One Who Is

New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller was running for President. His state's legislative session was over, a successful speaking trip to the Midwestern hustings had ended, and now Rocky stormed that bastion of political professionalism--Washington, D.C. There, he wowed his fellow Republicans.

Fiscal responsibility is presently the most popular of all issues with Capitol Hill Republicans--and from the beginning of his administration as Governor, Rockefeller has made pay-as-you-go state spending his hallmark. On that basis, he could now tell the Republican legislators just what they wanted to hear--and, in the process, get in some pretty good cracks at Democrat John Kennedy. Kennedy's fiscal policies, Rocky said, were "gutless." The President's public-works spending programs amounted to a political "slush fund." Like Kennedy, Rockefeller is for a tax cut--in fact, he argued for an immediate slash of $10 billion. But he also wanted drastic reductions in federal spending. Given these, he insisted, the U.S. could show a budget surplus in 1965 instead of the $12 billion deficit that Rocky foresees under present Kennedy plans.

Even in his sharp criticism of Kennedy, Rockefeller showed a reluctant admiration for the President's political talents. Kennedy, said Rockefeller, tries to sound "a little like Franklin Roosevelt, a little like Winston Churchill--he's a little bit of everybody.''

Rocky reserved his biggest blasts for the Kennedy Administration's policy of preventing Cuban exiles from taking military action against their Communist homeland. Said he: "It is very hard for me to understand why we are supporting in South Viet Nam freedom fighters, and why we are holding them back and preventing them from operating in Cuba 90 miles off our shore. I hope it is not as a means or as an endeavor to placate or to appease the Soviets."

Did Rocky suspect that Kennedy, in his considerable correspondence with Khrushchev, had made some sort of deal? "Well, I have no idea," replied Rocky. "I only said that because it is hard to see what other reason there would be, in view of our past policy, and it seems to me this is a very sharp change of policy concerning which the public has not been advised."

But did Rockefeller really mean to say that the Democratic Administration was following an "appeasement" policy toward Cuba? "No," said Rocky, "I said I hoped it wasn't."

Rocky's tough talk inevitably brought low-blow cries from Democrats. But it made a great hit with the Republicans on Capitol Hill--and they were the ones Rockefeller was aiming to please.

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