Coming Attraction

Just like the cowboys in the horse opera, California Republicans buckled on their shooting irons and got set for the biggest gubernatorial gun fight in all California history. The way the good guys and bad guys shaped up, there was no mistaking the real claim to be staked: Washington.

Republican Senator William Fife Knowland, who has announced his retirement from the Senate in 1958, is now clearly out to take California's statehouse away from his fellow Republican, Governor Goodwin J. Knight, next year. If this is done, any reasonable scenario calls for Knowland to head straight for the presidential nomination in 1960--and run head-on into an even bigger battle with another ambitious Californian, Vice President Richard Nixon.

When he rode grimly into Los Angeles territory last week, Big Bill Knowland set about doing away with his transparent pretense that nothing political was on his mind. Nope, he told newsmen, there was nothing new to announce concerning his future plans. Yep, he and the missis were planning to take a vacation. And then he would "tour the state from the Oregon border to the Mexican border." Was this to be all one big vacation trip? Big Bill shifted his gun belt. "You can't," he said without cracking a smile, "combine a vacation with a campaign."

Potshots. Showing up at a $100-a-plate dinner thrown for him at the Hollywood Palladium by 2,200 well-heeled Republicans, Knowland got a raft of solid applause, intoned a rambling speech that was significant only for intimations of his political future. Potshot at Ike: the budget should be cut--by $3 billion, no less. Potshot at Knight (who was avoidably absent from the dinner): "The people of California are entitled to select their own nominees for public office and not to be handed a selected group where the public has no real choice ... in determining the nominees for governor." Big Bill, it was easy to see, was not just riding a rocking horse.

For his part, "Goodie" Knight saddled up, too. He has no intention of giving way to Knowland, for easygoing Goodie likes being governor as much as he dislikes Knowland--and nearly as much as he dislikes Richard Nixon. And he is stone-cold to any deal that might have him running for Knowland's vacant seat in the Senate. Even in a state that already has a Knowland and a Nixon, Goodie thinks about 1960, and that potent weapon, the 70-man state delegation to the G.O.P. Convention. And beyond that, maybe even the big white ranch house down yonder in Washington. But just as he is faced on the one side by Knowland's smoking guns, so is Knight hemmed in on the other by the long-range rifles of Nixon, who might take part of the delegation away from the governor. To sit tight in his saddle, then. Goodie Knight kicked up the dust and ranged up and down the state last week rounding up a posse.

The results were surprising. Unpopular as he is among many of the big political and financial party-sheriffs, Knight found support from some well-heeled San Franciscans who feel that a primary scrap with Knowland would split the party and bring on the abhorred Democrats. Among the might-be Knight riders were those who are dissatisfied with Knowland's run-ins with Eisenhower, and even some who have disliked Knight all along, especially for his prolabor record (which Knight easily defends by pointing out the advantages of being a Republican governor with strong labor support). Reluctant to choose up sides, the San Franciscans were inclined to admit that the easiest way to avoid trouble was to join Knight's posse. But the Republican moneybags in big-vote Los Angeles seemed clearly to belong to Bill

Knowland as far as 1958 was concerned. And as of this week, Knowland is reckoned the probable winner in the duel for the governor nomination.

Showdown. Meanwhile, back in the bunkhouse, Ranch Foreman Dick Nixon was shining up his hardware. He, too, is caught in the fracas abuilding. If Knight holds on to his job, there most certainly will have to be "adjustments." as one party man put it, to enable Nixon to control the 1960 convention delegation. Goodie Knight's longstanding distrust of Nixon is a history written in four-letter words--and it would be mighty embarrassing for a presidential hopeful not to control the delegation from his home state. Although no deals were directly made, it was not for social reasons that a Nixon lieutenant. California Congressman Pat Hillings, paid a call recently on Goodie Knight. Hillings remarked blithely that "I was not carrying a message to Garcia," but the message, nevertheless, was delivered: Dick Nixon most certainly does not want to see Bill Knowland walk away with the governor's job.

At week's end Big Bill, unloading a sizable store of ammunition, was still shooting away at the Administration's jumpy feet with blasts at the budget, Ike's program for aid to Poland and Yugoslavia. Those are the opening shots; next comes the full attack on Goodie Knight, and then, if Knowland wins, the loot: the state delegation for 1960. Lacking control of that delegation, Dick Nixon will have to meet up with Knowland on the deserted political streets of California for a showdown scene that will make the denouement in High Noon look as tame as a tale from Uncle Wiggily.

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