First Things First

As a freshman Congressman 20 years ago, Minnesota Republican Walter H. Judd decided a Representative really has three jobs: 1) to work for good legislation; 2) to tend to the concerns of his constituents, and 3) to get reelected. The first is most important, he told his wife, Miriam, and if the other two should ever get in its way, he would quit. Last week in Minneapolis, Walter Judd. 63, one of the most effective and respected members of the House, announced that he was, in fact, calling it quits.

Explaining why he will not run for reelection this year, Judd said that the demands of his constituents, who seek everything from more Public Health Service grants for the University of Minnesota to Coke machines for the Minneapolis post office, have grown so that he can no long er study all the complex legislation on which he must vote. "You don't want a man to operate on you who just skims his medical books," said Judd. a former Mayo Clinic fellow. Nor does Judd want to spend time and energy on a strenuous re-election campaign in his recently reapportioned district, which formerly con sisted of safely conservative South Min neapolis and now includes the heavily Democratic labor wards on the city's north side. "I don't know that you can get elected in the present situation unless you are willing to work day and night for it," he said. "I am not." A Belly Full. As a Congregationalist medical missionary in China ("Medicine was the means that I could bear witness") from 1925 to 1931, Judd barely escaped execution by Chinese Communists. Recalls he, with a trace of a smile: "I had my belly full of them." Then, at the end of a 1934-39 stay along the China-Mongolia border, he was imprisoned by the invading Japanese for five months: He returned home to stump the U.S., used his high-pitched. 240-word-per minute delivery to urge that trade be cut with Japan. "You have a choice between your silks and your sons," he warned American mothers. After Pearl Harbor proved him right, he was elected to Congress.

On Capitol Hill. Judd urged that foreign policy be lifted above partisan politics, helped round up Republican votes for the Marshall Plan, has staunchly backed the United Nations, foreign aid, reciprocal trade. European federation. As one of the ranking Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, his quizzing of witnesses has been penetrating, and his ability to clarify legislation by amendment is a House hallmark (last year's Peace Corps bill carried 40 Judd alterations). Judd has zealously fought against admission of Communist China to the U.N.. and for aid to Nationalist China.

Not Devious. In Minneapolis some skeptics wonder if Judd's retirement is merely an attempt to inspire a draft; movement to aid him in a gerrymandered, district. But those who know Judd best argue that he will stick by his decision. Says the man in question: "I feel there are things I can do more usefully in the remaining years of my life. I'm not a devious person. If I wanted to run again, I'd run."

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