Battle over Benson

Whatever else they may differ about, Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator Jack Kennedy agree that U.S. farmers have big crop problems--and a big crop of votes. So far, neither candidate has offered any convincing solution for farmers' problems, but both have eagerly set about trying to harvest the votes.

Vividly aware that many angry Midwestern farmers blame Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson for the 30% shrinkage in farm income during the past eight years, Richard Nixon is bent on plowing Benson under. Nixon got an assist from Benson himself, who before the Republican Convention announced his preference for Rockefeller. Fortnight ago Nixon declared that it was "essential" to break away from Benson's policies, called for "a massive program which is not concerned with budgetary costs year by year."

But the harder Nixon tries to unload Benson, the more the Democrats are determined to keep the Benson burden on Nixon's back. In a speech at Monticello, Iowa last week, Lyndon Johnson reminded his audience that Nixon once called Benson "one of the best Secretaries of Agriculture in our history." Benson's "chief helpers" in aggravating the farm problem, Johnson insisted, were President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon.

At Candidate Kennedy's Hyannisport headquarters, eight Democratic Midwestern Governors and Senators, calling on their leader, dredged up a Benson statement saying that Nixon "had participated in the development" of the Administration's farm program. This moved Kennedy to declare that Nixon's "betrayal of the Benson farm program which he helped to write accurately pinpointed Mr. Nixon's lack of basic beliefs." And Election was still twelve weeks away.

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