CAPITAL NOTES

Ace in the Hole

On the chance that Dick Nixon will not choose to run in 1964, and that Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller will stalemate the G.O.P. nomination, some Western Republican bigwigs have been sizing up Oregon's young, handsome Governor Mark Hatfield as a possible regional favorite son. Two of California's just-retired party leaders-former Chairman George Milias and ex-Finance Chairman Bob Power-led off the parade to Salem, followed shortly by the director of the G.O.P. Senate Campaign Committee, Vic Johnston, and, most recently, by several leading Los Angeles County politicians. The Californians were impressed, and Hatfield is beginning to show all the signs of latent presidential fever.

M-Day

Cape Canaveral's current firing schedule calls for launching a man into space on the target date of April 28. The seven Mercury astronauts, who until recently had visited the Cape only for launchings and special briefings, are now permanently billeted at Cocoa Beach's Holiday Inn.

Bon Voyage

President Kennedy's first overseas trip will probably be to Paris, for a conference with President Charles de Gaulle. No date has been set, but Quai d'Orsay officials are hoping to confirm a meeting soon after the middle of May-before the state visit of Belgium's King Baudouin to France on May 24. The Kennedy trip, say De Gaulle's aides, "is practically certain."

Book Burning

Postmaster General Ed Day has ordered the January and February issues of the departmental house organ, Post Service News, destroyed. Reason: a glowing report by former "General" Arthur Summerfield, containing "highly inaccurate information" about his eight-year stewardship of the nation's mails. When news of Day's censorship reached Utah's Republican Senator Wallace Bennett, he took to the floor of the Senate, announced himself "shocked" at the banning, and inserted the entire Summerfield report in the Congressional Record for all to see. Day might ban or burn the Record, said Bennett, "but that is a risk we shall have to take."

CNO Ahoy!

A two-day Pentagon "conference" of nearly 100 of the Navy's top-ranking flag officers was laid on principally to give new Navy Secretary John B. Connally Jr. an opportunity to seek out candidates for the big promotion. Admiral Arleigh Burke's third term as Chief of Naval Operations expires in August, and an intensive search for his successor is already under way. One of the top contenders, Sixth Fleet Commander George W. Anderson Jr., could not leave his job long enough to make the trip.

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