The Challenger

In his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller last week made a daring, four-day, 35-appearance assault on Nixon Country--the Pacific Coast--and came out swinging. In California, heartland of the Nixon-for-President movement, Rocky got a few bruises, changed hardly a vote. His luck was better in the friendlier climate of Washington and Oregon (Oregon's crucial primary will be held next May). But wherever he went. Rockefeller left the strong impression of a slugger who is going to wage an all-out campaign for the nomination he wants.

The Rockefeller invasion was shrewdly planned, and the mere sound of the Rockefeller trumpets from afar worried many Nixon supporters. "A synthetic boom could easily be organized," warned Nixonite Thomas Pike in a Paul Revere letter widely mailed to Los Angeles Republicans the week before Rocky's trip. But as Rockefeller first arrived on the scene, his every move seemed to be in the wrong direction. Early morning smog forced his plane to land in Burbank, 25 miles from Los Angeles' International Airport and the official reception. After an hour-long trip in a rattletrap bus, Rocky finally caught up with the official welcome from an incongruous dance band (hired by the sea-captain husband of the movies' retired Marion Davies), from a corporal's guard of Cal-Rock boosters, and from National Committeeman Edward Shattuck, who wore a silver and blue pin with the word "Nixon" etched on it.

High-Flown Speeches. Everywhere Rocky went, the shade of Nixon was there to haunt him. So many Nixon supporters turned out for a big dinner at the Hollywood Biltmore that some of Rockefeller's own fans had trouble getting tickets. "Nixon Now" banners and badges bloomed everywhere, and the mere mention of the Vice President's name drew storms of applause. A huge photomural of Dick Nixon's face (flanked by the images of Dwight Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln) stared fixedly down at the challenger. Rockefeller's speeches drew respectful attention, but they were not much help. For his themes, Rocky stuck to above-it-all international problems, and his formal speeches were so high-flown, as Scripps-Howard Correspondent Albert M. Colegrove reported, that they "orbited right over the heads of his audience." (Sample: "The concept of the self-sufficient nation-state cannot be the essential instrument of the future.")

Rocky even managed to offend the television crews at a Los Angeles press conference by insisting on dividing it into two parts--one for the general press, one for TV. The technique had worked well enough back East, but the Angelenos would have none of it. As the TV crews noisily packed up and marched out in a mass huff, Rockefeller observed wryly: "A lesson in how to win friends and influence people."

Only when he threw away the script, turned on his famed charm and hand-pumped his way through crowded rooms did Rockefeller make the impression he sought. And in the most careful, subtle way, he limned the first faint outlines of his campaign strategy. Rockefeller, the independent, offhanded (and astute) winner of the 1958 New York campaign for Governor, is out to convince the party regulars that 1) he is a serious organization Republican; 2) he has no quarrel with the Administration, but the country needs new men for new and unprecedented problems; and 3) competition among candidates is healthy ("I think it's useful to have discussion and excitement about candidates").

Needled Suggestion. At a San Francisco reception for Republican leaders, ardent Nixon supporters all, Rocky finally permitted himself to lose some of his smiling composure and got in some telling licks. Margaret Leete, president of the Republican Women's Federation, needled him with a suggestion: "You've always been first man, but now you should be second man." Flushing, Rocky shot back: "But you don't know me." When a debate on the merits of being Nixon's Vice President for eight years persisted, Rockefeller turned on his tormentors and snapped: "Don't go selecting a President who's got to be propped up." Then he followed up with a challenge: "You'll know before the convention who's going to win."

In Oregon, Rockefeller responded in kind to the warm welcome of young (37) Governor Mark O. Hatfield, who, he said, would make a "wonderful" Vice President. And his feinting attacks moved closer to Dick Nixon. Following a speech at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, a student asked Rockefeller if he thought Nixon could get enough Democratic and independent support to win the presidency. Rocky, for the first time, expressed some oblique doubts. "I wouldn't know the answer to that," he solemnly told his 8,500 listeners.

As Rocky flew back toward New York --with brief but enthusiastic stopovers in Seattle and Boise, Idaho--he left no doubt that he was looking for a fight. Even the most devoted followers of Dick Nixon could no longer assume that their man can win without first meeting Rockefeller's challenge.

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