Peace Missions

Too tied down in Congress to get in any campaigning out among the voters, Jack Kennedy made time for peacemaking pilgrimages to two famous Democrats who had rapped him sharply in recent memory. Early in the week he flew up to Hyde Park, N.Y. to spend a couple of hours placating Eleanor Roosevelt, who had fervently backed Adlai Stevenson for the presidential nomination, but now decided that the man she once called immature would do. At week's end Jack headed out to Independence, Mo. to mollify Harry Truman.

Truman, already considerably mollified by phone calls from Kennedy and visits from his envoys, was waiting for Kennedy on the steps of the Truman Library. "Hello, Mr. President," said Kennedy. "How are you?" Beamed the 76-year-old Truman: ''Come on in here, young man. I want to talk to you alone.'' With a hand on Kennedy's elbow, Truman steered him away from Traveling Companions Stuart Symington and Democratic Chairman Henry Jackson for a 30-minute private talk. Obviously enjoying himself, the ex-President then led Kennedy to the library's auditorium, dominated a press conference attended by three dozen newsmen who had followed Kennedy west. Did Truman, they asked, still consider the Los Angeles convention rigged and the candidate immature? Said Truman, a smile flickering on his face: "The Democratic National Convention decided to nominate him for President. The convention is the law for the Democratic Party. I am a Democrat and I follow the law."

After the press conference, Truman took Kennedy on a tour of the library, played him The Blackhawk Waltz on the piano.

From Independence, Kennedy flew to Omaha for a visit to Strategic Air Command headquarters, and then on to Des Moines for a meeting with Democratic farm leaders from 14 states. Kennedy said he had come to Des Moines to learn from the farmers, but he took advantage of the occasion to trundle out his first farm speech of the campaign. It was aimed not so much at farmers' problems as at Richard Nixon and unpopular Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson, Nixon's heaviest political burden in the Farm Belt. Said Kennedy: "Their candidate, they say, has experience in the executive branch. He has participated in its decisions. He has shared in its responsibilities. He has been educated in its programs. When it comes to agriculture, I can only say that disaster has been his experience and Benson has been his teacher." The basic rule of Kennedy's farm-vote strategy, it seemed clear, was going to be: keep Benson on Nixon's back.

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