Young Easterner with Style

New York's city hall has been the political graveyard of virtually every man who presided there. Its present landlord may be the exception. On the eve of his second anniversary in office, John Vliet Lindsay is still threshing out the megaproblems of megalopolis, yet refuses to sink below the horizon of na tional politics. His views on the Republican presidential competition make headlines. Fortnight ago, he published his first book, Journey into Politics. Last week, after appearing on a network television program, he starred in the first of a weekly TV series of his own. Then he hopped to Los Angeles, where he turned on a variety of audiences, live and electronic.

LINDSAY FOR PRESIDENT said the sign at the University of Southern California's Great Issues forum, where the turnout of 1,700 was the largest anyone could remember. Lindsay, of course, forswears national candidacy "under any circumstances," insists that his besting of Lyndon Johnson in a recent poll interests him not a "teeny-weeny bit," and argues that his disinclination is so pervasive that he makes "Sherman look like a lightweight." But when he met Governor Ronald Reagan for the first time, the conservative Californian said the liberal New Yorker simply had to be considered a potential candidate. Perhaps a dream ticket of Ronnie and Johnny uniting the coasts and the party's wings? (Or could it be Johnny and Ronnie?) "That's more than a dream," said Lindsay, "that's a nightmare."

Flapping Smartly. Dashing John Lindsay, 46 this week, is, of course, far down on the list of G.O.P. possibilities for 1968, and with Governor Nelson Rockefeller dominating the party in New York, Lindsay has no strong organizational base of his own. The Rockefeller-Lindsay relationship has not been harmonious, the latest discord occurring, paradoxically, because Lindsay has been boosting Rockefeller's candidacy and because one of Lindsay's aides is prominent in a draft-Rockefeller group. Such efforts erode Rockefeller's fac,ade of noncandidacy at a time when the Governor prefers to remain committed, at least in public, to George Romney. Lindsay's refusal to cooperate hurts Rockefeller's credibility, and to whatever extent that the New York Governor's national prospects suffer, Lindsay's may prosper. Last week Rockefeller publicly asked Lindsay and his subordinates to end the eulogization. Lindsay replied disingenuously that he could not regulate his aide's private activities. Then at week's end he said New York Republicans will support Senator Jacob Javits as a favorite son.

Regardless of Lindsay's prospects next year, his latest spurt of activity keeps his pennant flapping smartly. The trip to Los Angeles again showed him to be the consummate campaigner. Considering his official mission--to boost New York City Opera Company's opening--he traveled heavy. In addition to Mrs. Lindsay, he took his press secretary, a deputy mayor, a speechwriter and his TV consultant. Not that he appeared to need help. From the ladies in the audience Lindsay elicited the usual sighs of "divine," "beautiful." And in an even dozen appearances before students, lawyers, reporters, business leaders and other Angelenos, his speeches and repartee, laced with tart humor, were enthusiastically received.

From IBMs to Lollipops. For businessmen he had some practical advice. "The firms that can find the answers to the cities' basic problems," he said at a Los Angeles' town hall forum, "can become the IBMs or Texas Instruments of the 1970s." To protest-prone students, he proposed that they bore from within by joining government instead of merely picketing it. "If you want to ban the bomb," he said, "only government can do it. If you want to legalize pot, only government can do it. And if you want to make love and not war--well, I'm not sure this is a proper role of government. As a Republican, I think the matter should be left to our system of private enterprise."

Lindsay also had a chance to show his tough side. Last week, he demanded and got the resignation of New York City's Sanitation Commissioner Samuel Kearing, a Republican whom Lindsay had appointed just a year ago. After Kearing complained he had been ejected for pushing too hard to build up his department, Lindsay fired a statement back to New York saying Kearing had been "insubordinate" in his independence of city hall policy. That bit of unpleasantness attended to, Lindsay cheerfully took on all questions. He criticized U.S. "military escalation" in Viet Nam, proclaimed in Reagan country that the Republicans should nominate a moderate for President, and even consented to comment on Shirley Temple Black's defeat. "When dimples and lollipops and curly hair and motherhood all go down in one day, it's too much," said he, "I'm crushed."

Looking decidedly uncrushed, Lindsay concluded his "nonpolitical" politicking and returned to Manhattan, leaving behind quite a few Republicans recalling, with mixed emotions, the style of a young Eastern Democrat who once won a presidential election.

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