Neutralism on the Charles
BARNES, PETER
Neutralism on the Charles By Peter Barnes Boston "He's got a policy for China and a policy for Vietnam. The only place for which he has no policy is Massachusetts." The remark of the...
...Senator Robert Kennedy, for one, apparently has his doubts...
...As things stand now, Edward Kennedy's abandonment of leadership in Massachusetts could hurt him...
...Kennedy probably would be best off if Republican Governor John Volpe is re-elected and Peabody wins Saltonstall's Senate seat...
...Robert has hinted support for O'Donnell for governor of Massachusetts...
...Ironically, his parting "city upon a hill" message to the Massachusetts Legislature was a call for courage and integrity at all levels of government...
...Young reformist types were pitted against time-worn party has-beens...
...But will it work for Ted...
...The remark of the disgruntled Bay State politician was not quite exact...
...If McCormack becomes governor and either Boston Mayor John Collins or state attorney general Edward Brooke wins the Senate race, Kennedy will not only lose his unchallenged claim to the Massachusetts Democratic party's chieftainship, he will also face headline-making competition in Washington from an independent and articulate junior Senator...
...Left entirely to its own devices, the party convention June 11-12 opted for the embodiment of the latter breed: former Lieutenant Governor Frank Bellotti, the man who split the party in 1964 by defeating his boss, Governor Endicott Peabody, in the gubernatorial primary...
...Nevertheless, his activity since recovering from his plane crash injuries has been limited to attending a few candidate forums and testimonial dinners-at which he has had kind words about everyone-and to keeping an open, though apparently little-availed telephone line between his Charles River Square home and the convention auditorium...
...Like Nasser, he calls it "neutralism.' Kennedy's neutralism, however, is not the scheming, self-seeking type such as flourishes on the Nile...
...The Kennedy reasoning seems to have been that they'd be damned if they intervened and damned if they didn't -so why divert time from their national and international activities...
...so Ted may have to color himself un-neutral...
...I'm not going down to Washington after the election to retire...
...On the question of a statewide sales tax, the hottest political issue of 1965, Kennedy has been non-commital...
...The American public, if not all of the Beacon Hill crowd, seems to have gotten the idea and associated the Kennedy name with it...
...I intend to be active in this party," Kennedy said many times during his first senatorial campaign...
...in New York, where he has been a resident less than two years, his successful intervention in the Manhattan surrogate contest promises to be but a prelude of things to come...
...In addition, the battle for the Democratic nomination for state attorney general was ripe for a Kennedy intervention...
...A better word for it might be "aloofness...
...Millions look to the clean-cut Kennedy as the only force capable of playing Sir Lancelot...
...What is more, Kennedy's national image is in trouble as a result of his home-state neutralism...
...Kennedy's achievement is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that among the Democratic aspirants for governor this year were his former senatorial campaign manager (State Senate president Maurice Donahue), the former appointments secretary to President Kennedy (Kenneth O'Donnell), and the man who tried to bury him when his politicai career was at its most vulnerable, womb-emerging stage (Edward McCormack, otherwise known as the Man from UNCLE...
...The policy served John Kennedy well...
...John Kennedy got away before anybody realized what had happened...
...At a time when he was fighting for abolition of poll taxes in Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia and Texas, he seemed hesitant to support a state bill aimed at reducing racial imbalance in the schools of Boston...
...Since he briefly dabbled in Democratic doings in 1964, Ted Kennedy has somehow managed to become the only politically aware Massachusetts citizen-with the exception of Senator Leverett Saltonstall-not to have expressed a preference or dislike for a single political figure in the state...
...He inherited it from John F. Kennedy, just as he preserved his brother's cozy relationship with Saltonstall, the state's Republican senior Senator, who is retiring this year...
...After Massachusetts civil rights leaders began to grumble, Kennedy finally endorsed the bill in a commencement address at Northeastern University...
...Neutralism on the Charles By Peter Barnes Boston "He's got a policy for China and a policy for Vietnam...
...Massachusetts, with some merit, has acquired a reputation of being a corrupt cauldron of feuding political hacks...
...He has interpreted his well-known 1962 slogan-"He can do more for Massachusetts"-strictly in the sense of getting more Federal goodies for the state...
...Peter Barnes, a frequent contributor, reports from Washington for the Lowell Massachusetts Sun...
...the Massachusetts delegates to the Presidential conventions are sewed up anyway...
...Robert, more than Edward, appreciates the need for a solid party organization -not only nationwide but in the home states...
...it extends to issues too...
...Kennedy's aloofness from Massachusetts politics does not end with candidates...
...Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the man to whom he was referring, does have a policy toward the striferidden politics of his home state and party...
...Kennedy's policy toward Massachusetts is not new in the family...
Vol. 49 • August 1966 • No. 16
