with progressive features entirely."

--AID TO EDUCATION. He opposes the principle of aid to elementary and secondary public schools, but favors federal aid to colleges.

--TVA. He no longer advocates selling the entire TVA to private business, but would sell the steam-generating plants and the fertilizer program that are associated with TVA.

--JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. He refuses to denounce it because "members of the Birch Society have a constitutional right to take the positions they choose, even though I might disagree with them."

"They." In a post-California statement, Goldwater adapted a phrase that Rockefeller had been using about himself, claimed a victory for the "mainstream of Republican thinking." Certainly Barry's ideas flow somewhat to the right of the mainstream. Yet only after California were many leaders of moderate Republicanism, including the G.O.P.'s so-called "kingmakers," finally convinced that their party was likely to nominate for President a man whose views do not represent theirs.

Throughout much of the land, there is almost a mystique about Republican kingmakers, centered mostly in the Northeast and commonly referred to as "they." But so far in the present presidential contest, they have done no noticeable kingmaking. For one thing, they have had the strong feeling that neither John Kennedy nor Lyndon Johnson was likely to be defeated by any Republican. For another, they rather like Lyndon, especially his frugal fiscal positions. For still another, they have tended to underrate Goldwater's volunteer strength and to overrate the possibility that Barry would somehow beat himself.

Perhaps most of all, they have been unable to coalesce behind a single available alternative candidate. Rockefeller, once by far the Republican front runner, probably sacrificed his chances with his remarriage (one school of thought insists that the birth of his son, Nelson Aldrich Jr., just three days before the California primary worked to his disadvantage, reminding voters of his recent marital situation). There has been little enthusiasm for Richard Nixon since he turned out to be a poor loser in the 1962 California gubernatorial race. Despite Cabot Lodge's strong showings in primaries and polls, he is unpopular with many Republicans who feel that he is, in unlikely combintation, too aloof and patrician and liberal; indeed, the main effect of Lodge's New Hampshire primary victory this year probably was to divert and delay any concerted effort that anti-Goldwater Republicans might have mounted.

"It's Very Late." By process of elimination, that leaves Pennsylvania's Governor William Scranton as the best remaining hope for anti-Goldwater Republicans. Until last week, Scranton was genuinely unwilling to make a move. For months he insisted that he did not want the nomination, would not seek it, and would only reluctantly accept a genuine draft. Despite Scranton's repeated statements, it was behind him that anti-Goldwater Republican leaders late last week tried to rally -- and Scranton showed signs of acquiescence. On Saturday, Dwight Eisenhower asked Scranton to visit him in Gettysburg. Ike urged Scranton to begin taking a "positive" view about the Republican nomination, and Scranton indicated that he would do so. Almost immediately the word was passed by Ohio's Governor Rhodes, attending the National Conference of Governors in Cleveland, that Scranton was willing.

But even if all the Republican leaders who oppose Goldwater were to gather around Scranton, would they be able to stop Barry's bandwagon? There is deep doubt that they could. "It would take a superhuman effort," says Maine's Fred Scribner, general counsel to the Republican National Committee. Says General Lucius Clay, an authentic Republican kingmaker: "It's late, very late."

If such an attempt were to be made, it would, if successful, leave the Republican Party in a deeply divided state. Barry Goldwater himself would undoubtedly support Scranton or any other nominee; he has made party loyalty his gospel. But his dedicated followers have gone too far and worked too hard to accept eleventh-hour defeat. Thus, as the situation stood last week, the G.O.P.'s probable course was to accept Goldwater, rally behind him, and work to influence him toward mainstream positions.

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