Revolt in the Senate?

Down from Putney, Vt. traveled Vermont's four-term liberal Republican Senator George Aiken, 66, on a presession mission to Washington. The mission: to raise a new flag of G.O.P. liberal revolt against the G.O.P.'s right-wing Senate leadership.

"The extreme right fringe is probably responsible for our losing a half-dozen of the Republican Senators'seats,"said Aiken. "There's been this feeling for some time that the conservatives would really put the party on the skids. And there will be more losses unless something is done. We have had the feeling that the President has been advised by ultraconservatives only. The liberal wing should have more access to the White House."

Pulling the Rug. The Senate's G.O.P. liberals have raised revolts before--and walked away from them before--but this time George Aiken seemed to mean business. Reason: in 1958 such G.O.P. right-wing Senators as Nevada's George "Molly" Malone, Ohio's John Bricker, California's Bill Knowland (running for Governor) and West Virginia's Chapman Revercomb, were roundly defeated while G.O.P. liberals just about held even and were sparked in spirit by G.O.P. liberal Nelson Rockefeller's election to the New York governorship. The incoming 34-man G.O.P. minority includes twelve or so liberals, eight or so swingmen, only 14 or so Old Guardsmen still grouped around the flags of Illinois' Everett McKinley Dirksen, minority whip, front runner for Bill Know-land's old minority-leader job, and New Hampshire's four-term Senator Styles Bridges, 60, Governor of New Hampshire at 36, U.S. Senator at 38, now head of the shadowy G.O.P. Policy Committee and the most powerful Republican in the Senate.

Weighing this new breakdown and its new near parity, Aiken & Co. moved on to set specific objectives, notably: 1) G.O.P. liberals to get one of three top jobs--minority leader, whip, or a new job of assistant minority leader (leading candidate: California's Earl Warren protege, Tom Kuchel, 48); 2) G.O.P. liberals to get better committee assignments, e.g., one or two new spots on the blue-ribbon Foreign Relations Committee; 3) G.O.P. liberals to get more say in policy papers now put out by Bridges' Policy Committee in the whole party's name. Example of what the liberals want no more of: last June the President backed an amendment to the foreign aid bill providing for aid to independent-trending Communist satellites; G.O.P. liberals supported him; G.O.P. Big Three Knowland, Dirksen and

Bridges went to the White House, told Ike that foreign aid appropriations would be slashed unless aid to satellites was dropped (TIME, June 16); Ike backed away, pulled the rug out from under the loyal liberals.

Above the Battle. Worrisome to G.O.P. liberals is the fact that the President even now is not only preserving his official hands-off-Congress position but is saying and doing nothing to create a favorable climate for G.O.P. liberalism. The White House word after Aiken spoke out: 1) Dirksen is pretty sure to get the minority leadership, and the White House has no objection; 2) the President does not regard himself as a liberal, especially on domestic issues in a deficit year.

George Aiken & Co. had the last word. Warned Aiken: "The Republican Party can no longer assume a middle-of-the-road attitude, particularly if that means halfway between Grant and McKinley."

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