Connally's Return

It was almost as if John Connally's recent bribery trial was a trifling and unpleasant interlude. Scarcely a month after he was acquitted on charges of accepting a $10,000 gratuity from the American Milk Producers Inc., Richard Nixon's Treasury Secretary was pushing into the spotlight again, and actually talking, though obliquely, of running for President. Said he: "I'm not going to rule something like that out at this point."

In what was delicately billed as his "first major address since he has resumed speaking out on national and international affairs," Connally spoke at the World Trade Day Luncheon in Manhattan. He took after both Gerald Ford and Congress: "We are a nation tossed around like a cork at sea." When Connally was finished, the entire audience was on its feet applauding.

In an interview Connally later observed: "Ford hasn't much of a record yet. This country lacks direction; we've got no energy plan, no economic policy worthy of the name." Connally acts now like a wildcatting candidate. He says that he is investigating his indictment to prove that it was engineered by his political enemies. Though he has no power base (he switched in 1973 from Democrat to Republican), he has talent and savvy to offer to any takers in an unpredictable election. He hinted that he might try as a third-party independent--"No single party has all the answers," he said -- but his most plausible shot seems to be a challenge to Ford for the nomination if the G.O.P. grows restive. In any case, Connally was behaving like the most aggressively innocent man in America.

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