Wanted: A Voice

What does Dwight Eisenhower think of the Kennedy Administration? After an hour-long chat with the ex-President at his Palm Springs retreat, South Dakota's Senator Karl Mundt thought he had the answer. Ike had criticized the new Administration, Mundt reported in his weekly newsletter to constituents, as "too much left of center; too partisan; too slanted toward programs supported by union bossism." The Mundt report produced a thunderclap from Palm Springs. Said Eisenhower: "Senator Mundt's statement . . . does not accurately describe my views on public affairs . . . and I very much regret its issuance. The Senator evidently intended to repeat in detail our private and purely social conversation, but his recollection . . . and his interpretations differ markedly from my own." The record of his successor, growled Ike, was a subject "on which I have formed no judgment."

Fighting Spirit. The contretemps underlined a bothersome fact of contemporary Republican politics: nobody could-or would-speak with authority for the party, and nobody could be quite certain where the G.O.P. stood in 1961. The G.O.P. was robust, without doubt: in Congress, Republicans had registered a gain of 20 seats, despite the loss of the White House. G.O.P. bigwigs, back in Washington after a round of Lincoln Day speeches, reported jubilantly that they had encountered big crowds, heartening enthusiasm everywhere. "There is still a fighting spirit in the party," said National Chairman Thruston Morton. "It is somewhat unusual after election defeat.''

Morton already had launched a vigorous program for this year's local elections, with his eye especially on the Governors' chairs in New Jersey and Virginia. He had started a national registration drive and set up a watchdog committee to deal with election frauds. He was determined, too, to go after the big-city vote-"our Achilles heel in the last election"-and nominated successful big-city Republicans to show the way.

But on matters of principle, there was plenty of confusion. Senate Minority Leader Ev Dirksen noted that the Kennedy Administration had failed to propose a civil rights bill, promised to "unfurl" one of his own. Morton agreed that it would be a smart move, but House Minority Leader Charlie Halleck and Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater demurred. Said Goldwater, who has a greater following in the South than any other Republican: "We have literally bent over backwards to attract the Negro vote, but they don't vote for us." Lamented one G.O.P. leader: "We've got to find a hard-core issue to fight the Democrats on."

Silence & Whispers. What the resurgent Republicans badly needed was the voice of a leader to give the party cohesion and forward motion. Although his influence and prestige still cast a long shadow over the land, Dwight Eisenhower did not seem to relish the role. Dick Nixon, the titular leader of the party, promised to speak out this week in Los Angeles. But already his long silence had cost Nixon some support: cloakroom whispers had New Hampshire's Styles Bridges, dean of the Senate's Republicans and a longtime Nixon partisan, defecting to Nelson Rockefeller. In Albany, Rockefeller was saying little but running New York State with a welfare-mindedness that was bound to catch the eye of urban voters.

Curiously, the only voice that was causing excitement belonged to Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater: "We ought to forget this business of writing a platform," he said. "They're meaningless promises. We should write a set of principles instead." Each Republican could then interpret the principles as he saw fit. "If we could do this," said Goldwater, "we could end the factionalism in the party."

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