Paris Stalemate
TAS, SAL
WASHINGTON-U.S.A. By Julius Duscha Disarmament and Peace Emerge as Themes for 60 SENATORS John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas have both just won impressive victories....
...If I appear to be unceremoniously writing off Humphrey, it is not because of a lack of admiration for the Senator...
...They know who won and who lost...
...By getting 56 per cent of the vote in the Wisconsin primary, Kennedy has demonstrated that he is not only the front runner in the Democratic Presidential race but that he is the one man with a broad appeal to voters...
...it was about how Kennedy should meet the Catholic question in an overwhelmingly Protestant state like West Virginia...
...His strategists believe that persons who have seen and heard their handsome and reasonable candidate will not be so concerned over his Catholicism...
...Kennedy quickly announced that if he were elected President he would honor any nuclear test moratorium agreed to by President Eisenhower at, say, the May summit conference...
...Thus, it is quite possible that disarmament as well as peace could become a rallying point for all of the candidates in 1960...
...The only areas of Wisconsin where Kennedy did not do well were in the western part of the state, which is oriented more toward St...
...But in his Wisconsin victory Kennedy demonstrated that he has wide appeal to the middle-class voters who can make or break an election...
...When Kennedy candidly discusses in private his chances for getting the nomination, he acknowledges his Catholicism, his youth and other factors as possible drawbacks, but he goes on to say, in effect, "Who else is there...
...The Kennedy image—well-bred, intelligent, serious, likable—is far different from the picture of the sidewalks of New York which Al Smith brought to the minds of Midwestern or Southern voters 32 years ago...
...Then he could have withdrawn gracefully and spared himself a withering four weeks up and down the hills of West Virginia...
...Indeed, there are some in Washington who believe that Humphrey would have been much better off had he been beaten even more badly than he was...
...Whether he would be as good a President as he is a candidate is another matter, and one on which there is considerable uncertainty in Washington...
...Even in the unlikely event of a triumph in West Virginia, Humphrey still would be about as far from the nomination as he has ever been...
...The ease with which Humphrey has been able to turn what was actually a rather humiliating defeat in Wisconsin into something approaching a smashing victory is an indication of the doubts Democrats have about the Kennedy candidacy...
...The religious issue remains the crux of Kennedy's problem...
...ask his critics...
...The day after the Wisconsin primary I had lunch with a Kennedy strategist...
...Nevertheless, the civil rights legislation should help to bring some Negro votes that went to President Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 back to the Democratic candidate this year...
...It is generally agreed that Johnson would in all likelihood be defeated if he were chosen as the Democratic candidate...
...Elsewhere in the state Kennedy did extremely well...
...As in Humphrey's case, a convention decision to pass over Johnson would in no way reflect on his acknowledged ability and political acumen, ft simply would be recognition of the facts of politics, facts which Johnson knows as well as any man in the Senate...
...One can admire him and still be realistic about his chances for the Presidency...
...The Democratic convention is only three months away, and the mood of the capital is coldly political...
...The professionals who play politics for keeps unquestionably are not falling for the Humphrey post-Wisconsin propaganda...
...As for Nixon, his press secretary merely noted that of course the Vice President can be expected to honor any international commitments that Eisenhower may make in his remaining months in office...
...The momentum for action, action and more action on civil rights can no more be controlled by the Senate than it can be carefully channeled by white men in the South...
...By bringing the Senate civil rights debate to a successful conclusion with approval of a voting rights bill, Senate Majority Leader Johnson has once again shown that he is as skillful a compromiser as he is a political strategist...
...And the solid Catholic vote for him could be as much of an asset in the important states like New York, Illinois and California as it might be a hindrance in the hinterlands of the Midwest and South...
...Yet neither Kennedy nor Johnson seems to have substantially improved his political position...
...Paul and Minneapolis in Humphrey's home state of Minnesota than toward Milwaukee and Madison...
...The talk was not about Wisconsin...
...This time all of the candidates apparently sense a public acceptance if not a yearning for a halt in the armaments race and in the testing of bigger and more destructive nuclear weapons...
...But Humphrey managed to win no more than what a favorite son with no serious chance at the Presidency could have been expected to get...
...Without attempting to argue the sincerity of Johnson's interest in civil rights legislation, his leadership in the Senate during the eight-week civil rights debate certainly has enhanced his position as a national political figure...
...The professionals know, too, that civil rights legislation would have passed the Senate even if Johnson had opposed the bill...
...When one remembers how suspicious so much of the Midwest still is of the East, Boston and Harvard, the dimensions of Kennedy's victory loom even larger...
...But the candidates obviously think that the voters—the people who really count this year—are becoming increasingly impatient with the high cost of armaments...
...Humphrey should have appealed to Wisconsin, with its Progressive, maverick traditions...
...And the doubts always begin and end with Kennedy's Catholicism...
...Meanwhile, opponents of Kennedy and Johnson have somehow managed to disparage the really outstanding performances of the two men...
...Adlai E. Stevenson, who is still hopefully sitting in the wings polishing his prose—including, some detractors say, his acceptance speech...
...It was not long before Humphrey, Johnson and Symington all took the same position, with Humphrey noting that as chairman of the Senate Disarmament Subcommittee he has been more interested in the problem than have any of his rivals for the Democratic nomination...
...The only certain answer to these and similar questions is Kennedy himself, of course...
...From this springboard the Vice President can easily develop a campaign appeal to Negroes that may turn out to be difficult for the Democrats to counteract...
...As chairman of the President's Committee on Government Contracts, Nixon has turned this once moribund group into a useful catalyst which has been prodding the AFL-CIO as well as Government contractors into action that may break down the barriers to Negroes erected so long ago by the construction trades unions, and kept in repair in defiance of both public and private pressure...
...But it is indeed debatable whether the legislation has turned him into a serious Presidential candidate...
...Can you imagine Lyndon campaigning in Harlem...
...and Johnson...
...So, considered in the perspective of 1960, Johnson's efforts, while important to the shaping of the legislation, were probably not crucial to his Presidential aspirations...
...Indeed, the Democratic candidates are much more concerned with the use of the disarmament question in their political campaigns than they are in the chances for any East-West settlement, or the possible terms of such a settlement...
...The attitude of the Democratic candidates toward nuclear testing this year recalls Stevenson's unsuccessful and almost disastrous attempt to advocate a test ban in 1956...
...Except for his Catholicism, Kennedy is almost an ideal candidate...
...In addition to Humphrey, there are of course Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, who announced his candidacy recently and has since been making remarkably parochial speeches about such great issues as flood control in flooded areas and water shortages in arid regions...
...This is a disturbing possibility to those in the capital who believe that the Soviet threat is still as serious as it has ever been in the years since the end of World War II...
...But Vice President Richard M. Nixon's appeal to the Negro is not being discounted by the Democrats...
...Yet Humphrey has managed to leave the impression that he too gained a major victory...
...There was a flurry of interest in the Soviet disarmament proposals in Geneva and in British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's hasty visit to Washington, but interest subsided as quickly as it developed...
...Kennedy is moving into West Virginia for a return engagement with Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, while Johnson is trying to decide when to announce formally that he is indeed a candidate for the Presidential nomination...
...Nor should it be...
...Can a candidate reason with a Protestant who genuinely fears that Rome will dominate the actions of a Catholic President...
Vol. 43 • April 1960 • No. 16
