Trouble for Gerald

North Dakota voters witnessed something new this week. As John Bricker's campaign special chuffed through the state, two Senatorial candidates clambered aboard. One was slick, slippery Gerald Prentice Nye, 51, the old-line, Old Guard isolationist who has warmed one of North Dakota's Senate seats for 19 long years. The other was bespectacled Lynn Upshaw Stambaugh, 54, whom Gerald Nye tossed out by 972 votes in a hot, three-cornered GOPrimary last June (TIME, July 10). Stambaugh, an able Fargo lawyer, onetime (1941-42) National Commander of the American Legion, a man who believes deeply in international cooperation, is running as an independent in the November election.

To save embarrassment, the G.O.P. strategy called for alternate introductions by the candidates. Both jockeyed for official G.O.P. favor. But the significance of this adroit move, obviously sanctioned by the high command, was not lost on North Dakotans. It was plain that Tom Dewey had ordered no more than the merest routine courtesy to Isolationist Nye, and had given Independent Lynn Stambaugh a pat on the back. This was also typical Dewey caution.

Gerald Nye's henchmen hurriedly tried to pooh-pooh this. But North Dakota is one state in which Tom Dewey needs little added help. Observers agree it is solidly Republican; the latest Gallup poll showed Tom Dewey leading by 55%.

Meanwhile, North Dakotans saw more of Gerald Nye than they had at any time in the last six years, as he fretfully stumped the backwoods. But the grain growers and stockmen, who decide North Dakota elections, stayed away. Lynn Stambaugh, a rough and tumble speaker, forthrightly hammered hard at Gerald Nye's stubborn isolationism.

Both candidates would soon hear from Democratic Governor John Moses, now slowly recovering from an abdominal operation at Mayo Clinic. Tall, Norwegian-born John Moses, who is popular enough to have won three terms in the State House in a nominally Republican state, hopes the G.O.P. split is just what he needs to slide him into the Senate.

In the tight, three-cornered race on Nov. 7, anything could happen--and the consummation devoutly wished for all over the U.S. was the defeat of Gerald Prentice Nye.

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