McGovern's Masked Pragmatism
GLASS, ANDREW J.
Washington-USA McGOVERN'S MASKED PRAGMATISM BY ANDREW J. GLASS Washington Pierre A. Rinfret, the New York economist, came to town recently to speak at one of those private luncheons for the...
...They argue that only by plunging into the credentials battle can the promise of the McGovern party reform commission be fulfilled and the Democratic spirit lifted to strike a great blow against Nixon in November...
...McGovern and Mills discussed running together at a private meeting in San Francisco...
...warplanes sold to Israel should not be used across the cease-fire lines, and, on final passage, had last year voted against the bill giving economic and military credits to Israel...
...Piece by piece, McGovern's people have forged a movement that appears to have made his nomination virtually inevitable...
...What are the consequences of ignoring this kind of talk...
...Because it would be a way of putting the curse of Chappaquiddick behind him and because, win or lose, he would be in line to inherit the party from McGovern without permitting potential upstarts like Jay Rockefeller to get a foothold...
...They believe this objective to be at odds with carving a niche for members of minority groups in some fictional Miami Beach Hall of Fame, especially since it would be dismantled anyway as soon as its task is accomplished...
...And they will be skeptical about offering their blessings to anyone else so long as Nixon is actually sending over Phantoms every month...
...The final touch was a two-hour talk in RibicofFs apartment between McGovern and Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin...
...The ambassador regards himself as a soldier and not a diplomat, so it is not surprising that he is more impressed with arms shipments than with private commitments from political leaders, no matter how sweeping they may be...
...McGovern's problem is that he must determine his reality now if he is ever to define his Presidency...
...Presumably they would recognize that a candidate who has the sense to put Wilbur Mills on the ticket would preserve Wall Street...
...On this and other matters, his inner circle remains divided about how best to proceed...
...First, to Mills' way of thinking it would be a fitting means of ending his political career...
...aircraft carriers from 15 to 6. They wonder what kind of impact that would have on the Russians...
...He must either try to reinforce the zeal of his present supporters at the risk of seeming to be extreme, or else attempt to broaden his constituency at the risk of at least partly alienating his original base...
...Even though Mills thinks that most of McGovern's tax and welfare schemes won't work, he has refrained from attacking them...
...Some Democrats who have a high stake in the outcome are now wondering what kind of media candidate McGovern would be against Nixon...
...McGovern has not won the confidence of the Israelis, and without their assent his problem remains...
...To broaden his constituency, McGovern would probably ask Representative Wilbur D. Mills of Arkansas to become his running mate...
...His new position emerged from hours of private conversations with Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff nf Connecticut, whose credentials on the Middle East the Israelis consider impeccable...
...One faction in the McGovern camp, for example, favors supporting a flock of credentials challenges which, if successful, would add to the number of blacks, women and young people already pulling for their man in the convention hall...
...Another McGovern faction contends that, as they see it, the most important thing is for the Democratic National Convention to nominate McGovern in an atmosphere of party unity...
...Again, McGovern is only now beginning to fathom the implications of these alternatives...
...One cannot fault McGovern on effort...
...Nevertheless, judging from his run against Hubert Humphrey in the California primary and his conduct in New York, McGovern tends toward the pragmatic solution whenever he encounters rough going...
...In California, Jewish voters who were otherwise inclined to support him were troubled by his supposed stand on the Middle East—a concern the Humphrey forces exploited fully...
...Why would Mills want to give up his powerful position as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee to enter into a doubtful enterprise with McGovern...
...By convention time McGovern will require a workable Presidential strategy, and how he formulates it is likely to prove a better test of character than anything that happened in California...
...I've never known a President that once he becomes President doesn't act on the realities," Ribicoff told me...
...Advertisements in the Jewish press noted that McGovern had once spoken out for reparations to the Arabs, had proposed that Israel withdraw from all but "insubstantial" portions of the captured Arab territories, had urged that Jerusalem be internationalized, had said U.S...
...He thus earned a reputation as something of a seer, not only among his business clients, as might be supposed, but also in the White House, where he was employed as a consultant on the recommendation of the President's friends...
...I think I came over as the cooler of the two men," McGovern said...
...I suppose to McGovern's way of thinking that should have resolved his Jewish problem...
...second, and perhaps more important, it is his only chance of ever becoming President...
...It's what kind of feeling, what kind of character they have which is really important," he added, as the color cameras recorded the scene...
...It is worth noting that until the wage-price freeze was announced, Rinfret had been advising his listeners at similar gatherings to raise prices to the hilt on the assumption that the Administration was not serious about curbing inflation and could not or would not do anything to stop them...
...One or the other of these Presidential slates has a good possibility of emerging...
...Although McGovern is quite content at the prospect of stripping Nixon of his cherished Presidential tinsel, he has yet to devise an effective strategy for coping with the business community's alarm...
...At the recent luncheon, Rinfret advised his listeners to convert at least half their investment portfolio into cash should George McGovern win the Democratic nomination for President...
...His decision could very well come on the Vice-Presidential nomination...
...To reinforce his constituency, McGovern would probably ask Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts to join him on the ticket...
...unfortunately for him, politics doesn't always work that way...
...Why would Kennedy do it...
...Is McGovern paying any attention to such warnings...
...All these sentiments were codified with the help of Milton S. Gwirtz-man, who is Ethel Kennedy's lawyer and who wrote some of Edmund Muskie's best material until that river went dry...
...When the time came, McGovern covered his bald spot with a yarmulke, presented his program to a packed North Hollywood congregation and was an instant hit...
...All one can say at this point is that there is something appealing about a candidate who on a hot Memorial Day campaigns by swimming a few brisk laps in his Los Angeles hotel pool, and then gently glides over to the side to assess his performance during the televised debates as his arms and shoulders bob above the water...
...Tapping Mills would also be one way to signal Rinfret and his business friends not to convert their holdings into cash...
...McGovern's new program included an $85 million grant to assist Israel in resettling immigrants from the Soviet Union, U.S...
...Among other things, the financial leaders asked him to assess the current political scene in so far as it affected their economic interests...
...Although Mills is an Establishment politician, his candidacy would show the Wallace supporters that their concerns had not been totally ignored...
...Teddy's partisans are in McGovern's inner circle...
...What truly impresses Rabin and his like-minded colleagues in the Israeli hierarchy is that McGovern favors cutting back the overall number of U.S...
...At the same time, he tries to mask his moves from appearing to be pragmatically motivated, and this might cast him down in the pit with 1972's Presidential discards...
...recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, American efforts to persuade the Russians of the wisdom of a nonimposed Middle East settlement, an open-ended commitment to supply American arms to Israel, and a pledge to become the first President to visit Israel while in office (on the occasion of its 25th anniversary...
...It was not likely that McGovern would beat Nixon, the economist said, but if he did they should put all their holdings into cash...
...McGovern's handling of his "Jewish problem" is a case in point...
...But their success has not dissuaded the captains of commerce and industry from regarding the South Dakotan as a radical figure who could do them great harm if he ever came to power...
...McGovern's response was to fashion a new record without ever pausing to explain or defend the old one...
...Still, McGovern far outdistanced Humphrey as a media candidate in California, although toward the end his people became so cocky that the Minneso-tan nearly mauled him...
...He has not devised a plan to deal with the issue...
...A McGovern-Teddy slate would in effect enable the Democrats to run two Presidential campaigns against Nixon's one—a combination emphasizing McGovern's sincerity and Kennedy's glamor, with both men pledged to fundamental policy changes...
...Washington-USA McGOVERN'S MASKED PRAGMATISM BY ANDREW J. GLASS Washington Pierre A. Rinfret, the New York economist, came to town recently to speak at one of those private luncheons for the top crust of the business world that never make the Dow-Jones wire...
...Both Teddy and Mills appear willing, under the right conditions, to make the race...
Vol. 55 • June 1972 • No. 13
