Candidate at Sea

A handful of Minnesota political amateurs who hope to elect their first U.S.

President last week won their first and easiest victory. The Minnesota G.O.P.

committee officially endorsed their candidate--big, able Lieut. Commander Harold Stassen (who looks, in garrison cap, like a younger Eisenhower). From now on, their work will be more difficult.

They must campaign for a candidate who (because of Navy regulations) cannot admit he is running. They must convince everyone that his candidacy is no stalkinghorse for Wendell Willkie (many a Stassenite is, in fact, no Willkieite).

And they must prove that Stassen has a chance.

The two men who will captain this long-shot effort sat last week in a bare ninth-floor suite of St. Paul's Pioneer Building.

One is a 300-lb., 5-by-5-shaped physician, Dr. R. C. Radabaugh, the State G.O.P.

chairman. The other is small, dark, lean and mild George Crosby, member of a wealthy Minneapolis milling family. Both are Stassen zealots, convinced that his honesty, demonstrated ability and political boldness make him top Presidential timber. The only photographs on their wall are of Abraham Lincoln and Stassen.

Lincoln is more than an ideal; they hope to repeat his political tactics. For they recall that Lincoln, as a Midwestern dark horse, slipped into the White House in 1860 when two titans (Seward and Chase) deadlocked for the G.O.P. nomination.

Titans Willkie and Dewey may deadlock in 1944. They want Stassen to be ready.

Stassen strategy now is to enter Midwest Presidential primaries first and thus convince the rest of the nation that Stassen has real farm strength. His name is already entered in Nebraska (TIME, Oct.18) and Wisconsin. Wherever a State has its own favorite son, Stassen men plan to stay out, to make no enmities. Radabaugh and Crosby are shooting for 200 convention delegates, will settle for 100. Their answer to any criticism that Stassen would be "deserting" his Navy duty: if the U.S.

wishes to promote Stassen from lieutenant commander to Commander in Chief, "it will be his duty to comply." Radabaugh and Crosby insist that they have no go-ahead from Stassen. Their candidate, currently Flag Secretary to Admiral Bill Halsey in the South Pacific, last week added no word to his twice-repeated disavowal of politics for the duration. *In letters to friends in Minnesota, silent Candidate Stassen stayed off politics. Instead he wrote guardedly of a "very strenuous" recent battle mission, described an "enjoyable" dinner with Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt on her battlefronts tour. His proud news: he had taken off 23 pounds since entering the Navy, now weighs a mere 200, has a 33 waist.

Flag Secretary's duties: to rush along the admiral's incoming & outgoing mail, keep his files, be his aide.

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