By Remote Control

Without even being allowed to campaign, a young Navy officer on duty more than 300 miles away last week walked off with the Republican nomination to Congress from Massachusetts' Sixth District. Lieut. Commander William H. Bates, U.S.N., was running for the seat his father held until his death in the Eastern Air Lines plane crash over Washington National Airport last November. Candidate Bates, 32, a football star at Brown and a Navy veteran of the Pacific, ran afoul of Navy regulations against politicking and had to stick to his job as ships' service officer, but he had the doorbell-ringing help of women's organizations in the traditionally Republican Sixth. * His Democratic opponent in the Feb. 14 finals: Richard M. Russell, 58, three times mayor of Cambridge.

*A district that includes most of the original gerrymander and still has some of its distended shape. In 1812, when Elbridge Gerry was governor of Massachusetts, his legislature carved up the state's districts to keep the Republicans of that day in power and the Federalists out. When they got through, the Essex South District came out lizard-shaped. Federalist Editor Benjamin Russell had a map of the new district in his office, and on it Artist Gilbert Stuart one day added head, claws and wings and remarked: "That will do for a salamander." Replied Editor Russell: "Better say a Gerrymander!" and a useful word was born.

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