Exit Texas Tom

Texas first sent Tom Connally to Congress in 1917, and he arrived just in time to cast his first vote for the declaration of war against Germany. He moved up to the Senate in 1929, climbed the seniority ladder, and in nearly nine years as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee labored to translate New and Fair Deal foreign policy into senatorial action.

Texas Tom often talked and acted like a minor statesman, but his instincts on foreign affairs were generally simple, sound and shrewd. In committee hearings, he delighted in pricking such Administration witnesses as Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Presidential Adviser Averell Harriman. Frequently, he provoked howls from the Foreign Offices across the world by his sharp, irascible outbursts. (Recent sample: "France must be told that she cannot rely upon the U.S. to defend her and to hand out large sums of money . . . France must do her duty.")

This week, at 74, old Tom formally bowed out as a candidate for reelection, leaving the field to Texas' anti-Fair Deal Attorney General Price Daniel. Daniel had made remarkable headway in his campaign by exploiting Tom's connections with Truman and Acheson, and questioning (unjustly) Tom's enthusiasm for a bill to give tidelands oil back to Texas. "My friends in Texas say I could be re-elected," said Tom, "but it would require a bitter--no, not bitter--an arduous campaign ... It might kill me."

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