Friendly Persuasion

Moving through Florida last week on his first political swing since announcing his presidential candidacy, Republican Richard Nixon rapped right back at Democrat Kennedy. Asked what he thought about Kennedy's ideas of the U.S. presidency, Nixon replied: "I would disagree with him wholeheartedly that Mr. Eisenhower was not a strong President." In fact, said he, Kennedy seemed to confuse "table pounding" with strong leadership.

"Harry Truman," said Nixon, "was somewhat of a table pounder. He got some results that way. Mr. Eisenhower is a persuader. He's gotten results, too. The problem of leadership cannot be described in terms of rigid, black and white categories. A President's success is determined by his results rather than how he did it.

"The American people and the free world need in the U.S. presidency a man who has judgment, a man who in crisis will be cool, a man who won't go off half-cocked and give an appearance of leadership when, actually, his-- speaking out might be disastrous to the whole world."

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