The New Campaign

As the Washington Teletypes blurted out the bulletins from Moscow, each new outburst of Nikita Khrushchev was brought immediately to the desk of Republican National ChairmanThruston Morton. Pondering the cables, Morton came to the tentativeconclusion that the Soviet dictator's tirades against President Eisenhower had improved the chances of the G.O.P. "Khrushchev has no friends in this country," he said. "It doesn't hurt to have him attack you." The Democrats agreed. Said Louisiana's Senator Russell Long: "I'm going to declare war on Khrushchev if he doesn't say the same thing about Lyndon Johnson."

The cold air mass from the Soviet created an entirely new atmosphere in U.S. political life. Most of the issues which, until May Day, had dominated the 1960 presidential campaign--religion, farm policy, old-age medical aid--were all but frozen as dead as the greenbacks and "Blue Eagles" of yesteryear. The only issue that seemed to matter was foreign policy, and the central figure in the political campaign, like it or not, was Khrushchev. The Red boss himself joked that he could defeat a U.S. candidate simply by endorsing him. That being the case, he said, "The best candidate is Nixon."

Republicans. For the moment, at least, Khrushchev's crude belaboring of the Vice President was helping him. The U.S. public's clearest image of Richard Nixon is of an intense, finger-waving man arguing with Nikita Khrushchev in the kitchen of the U.S. exhibit at Moscow's Sokolniki Park in the summer of 1959; his Gallup poll soared on his return from Moscow--after which, predictably, it dropped. Almost as clear is the image of a man inextricably identified with Eisenhower's foreign policy--a picture which caused Nixon's friends to miss a few heartbeats in the post-summit days when the story unfolded of the Administration's bumbling on the U-2 spy plane episode. "If Ike flubs foreign policy, Nixon goes down," said a top Republican. With this in mind, New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller was standing by, just in case public opinion should swing against Ike and Nixon, and the Republicans should need an unencumbered candidate. But a post-summit Gallup poll of the President's popularity showed that a near-record 68% of the public thought Ike was doing well.

Democrats. Because Khrushchev's virulent attacks on the President were interpreted as insults to the nation, Democrats found it increasingly tricky to fault the Administration. Events moved so swiftly that a candidate had to take care with every word, lest a critical statement made in one context bounce back to bruise him in another--as Jack Kennedy discovered. Still the Democratic pacemaker, Kennedy was beginning to regret a remark tossed off in Oregon right after the summit blowup, to the effect that the President might have saved the summit had he apologized to Khrushchev for the U-2 incident. Rolling wearily into Denver one night last week, Kennedy was met at the airport by a teen-aged girl with a Kennedy-for-President placard and a perplexed expression on her face. "Why," she asked, "did you say that President Eisenhower should apologize to Khrushchev?" Startled, Kennedy muttered that he had not meant that the U.S. should "apologize," only that it should have expressed "diplomatic regrets." Jack Kennedy was on the defensive.

Lyndon Johnson swung into the offensive. On his own delegate-hunting safari through the West, he won the loudest applause by booming out: "Would you apologize to Khrushchev?'' Invariably, the audiences boomed back: "NO!" Back in Washington, L.B.J. studied the Moscow cables as carefully as the G.O.P.'s Thruston Morton had--and made fast political capital of them. Shortly after Khrushchev's latest blast, Johnson took to the Senate floor. "Premier Khrushchev has launched a verbal attack upon our President which reached new heights of vituperation," he cried. "The incident underscores the fact that the nation has a pressing need for unity. None of us, Democrat or Republican, is going to knuckle under to arrogance."

As for still-hopeful Stuart Symington, he turned once again to his routine more-defense-spending speech, but drew only polite applause on the Democratic dinner circuit. One reason was that the Symington personality has not registered on the public with any impact during his presidential campaign. Another: the flights of the U-2 showed U.S. military to be mightier--and Russia weaker--than defense critics had anticipated.

On a Limb. In the fast-changing political climate, Adlai Stevenson was the Democrat who seemed farthest out on a limb. The first to attack the Administration for its international blunders (he spoke out even before Ike had returned from the exploded summit), Stevenson had followed through with the harshest, most persistent criticism. "The effectiveness for leadership of the present Administration in Washington has been impaired if not destroyed," he told the Textile Workers convention in Chicago. "We must make it plain that peace and disarmament are the paramount goals of our foreign policy . . . Why was total disarmament proposed last fall by Khrushchev and not the President of the U.S.?" He also had soft words for the Kremlin's newest version of its old disarmament proposal, saying: "I'm far more interested in Khrushchev's positive proposals than whether he's taking a soft or hard line at the moment." Then Stevenson read the afternoon headlines and quickly retreated: "Khrushchev's reckless intemperance chills the hope for progress."

Nikita Khrushchev had altered the whole tone and temper of the political campaign. "National security will be the major issue," said Democratic Senator Henry ("Scoop") Jackson of Washington. "The public is going to expect a hard, tough line."

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