"They Can't Take It Away"

"I'm putting a thousand dollars on the table, and Hubert's putting only one out," mused Massachusetts' Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy one day last week as he studied stacks of memos in his home in Washington's proper Georgetown district. Before him was all available evidence for a cool-headed key decision: whether to enter Wisconsin's Democratic presidential primary, thus risk his front running place by racing Rear-Runner Hubert Humphrey in his own Minnesota backyard. Kennedy decided to take the risk because he felt that a win in this pivotal primary would beat down the resistance of party professionals who control the convention. "If I take Humphrey in Wisconsin," he told a newsman, "they can't take it away from me."

Three days later, in the Kennedy family's Convair, Jack and handsome Wife Jackie flew out to Milwaukee to make the official announcement, also confirm previous plans to enter Nebraska's nonbinding primary. Plain-spoken as always, Kennedy startled reporters by pointing out that his "principal adversary" in the big race was not Humphrey but Texas' Lyndon Johnson, already credited with control of some 350 Southern delegates. Kennedy twitted Johnson as well as Missouri's Stuart Symington for refusing to meet him in the primaries. They remain safely on the side lines, he charged, "hoping to gain the nomination through manipulation of the convention."

If he wins big in Wisconsin Kennedy thinks he can head off any sort of manipulation by building a bloc of votes big enough to win on the first ballot. Future targets: Michigan's 51 votes, officially open to persuasion last week after Governor G. Mennen ("Soapy") Williams admitted that he does not have "any chance" of a place on the ticket; New Jersey's 41 votes, now of little use to once-hopeful Governor Robert Meyner. On the strength of a Wisconsin popular victory, Kennedy backers in New Jersey would put on the pressure for a switch away from Favorite Son Meyner; Michigan's powerful United Auto Workers Union might be ready to urge Soapy aboard the Kennedy bandwagon. With these blocs on top of Wisconsin, the Kennedy bandwagon would be hard to stop. But first Kennedy has to win the thousand-dollar Wisconsin bet.

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