"I Am a Candidate"

"Lincoln," the new candidate cried, "would cry out in pain if we sold out on our principles, but he would laugh out with scorn if we threw away an election."

With that declaration of belief and practical politics--meant to appeal to moderates both within and without the Republican Party--Pennsylvania's Governor William Warren Scranton, 46, threw himself headlong into the G.O.P. contest for this year's presidential nomination. In so doing, he injected a rush of excitement into what was becoming a dreary procession toward the certain selection of Conservative Barry Goldwater.

A Foot in Each Century. In announcing his candidacy at the Maryland state Republican convention in Baltimore, Scranton drew a dramatic line between his political philosophy and that of Goldwater. "Can we pretend even to ourselves," he asked, "that it is possible for us to stand with one foot in the 20th century and the other in the 19th? Can we afford to pretend that all is well, when all is not? Can we in good conscience turn our backs on the century-old progressive history of our party? You and I know we cannot."

Scranton readily admitted that it was awfully late to stop Goldwater, and he accepted part of the blame: "I share responsibility with others of our leaders who until now have failed to act. Surely all of us now must confront what is a reality. The Republican Party is in danger--and some say our country may be too."

That admission of tardiness was well taken. For Bill Scranton's belated but all-out entry into the G.O.P. running came only after months of "let Rocky do it" stands by Republican leaders who wished to stop Goldwater but did not want to get hurt in the process. Scranton's entry also came after, and in the light of, one of the more ludicrous episodes in the history of the Republican Party, an exercise in ineptness, vacillation and rear-view heroism that nearly reduced the G.O.P. to a laughingstock before the entire nation.

A Lot of Asking. The scene was the 56th annual National Governors Conference in Cleveland. That conference, only partly by coincidence, fell on the weekend following the June 2 California presidential primary. Before the California results were in, most moderate Republican leaders felt that Nelson Rockefeller, with all the momentum of his May 15 Oregon victory, would knock off Barry in the primary. But they also felt certain that Rocky himself could not get the nomination. Therefore, the Governors' Conference could serve as a first-rate place for Republican leaders to meet and agree on a moderate-minded alternative for the presidential nomination.

But things did not quite turn out like that. Goldwater of course beat Rocky in California, if only by a skin-of-the-tooth margin of 59,000 votes out of more than 2,000,000 cast. To Scranton, that made it seem even more urgent for the Republicans in Cleveland to rally behind a moderate who might beat Goldwater.

Scranton had a pretty good idea of who that moderate ought to be--and on June 4, two days after California, he set a few things in motion. He called Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Hugh Scott, who is up for reelection this year and is scared to death about the prospect of running on a ticket headed by Goldwater. Scranton asked Scott to ask Milton Eisenhower to ask Dwight Eisenhower to ask Scranton down to Gettysburg for a visit. That's a lot of asking, but for a while, all seemed to go well.

Falling Apart. Ike and Scranton did get together, and the general urged the Governor to make himself "more available" for the presidential nomination. Scranton of course agreed, made plans to fly to Cleveland and announce his active candidacy on a Sunday Face the Nation television appearance. He would, he felt sure, have Ike's public endorsement.

But right about then, everything started falling apart. Arriving in Cleveland, Scranton was told that Ike had been trying to reach him by long-distance telephone. He called Gettysburg, sat in stunned silence while Ike told him he did not Want to become involved in an anti-Goldwater "cabal" and furthermore did not think Scranton should either. Said Eisenhower to Scranton: "I was wondering if I was getting old or kind of senile in thinking I hadn't agreed to support you or any other individual."

The Decisive Plea. What had happened to make Eisenhower change his mind? Well, for one thing, Ike and Mamie, planning to go to Cleveland for an Eisenhower speech to the Governors, were to stay at the suburban estate of George Humphrey, Eisenhower's first Treasury Secretary who is now one of Goldwater's most influential backers.

Humphrey, understandably upset by press accounts of the Eisenhower-Scranton meeting, called Ike and said: "I do hope you'll not be a party to making the divisions in our party any deeper."

Humphrey's plea was decisive with Ike, hence the call to Scranton in Cleveland. After that call, a shaken Bill Scranton attended a breakfast meeting of all 16 Republican Governors. Most of them, apprehensive about the chances of their state candidates on a ticket headed by Goldwater, were grumbling about the prospect of Barry's nomination. Especially unhappy was Michigan's George Romney, who got into a tiff with Arizona's Governor Paul Fannin, one of the few all-out Goldwater supporters present. At one point, Oregon's Mark Hatfield, a Rockefeller supporter, broke into the bickering, snapped at Romney: "Where have you been for the last six months?" Continued Hatfield, now including Bill Scranton in his gaze: "Rockefeller has been working his head off day and night for the past six months, while both of you have remained gloriously silent. Any stop-Gold-water movement now by you eleventh-hour warriors is an exercise in futility."

The Unopened Paper. All the while, Scranton stayed silent, telling nobody of his telephone talk with Ike. From the breakfast, he went to Cleveland's KYW-TV studios for his Face the Nation date. During his appearance, he kept his announcement of active candidacy, written on a twice-folded sheet of white paper, unopened on the table in front of him. For half an hour--and later in a press conference--he hemmed, hawed and hedged, adding little to the position he had taken for weeks. "If the majority of the delegates at the convention want me," he repeated over and over, "I would serve."

Reaction to Scranton's performance was immediate, and explosive. Reporters promptly dubbed him "the Harrisburg Hamlet." Watching Face the Nation, George Romney asked bitterly: "Where are his principles?" Asked what he thought of Scranton as a party leader, Rockefeller replied with scalding sarcasm: "Did you see him on television?"

Next day, Barry Goldwater, a guest of the host committee, arrived at the conference. Anti-Goldwaterites among the Republican Governors had invited him to sit down with them and explain his "principles." Barry scornfully refused, sent each of the Governors an old pamphlet stating his views. To the pros and to the public, Goldwater seemed like the leader who had faced and won his last challenge and could now coast to victory.

Early Tuesday Dick Nixon arrived in Cleveland. He checked into the Sheraton-Cleveland at 12:30 a.m., held a series of closed-door conferences until 3 a.m. The longest was with Michigan's Romney, whom he urged to become a stop-Goldwater candidate. Romney, for a few hours, considered it. Emboldened, Nixon mentioned Ohio's Republican State Chairman Ray Bliss as a man who might well throw decisive support to Romney. Trouble was, Nixon had neglected to talk to Bliss--and when he did, he got a flat refusal to endorse Romney or anyone else but Ohio's favorite son, Governor James Rhodes.

Until his Cleveland performance, Nixon had been high on Barry Goldwater's friendship list. But now he was obviously trying to promote Romney's candidacy in an effort to cause a convention stalemate that would wind up with a compromise nominee. Guess who. Said Goldwater, in about as scathing a comment as one Republican can make about another: "Nixon is sounding more like Harold Stassen every day."

The Last Five Words. On the way back to Harrisburg, Bill Scranton sat seething in the rear seat of a Pennsylvania National Guard Super Constellation. As much as anyone, Scranton realized that the fiasco in Cleveland had damaged his political standing and that, regardless of how he felt about the party and its 1964 nominee, he had to take some action that would redeem his own political image. Just before the plane landed, he instructed his aides to arrange a meeting for the next night at the governor's mansion at Indiantown Gap, some 20 miles from Harrisburg.

At that meeting were his wife Mary, daughter Susan, 17, son Joe, 14, Senator Hugh Scott, Administrative Assistant Bill Keisling, Speechwriter Malcolm Moos, and nine other state party officials and Scranton staffers. At 5 p.m. Scranton walked into the room, seated himself by the great stone fireplace, listened for some three hours while his family and friends urged him to go all out for the nomination. Finally, Scranton stood up. "Now," he said abruptly, "we have a lot to do. I am going to run." Moos, who used to write speeches for President Eisenhower, reached over, picked a piece of paper from the coffee table, wrote Scranton's last five words, dated the paper and said: "I'm going to keep this for my scrapbook."

Telephone calls immediately went out to top Republicans across the U.S. --to Romney, Rockefeller, Ray Bliss. Dwight Eisenhower and many others. As Scranton later recalled his conversation with Ike: "I told him I was going to run. He simply said that was that, and it was fine, and I said thank you and I got off the phone." Dick Nixon was reached in London, where he had flown on private business. Scranton tried to tele phone Goldwater, failed, and sent him a telegram instead.

"Those Noble Words." Hasty arrangements were made for Scranton to appear next day at the Maryland state convention to deliver his announcement.

His speech also was hastily written, but it was no less effective for that reason.

"I come here," cried Scranton, "to announce that I am a candidate for the presidency of the United States."

He bore down heavily on the civil rights issue, fully aware that Goldwater's image is badly flawed on that subject. The Republican Party, said Scranton, must be "responsible for human liberty, its preservation on the North American continent and its inspiration around the entire world; responsible for giving every American a fair chance at a share of the good life; responsible for underlining the injunctions of the Constitution and the Declaration of Inde pendence; to put solid flesh on those noble words that all men are created equal." In that statement, Scranton reflected the mainstream of national Republican thinking on civil rights as evidenced, also last week, by Senator Everett Dirksen's leadership in achieving cloture against a segregationist Democratic filibuster (see cover story).

Perhaps even more telling was Scranton's argument that Goldwater, as the party's presidential nominee, would help bring to defeat scores of Republican state and local candidates. "Lincoln," he said, "knew, as all of you know and I know, that in a presidential year the candidate at the top of the ticket can obviously help those below, or he can doom them to undeserved defeat.

"Therefore, any political party which seriously undertakes to lead the Government of this nation--not only in Washington but also in the state capitols, in the courthouses, in the city halls--such a great party will not lightly throw away the top places on its ticket."

"Welcome." After hearing Scranton's announcement of candidacy, Dwight Eisenhower said, rather remarkably: "At last someone has done what I have urged." Romney and Rockefeller both praised Scranton's move, but neither promised to deliver his delegates. In London, Nixon said he thought Scranton was doing the right thing, but he remained neutral. But when he got back to New York, Nixon flashed his stiletto, said of Scranton: "If a man receives a phone call and changes his mind, he isn't a very strong man. He's got to make his own decisions and not appear to be a puppet maneuvered by someone else."

Leaders of Henry Cabot Lodge's campaign immediately threw their support to Scranton. Barry Goldwater said, "I welcome Bill Scranton into the race."

Then he reminded everyone that Scranton had written him a letter in December, saying, "I hope you decide to run." Cracked Goldwater: "Governor Scranton's persuasiveness is one of the major reasons I announced my own candidacy for the presidency."

Barry had every cause for confidence. Every tried and tested political factor weighs heavily against Scranton's being able to pick up enough delegates to win in San Francisco. Indeed, his move required a degree of bravado: rarely before has a major U.S. presidential candidate stood up a bare four weeks before a nominating convention and insisted that in that short time he could prove to the U.S. that he should be in the White House.

Yet Bill Scranton will be no neophyte pushover. He has youth, style and a nonstop campaign technique. He is a millionaire, an American aristocrat descended from a proud and public-spirited family. His political credentials are solid. He served in the State Department first as a press aide, later as office manager and liaison man with the White House and Cabinet under the Eisen hower Administration. He was elected to Congress from Pennsylvania's 10th District in 1960--a year in which John F. Kennedy carried the state. In 1962 he was elected Governor over former Philadelphia Mayor Richardson Dilworth by nearly half a million votes. As Governor, he has reformed the state's corruption-filled patronage system, beaten big labor's bosses in a legislative fight over unemployment-compensation reforms, attracted new industry.

Even more relevant, he resurrected the Pennsylvania Republican Party after it had been fractured by factionalism. If there is a split in the national party --which there could well be if Scranton wins the nomination from Barry--his polished abilities at unifying will be indispensable. So far, Scranton has retained a personally friendly attitude toward Goldwater, even while smashing hard at Goldwater's stand on some issues. In his telegram to Barry, he said, "I think you know that, though I cannot agree with many of the positions you have taken, I respect you as a man." And Scranton's views are such as might appeal to the broadest segment of the Republican spectrum. His own favorite thumbnail self-description: "I am a liberal on civil rights, a conservative on fiscal policies and an internationalist on foreign affairs."

A Battler's Prize. Now his big job is to prove to the nation that he is the worthiest man. It will be a rugged, uphill run, for he has little organization, no seasoned national campaign staff, not even the facilities to handle the hordes of reporters who will be chasing after him. Yet he is determined. "I'm going to go every place that will have me," he said, "and tell them why I think we should have progressive Republicanism and why I want to be the candidate."

No matter what the outcome, Scranton's entrance into the race has positive value, for it has made it plain that the G.O.P presidential nomination is worth fighting for, that it is a battler's prize, not a cheap, pallid present. If Scranton's campaign builds any momentum at all --and does not wound too deeply--he would, at the very least, become Goldwater's strongest possibility for Vice President.

At week's end Scranton was at the Connecticut Republican convention, again attacking Goldwaterism. "Because of havoc that has been spread across the national landscape," he declared, "the Republican Party wonders how it will make clear to the American people that it does not oppose social security, the United Nations, human rights and a sane nuclear policy." In such appearances lay his only possible strategy--that of making himself as visible as possible in as many places as possible, and in so doing displaying the energy, the mind and the articulate tongue that will convince American voters that he would make a good President.

It would be an exercise in futility for Scranton to start counting delegates; he can, for the time being, leave that to Barry, who now claims some 737. But the vast majority of these delegates are obligated neither by law nor conscience to cast their votes for Goldwater in the ultimate showdown. If Scranton, in the time remaining to him, can corral a consensus in his favor throughout the whole wide ranks of the Republican Party, he can almost surely swing a great many delegates away from Goldwater. If he does, and if he wins the nomination, he will have proved himself a strong and attractive enough candidate to give even Lyndon Johnson a real run for the money.

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