Return to the Wars

Richard Nixon returned to the Republican warpath last week, starting a 36-state, 150-speech campaign effort on behalf of Barry Goldwater. Before he left New York, Nixon confided that his main aim would be to fight off "the very real problem of Republican defection," and he had high hopes of success. Said he: "Johnson's support is very broad but very thin. Goldwater's support is narrower but deeper." But he recognized that Barry's political image needs polishing. "Goldwater must be depicted as a reasonable, calm man, and not as someone who has a bunch of nuts around him," said Nixon. "Senator Goldwater is a reasonable, calm man."

"Subject A." On his first day out, Nixon barnstormed New England, told 240 Republicans at a $ 1,000-a-plate dinner in Portsmouth, N.H.: "Any statesman who is open-minded must consider facts and retain principles. Bob Taft did it years ago in housing and education. Above all else, Goldwater is a man of principle. You know he'll keep his word. Look who's raising this question. Have you ever looked over Lyndon Johnson's record?"

Nixon attacked Johnson as a politician "who has changed his position through his entire career." He said that Johnson had visited Bobby Baker's South Carolina home town in 1960. "Lyndon said, 'Bobby is my strong right arm. I see him first thing in the morning and last thing at night.' But in 1964 Lyndon said: 'Bobby is no protege of mine.' I ask you, is Lyndon Johnson a man of principle?"

Then Nixon laid into what he called the 1964 campaign's "subject A"--peace. "This," he said, "is an issue where we are on the defensive. The argument is Goldwater increases the chances of war. If that charge is correct, we deserve to lose. But just the opposite is true. Goldwater, because he is for strong, firm policies, is for peace." Nixon called the nuclear-control controversy a "false issue," said that Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson had already set up procedures by which the NATO commander had emergency authority to use some nuclear weapons. Cried Nixon: "The real issue is how to prevent situations where such decisions must be made!"

Pointing with Pride. The next day, before an enthusiastic G.O.P. crowd in Davenport, Iowa, Nixon continued the attack, said that "unless we get a new Administration, the danger of war is greatly increased." He reminded his audience that giving some nuclear-weapons authority to the NATO commander is "what we're doing right now," and that "it is responsible and not rash."

Then he launched into an essay on the attributes of a President, said solemnly: "The most important are character and integrity. I cast no aspersions on Lyndon Johnson in this regard. But the Republican Party proudly presents a man of principle, an honest man, a decent man, a man of integrity. Barry Goldwater will change his mind when he must. But above all, he is a man of character."

With Nixon hitting the hustings for Goldwater, many people couldn't help but think of what might have been. If Nixon had stayed out of the 1962 California gubernatorial contest (or won it), he might well be running against Johnson today. In which case the campaign would be entirely different.

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