The News from New Hampshire

Rarely have so much energy and money been spent on so few. For weeks, Republican Presidential Candidates Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater crisscrossed snowy little New Hampshire, making speeches, shaking hands, telling terrible jokes, and viewing each other's views with vast alarm. Goldwater's people poured $150,000 into his campaign. Rocky's considerably more. Newsmen and pollsters swarmed in the candidates' wake. TV crew men tumbled and stumbled all over one another--NBC alone had some 600 workers on the job. In all, the media coverage of the New Hampshire primary ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And all for what? All to find out about the political likes and dislikes of some 93,000 New Hampshire Republicans who went to the polls.

The Hampshiremen knew what they liked, all right. They liked the idea of a revenue-raising sweepstakes lottery (already approved by the legislature), and they voted by a 3-to-l majority to permit lottery tickets to be sold at 49 state liquor stores and three race tracks. They also knew what they didn't like, and high on that list stood Rockefeller and Goldwater. In a remarkable protest vote, 35.4% of the state's Republicans wrote in the name of a man who had spent the entire campaign 10,000 miles away--Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., 61, the U.S. Ambassador to South Viet Nam.

The final standings in the nation's first presidential primary of. 1964 were: Lodge, 33,007 votes; Goldwater, 20,-692; Rockefeller, 19,504; Richard Nixon, also a write-in candidate, 15,587; Maine's Senator Margaret Chase Smith, 2,120; and hapless Harold Stassen, 1,373. Almost all of New Hampshire's top Republicans were running as delegates for either Rockefeller or Gold-water--among them Senator Norris Cotton, former Governor Hugh Gregg, former Congressman Perkins Bass, and Doloris Bridges, widow of the late Senator Styles Bridges. All were beaten. Instead, New Hampshire's delegation to the July Republican Convention in San

Francisco will consist of 14 relative un knowns--all committed to Lodge.

But Lodge's victory was even more impressive than such figures indicate. For one thing, while it is easy enough to write in a candidate's name on a paper ballot, which almost all of New Hampshire uses, it is fairly tricky to register a write-in on a voting machine. This requires turning a latch, which releases a lock, which frees a slide, which opens to permit space for the write-in. Yet in Portsmouth (pop. 27,500), the only

New Hampshire city with machines, enough voters went to all this trouble to give Lodge a lead over all rivals.

Not a Candidate. In South Viet Nam, Ambassador Lodge got the news of his victory while returning from an inspection tour with visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and the Vietnamese Premier, General Nguyen Khanh. Plainly pleased, he sent his thanks to New Hampshire but refused further comment, noting that Foreign Service regulations bar him from seeking public office while still an ambassador. And three days later, in an interview with TIME'S Hong Kong Bureau Chief Frank McCulloch, he sounded convincing when he insisted that he meant to stay an ambassador. "My position is so simple," he said, "I can't get anyone to believe it. I am not a candidate. I say without qualification that I have no intention of returning home to become a candidate. I can say with equal certainty that I have a big job to do here, and I intend to stay here and do it, period."

Yet the Lodge write-in vote was not entirely spontaneous, and it received some encouragement from the ambassador himself. The draft-Lodge movement began as early as last July. It was the brainchild of a pair of political amateurs from Massachusetts--Promoter and Importer Paul Grindle, 43, and Lawyer David Goldberg, 34. Both had worked as volunteers for Lodge's son George, 36, in his unsuccessful 1962 Senate campaign against Teddy Kennedy. Now they started keeping files and news clippings, collected small donations, brought in onetime Eisenhower Public Relations Man Robert Mullen to act as coordinator. Through George Lodge, they kept Ambassador Lodge informed of their activities, and he acquiesced in their decisions.

Following President Kennedy's death, the Lodgemen decided to go all-out. They opened headquarters in New Hampshire, picked up volunteers as they went along, got hold of mailing lists. They sent out pledge cards and brochures to enlist a few regional chairmen, who found 21 area chairmen, each of whom found ten district leaders, who in turn signed up ten district captains, who were responsible for signing up 40 Lodge voters apiece. By the time the Lodge organizers had sent out their last mailing, almost every potential Republican voter had received a sample ballot showing how to write in the name of Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Said Paul Grindle, just before the primary: "If we get 20,000 votes, we're really rolling. If we get 15,000, we struggle bravely onward. If we get under 15,000, we fold up quietly."

The results, of course, exceeded all Grindle's expectations. And where did they leave the losers? > Arizona's Goldwater was badly hurt. Touted as the front runner at the start of the campaign, he hobbled into New

Hampshire with one foot in a cast (a minor operation) and the other in his mouth (a major affliction). He showed no knack for person-to-person politicking, and his formal speeches were stilted. His argument that social security should be made voluntary was confused, leading New Hampshire's sizable number of retired persons to believe that Barry was against the whole pension program. Sensing that he was slipping, Goldwater began to depreciate the importance of the New Hampshire primary. Said he: "The person who wins in California will win the nomination." He may have been right, but he did not endear himself to Hampshiremen, who think highly of their little primary. After it was all over, he frankly faced up to his blunders. Speaking to campaign workers at a Washington hotel, he said: "I don't want you people who worked so hard for me to get your daubers down. I did something wrong. I goofed up some place--and I think I know several places."

But in terms of convention delegates, Goldwater remains the Republicans' front-running candidate. Oklahoma (22 delegates) and North Carolina (25 out of 26) have already committed themselves to him. The South and Southwest remain almost solidly in his corner. It is mostly in the Midwest that he may have suffered slippage because of New Hampshire. In such states as Illinois, which holds its own primary April 14, North Dakota, Kansas, Kentucky and Iowa, most prospective delegates still seemed to be leaning toward Goldwater--but not as far as before.

>New York's Rockefeller was mortally wounded. Rocky went to New Hampshire's Dartmouth College, has many acquaintances in the state, is the Governor of a neighboring state. Moreover, New Hampshire's postage-stamp size seemed made to order for Rockefeller's ebullient, back-slapping brand of campaigning. Beyond question, Rocky made gains in the closing weeks, but not nearly enough to overcome the political handicap of his divorce and remarriage. That handicap will likely plague him wherever he goes. But after his New Hampshire defeat, he put on an optimistic air. Lodge's win, he said, was "a victory for moderation," since the voters had rejected "extremism in the party." He insisted that he had made a good showing: "I feel today's results are clear evidence of the strength I can develop by campaigning." >Richard Nixon, the beneficiary of a low-keyed but rewarding write-in campaign that was led by former Governor Wesley Powell, is hale and heartened. He lost no time showing his satisfaction. At a post-primary press conference, he said again that he is not an active candidate, but declared that there is no one else in the Republican Party "who can make a case against Mr. Johnson more effectively than I can." To prove his point, he blasted Johnson in a Newark speech, criticizing the Administration's foreign policies and warning of a new mess in Washington. He said that unless President Johnson "ends his silence with regard to the Bobby Baker case, unless he disassociates himself from that kind of hanky-panky, this country could be in for a series of situations in the next four years of wheeling and dealing and influence peddling which is unprecedented in the history of this country." Nixon also announced plans to expand his personal staff, taking on a press aide and possibly several other helpers. > Pennsylvania's William Scranton was not a New Hampshire entry, had no write-in campaign going for him, got only a handful of votes--yet as a result of New Hampshire may have taken the longest step forward of all the potential nominees. For with Goldwater and Rockefeller bloodied, with Lodge's victory leaving many professional Republicans unimpressed, and with Nixon widely viewed as a last-resort nominee, Scranton seems increasingly appealing. He is genuinely reluctant to run, but his hard-pushing aides insist that his stay-out-of-it attitude adds up, at least for the present, to good tactics. They recall that he had to be drafted to run for Governor in 1962, accepted the nomination only after feuding branches of Pennsylvania's Republican Party agreed to work together under his leadership. If Scranton could accomplish the same result with national Republicans, he would almost certainly be the party's strongest presidential candidate. It has been said repeatedly that Scranton must become better known among Republicans outside his own state. Yet reams have been written about him; he recently made a skillful Meet the Press appearance, achieved headlines with New York and Cincinnati speeches. So Republicans must surely be getting at least to know of him.

Popular with the People. But all such speculation still leaves Cabot Lodge unaccounted for--and that, in the light of New Hampshire, is impossible. A remarkable politician, he has not won an election in 18 years, still has remained consistently in the forefront of U.S. public affairs. To be sure, he had a good deal going for him in New Hampshire, a state where 52% of the population lives within 50 miles of Boston and regards Brahmin Lodge as virtually one of their own.

That does not, however, explain his New Hampshire showing, which was a positive tribute. Perhaps Hampshiremen recalled Lodge as the handsome young Senator who resigned his seat to enter the Army, served as a tank officer in North Africa and a liaison officer in Europe during World War II. Or it may have been the memory of his long, successful service as Ambassador to the United Nations during some of the coldest days of the cold war. Always urbane, seemingly unflappable, often cutting in his remarks, he gave the Russians much better than he got in debate.

That urbane unflappability became further apparent during the two weeks in 1959 when Lodge was assigned to shepherd visiting Nikita Khrushchev around the U.S. In cornfields, factories and cities, Lodge was the man who represented America to the Russians, and in the process he got to know Khrushchev on an informal basis.

This background fits well in the framework of the Lodge family's dedication to public service. Lodge's grandfather and namesake was a Senate leader during the early part of this century. And in addition to Son George's political endeavors, Cabot can claim a younger brother, John, 60, who was Ambassador to Spain (1955-56) as well as a U.S. Congressman and Governor of Connecticut. Cabot's wife Emily, while not a political figure herself, displays the kind of attractiveness and charm that help win elections.

But if Lodge is popular with the people--in New Hampshire and elsewhere--he is less so with professional Republicans, many of whom complain about his seemingly haughty airs. The main cause of the G.O.P. defeat in 1960 was, of course, Nixon's performance in the debates; but many pros assign Lodge some of the blame too. Particularly irritating to them was his habit of napping each afternoon, regardless of the press of his schedule. Said Goldwater, in a slightly snide aside during last week's primary-night postmortem: "We can't beat the Democrats with a man who campaigns only an hour or two a day."

Into a Crossfire. Perhaps the foremost obstacle to Lodge's winning the 1964 G.O.P. nomination is his present position in South Viet Nam. Last year, anxious to get back into public life, he volunteered his services to President Kennedy, specified only that he be assigned to a truly meaningful overseas post. He got South Viet Nam--which some people thought was rather cunning on Kennedy's part.

Lodge's dilemma is twofold. As ambassador, he does not formulate U.S. policy for that exasperating war; that is made by the President on the articulate advice of Secretary of State Rusk and of Defense Secretary McNamara, who has made three trips there in five months. But as a loyal ambassador, Lodge is immobilized. He cannot stand aside and comment on, much less criticize, Administration policy. And since Viet Nam promises to be a key election issue, Lodge, if he were to head the ticket, could hardly avoid an embarrassing crossfire of criticism himself.

Academic. The New Hampshire primary opened the field well beyond Announced Candidates Goldwater and Rockefeller. Yet, at the same time, with the nation's first primary out of the way, the G.O.P. possibilities are definitely more limited. Goldwater and Rockefeller delegates meet head-on in the June 2 California primary, where write-ins are not counted. But by that time the results may be academic. Looming as more important is the May 15 Oregon primary--where Goldwater, Rockefeller, Lodge, Nixon and Scranton all will be on the ballot. From those five names will almost certainly come the Republican presidential nominee.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.