Room at the Democratic Top?

...Thus the conference, held 10 days before the crucial vote and also attended by Speaker of the House Carl Albert (D.-Okla...

...At Mansfield's request, the Senate, in an unusual move, rescinded its decision, and Mansfield proceeded to remove all reference to it from the Congressional Record before publication of the proceedings...

...He declared-to the astonishment of the assembled lawmakers-that he regarded the letter as a "privileged communication" until he read it to the Senate as a whole...

...On this, too, the present silence is deafening...

...As the floor manager of the bill, I wish I had known that...

...Stephen Nordlinger is a Washington reporter for the Baltimore Sun...

...Yet on Capitol Hill these days one can hear growing rumblings of discontent with the man from Montana...

...Despite the plethora of Democratic Presidential candidates and potential candidates, their ideological divisions are hardly so great that Mansfield, if he chose to, could not find common ground to stand on...

...Democratic Senators, to be sure, still shy away even privately from stating an opinion about Mansfield's leadership...

...I wish to say to the Senator from Montana that I wish he had showed it to me," Tunney remonstrated, his voice quivering with anger...

...But neither Ford nor the Democrats had indicated any new interest in granting concessions...

...Today that objective has been shunted aside...

...merely provided the President with an excellent opportunity to make some political hay by offering a brief, 45-day revival of price controls...

...Meanwhile, the Montanan may have put the first chink in his armor of rectitude by engaging in a bit of political maneuvering he probably would not have considered earlier in his career, when he was more alert to what the Senate "club" would sanction...

...Mansfield may voice his concern about Congress' low reputation, they complain, yet he is partly responsible for its public image...

...Regaining his composure, he argued persuasively that the Ford approach would "gut" the measure by dispersing enforcement resources throughout the country for a problem that existed only in the Southern states and a few pockets elsewhere...

...Still, his growing legion of detractors insists that the trip exemplified his bad political judgment...

...Senator John V. Tunney (D.-Cal...

...If a vote were taken tomorrow among these legislative assistants responsible for the daily workload on the Hill, the Montanan would no doubt be deposed...

...Last November, for instance, in anticipation of heavy Democratic majorities in the Senate and House, Mansfield said he wanted to pass a national health insurance program...

...He is a man whose word is totally trusted...

...Fortunately for the Majority Leader, who would have been blamed if the President had prevailed, Tunney succeeded in regrouping his forces and the Ford proposal was shot down...

...To a significant number of those who must work with him, he has come to represent not simply high standards of personal conduct but also the collapse of Congressional leadership...

...And Mansfield does indeed appear to have become insensitive to some of the most basic requirements of his role...

...Two months later, facing charges of favoring a political crony, the Majority Leader withdrew the nomination entirely...

...the bill's floor manager, his face drained after having fought off one undermining amendment after another, confronted his most formidable challenge in an unexpected last-minute message from President Ford read by none other than Mansfield in his capacity as majority leader...

...Although spared that time, fellow Democrats have accused Mansfield in private of weakening their attempt to override the Administration's veto of the bill that would have extended price controls on domestic oil by six months...

...He twisted no arms...

...He made himself a statesman above the battle, who loved to say that the Senate without direction would ultimately manage to "work its will" in the best interests of the nation...

...I had no idea that the President in his letter was going to indicate that he felt that there ought to be nationwide coverage...

...For without consulting members of his party who have a keen interest in the matter, Mansfield initiated a meeting with the Chief Executive to try to work out a compromise...

...By then, though, the luster of the Mansfield name had been somewhat tarnished...

...A former professor of Asian history, Mansfield turned his attention to American activities in Indochina, letting Senator Robert C. Byrd (D.W...

...This advocated broadening the scope of the legislation to make it apply generally nationwide, on the seemingly unassailable grounds of equity...

...In addition, they point out that his authority has been further eroded by his general reluctance to enter the political fray against Ford...

...the assistant majority leader, handle the day-to-day administrative chores...

...He was unaware that copies had been freely circulated to the Republicans and to White House newsmen...

...What particularly threw the Californian off balance was learning, amid the confusion, that Mansfield had received the White House proposal the previous morning, but had not notified him...

...But he shuns this role and, consequently, his party is commonly perceived as rudderless, as simply marking time in disarray...

...Nonetheless, it should be stressed, there is no sign that Senate Democrats are even thinking seriously of a change...

...BY STEPHEN NORDLINGER Washington Mike Mansfield, the Democratic leader of the Senate, symbolizes rectitude in public life at a time when voters suspect politicians of being devious at best and corrupt at worst...

...Unlike the one-man Johnson show, the Mansfield Senate became an arena of 100 free-speaking individuals...

...Near the close of last year, Mansfield quietly tried to have his lifelong friend and campaign treasurer, Joseph P. Meglen, appointed to the Federal Election Commission set up to institute post-Watergate reforms...

...Many of their staff members, however, have been openly expressing their contempt for the man who, they say, allowed the Upper Chamber to drift for weeks this year as it vainly tried to decide the winner of the contested New Hampshire Senatorial election...

...Caught off guard by the suggestion, Tunney was aghast, and he floundered as he tried to come up with a strategy to counter it...

...Often, he displays little awareness of the intricacies of major questions being debated or his party's needs as it heads into the 1976 Presidential election...

...By voice vote the Senate confirmed the nominee, but objections promptly were raised that no committee hearings had been held...

...It was not, and they feel he paved the way for defeat on an issue that will be of vital importance to the '76 campaign...

...At 72 Mike Mansfield, the venerated Washington elder, remains the unchallenged head of a restless, uncoordinated band of followers...

...There is no doubt that Mansfield, who values highly his role as a conciliator, went to the White House in good faith...

...He has, moreover, long enjoyed the respect of his Washington colleagues...

...Similarly, he mentioned the need to enact income tax reforms...

...Afterward, Senate Democrats were so furious that they pressured Mansfield into releasing a statement urging that the veto be overridden...

...involvement in Vietnam placed him at the center of one of the last decade's paramount issues, but when the war faded as a topic of controversy, and the Democrats elected their widely heralded "veto-proof Congress," the Majority Leader's shortcomings began emerging more clearly...

...In that capacity, he could travel across the country offering alternatives to Administration policies...

...While Albert is the nation's top Democrat in terms of Presidential succession, Mansfield, as Senate majority leader, might be considered his party's chief elected official...

...One such moment occurred at the height of a tense debate this past summer over extending the Voting Rights Act, a subject that rekindled the passionate '60s dispute between North and South...

...His opposition to the U.S...

...Embarrassed by his fumble, Mansfield tried for a recovery with limited success...

...On occasion, irritation at his blunders actually breaks to the surface on the Senate floor...

...Mansfield's manner has always been soft and easygoing, traits that his fellow legislators on both sides of the aisle especially valued when he took over from his often highhanded, wheeling-dealing predecessor, Lyndon Johnson...

...He shunned confrontations...