The Splinters

Barry Goldwater, looking fit and in fighting trim, announced that he will run in 1968 for the U.S. Senate, even if it means contesting his old friend and former colleague, Democratic Incumbent Carl Hayden, now 87 and, with 38 years on the job, the Senate's senior member. Two days later, Barry had another announcement to make. He was, he said, accepting the honorary chairmanship of a brand-new national organization called the Free Society Association. Its aim: to launch a "crusade of political education" about Goldwater-type conservatism. Said Barry: "We feel there are millions of people who don't understand what we conservatives are talking about."

Working president of the association will be Arizona Lawyer Denison Kitchel, who managed Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. Said Kitchel: "We're hoping for a grass-roots movement--not 50,000 or so people who are getting a newsletter, but 400,000 to 500,000 persons who may contribute from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000. This is not a game of peanuts."

Since the roof fell in last November, what the Republican Party needs least of all is splinters. But Goldwater's outfit is just one of many new G.O.P. splinter groups. Among the others:

> United Republicans of America is dedicated to electing conservative Republicans by national fund-raising and organization of committees down to the precinct level. U.R.A. will concentrate on areas that normally elect liberal Democrats. D. Bruce Evans, a former official of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce who organized U.R.A., says of Goldwater's F.S.A.: "I think the time for conservative education is past. It's time for political action."

> The American Conservative Union sets itself a proselytizing mission, to develop and articulate the conservative position on major issues. William Buckley, John Chamberlain, Lewis Strauss and Arthur Radford are among the leading members. It resembles the new Goldwater group. But A.C.U. Chairman Donald Bruce says: "We're not being swallowed by anybody."

> Republicans for Progress is at the liberal end of the splinter spectrum, aspires to election-year action and perennial idea production. It will assist individual candidates of whom it approves while generating programs it hopes to sell to the party as a whole. Its chairman is Charles P. Taft, brother of the late "Mr. Republican" and the most liberal of the Ohio Tafts.

No matter how legitimate their aims, the splinter groups can only add up to a headache for those trying to reunify the Republican Party. National Chairman Ray Bliss recently ordered his finance committee to withhold its contributor lists from splinter organizations. Then, after the Goldwater announcement, Bliss angrily spoke out on the touchy subject. "When you have side movements," he said, "they certainly aren't helpful. I believe we should be presenting a united front."

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