Goody, Goody

California's Newlywed Governor Goodwin ("Goody") Knight interrupted his yachting honeymoon to attend the annual meeting of the state Republican central committee at Sacramento. When the convention ended last week, Goody went back to his bride, but the honeymoon, if any, in the California G.O.P. was over for good.

Ever since 1952 there has been uneasy quiet in the state organization. A contest for power in 1956 between the backers of Vice President Richard Nixon and the supporters of Senator William Knowland seemed to be building up. Governor Knight, who never got much help from the old Bill Knowland-Earl Warren alliance, was expected to be for Nixon. As it turned out, Goody was for Goody.

Knight wanted his Southern California campaign manager, Insurance Executive Howard Ahmanson, named vice chairman of the state central committee--a job that would almost automatically make him state chairman next term. A bloc of Nixon's closest political friends, including Congressmen Pat Hillings, Carl Hinshaw and Joe Holt and Republican Glamour Girl Mildred Younger, came to the convention with other plans. The Nixon group backed Rancher Ray Arbuthnot for the job. They held a press conference, at which Hillings said: "Governor Knight conceded . . . that he is trying to control the Republican Party by pressure and brute force." Knight answered with a public charge that "the Nixon Team" (privately, he included Nixon himself in the charge) had broken a pledge to support Ahmanson. Hillings & Co. denied that Nixon, who was busy in Washington, was behind their fight.

Then Knowland, who has always considered Dick Nixon an upstart, arrived at the convention and quietly passed the word that he was for Ahmanson. He blocked a move for a secret ballot in the election, and the Nixon bloc caved in. Ahmanson was chosen by acclamation, and thereby Goody Knight took a long step toward control of the California delegation to the 1956 Republican National Convention.

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