Wallace's Tortured Comeback

On the steps of Montgomery's pristine white capital, a chorus and band performed a newly composed tribute to the Governor, Hope for the Common Man. Inside the small antebellum legislative chamber, the restless crowd quieted to a tense hush. At the main entrance, George Wallace appeared in his wheelchair, his wife Cornelia walking with him. When he reached the podium, Wallace lifted himself up with no visible effort. His chin thrust forward, flashing a small, almost contemptuous smile, he showed that he could stand without leaning on his hands by raising his arms--ostensibly to shoot his cuffs. The audience exploded in a shouting, whistling, foot-stomping salute. A few country politicians wept.

Wallace's official mission was to open the legislative session. His speech was routine--against higher taxes, against a reapportionment plan ordered by a federal court, in favor of restoring capital punishment. His real message was that George Corley Wallace, exactly 50 weeks after a madman's bullets almost killed him, was ready for action physically and politically.

He remained on his feet for 31 minutes, his voice growing stronger as he spoke. He wore no braces. The only support in his "standing box" was a strap across his lower back. He made no explicit reference to running for re-election next year, but he did not have to. He talked about being "thrilled by the prospects lying ahead" and used the line of the Yankee poet Robert Frost about having "promises to keep/ And miles to go before I sleep."

While being wheeled out of the chamber, he told a wellwisher: "I'm alive and kickin'. Well, not exactly kickin', but I'm alive and I aim to be alive a long time yet." His brother Jack, a judge, translates: "Of course he is running." There are other signs. The Governor has begun spending long hours on the phone with political allies all over the state and has revived his national newsletter, The Wallace Stand.

It has been a long, tortured trip back. A few months ago friends and enemies alike had all but buried him politically. After repeated surgery for the complications caused by the gunshot wounds, Wallace underwent still another operation in January for the removal of his prostate. It left him more depressed than ever. Avoiding people and politics, he showed interest only in reading the diary of his would-be assassin, Arthur Bremer. Once, by accident, he watched a replay of the shooting on television. It had a "traumatic" effect on him, say friends.

Others took advantage of his lethargy. Cronies at the state capital started negotiating improper contracts and picking up cash in other illicit ways; Lieutenant Governor Jere Beasley and State Attorney General Bill Baxley began openly maneuvering to run for Governor. In a speech last winter that received national attention, Harold Martin, editor-publisher of the Montgomery Advertiser and the Alabama Journal, urged Wallace either to retire for the good of the state or appoint a committee of businessmen to help him govern.

That jolted Wallace out of the doldrums. "A large part of his trouble was mental," says a Wallace watcher. "Once he decided to crawl out of the depression, he did it." A first step was to summon a specialist in acupuncture. Whether by coincidence or not, Wallace's pain diminished after the first treatment in early March. He continues to undergo the needles each week.

Foolin' Around. Then he began practicing walking with the aid of braces and crutches; he can now take 100 steps without faltering. He learned to slide in and out of a car with comparative ease, though he still has to be lifted into a small airplane. Finally, he was able to get through the night with limited medication: a bladder antiseptic and an occasional sleeping pill and aspirin. Dr. H.H. Hutchinson, Wallace's personal physician, says that the Governor experiences pain "of varying intensity" much of the time. Jack Wallace was sure that George was on the mend when he started "foolin' around with folks"-- joshing them, regaling them with tall country-boy tales.

Since the middle of March, Wallace has been making two or three public appearances a day. Confined to a wheelchair most of the time and unlikely ever to escape it completely, he is not the bouncy bantam he used to be. But perhaps he does not have to be. His political style has been changing for some time. As he has shed his strident segregationist politics, his persona no longer requires the prizefighter's mannerisms, the aura of excess energy that he once conveyed. In his quieter mood, a wheelchair may not be a fatal handicap for Wallace any more than it was for Franklin Roosevelt--a comparison that has sometimes been made since the assassination attempt.

Events have improved his relations with old adversaries. He used to exchange little more than epithets with the Kennedys, but Edward Kennedy called on him last fall and plans another visit on July 4. No one in Alabama doubts that Wallace can win another term next year. Then, in 1976, when he will be only 56, he will likely indulge his quadrennial habit of complicating the presidential campaign.

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