THE SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

THE persistent man who precipitated the Senate investigation of military "muzzling" is South Carolina's J. (for James) Strom Thurmond, 59, one of the Senate's deepest-dyed conservatives and most colorful characters. Even his colleagues from below the Mason-Dixon Line marvel at Thurmond's passionate devotion to the Southern way of life. "Listen at ole Strom out there," said one Southern Senator while Thurmond was in the midst of a stem-winding segregationist speech a few years ago. "He really believes all that stuff."

He does indeed. Born in Edgefield County, S.C., close by the Georgia line, Strom (rhymes with plum) Thurmond is the grandson of a Confederate corporal, the son of a judge and local Democratic leader. His boyhood hero was a friend of his father's: South Carolina's Governor and later Senator Benjamin Ryan ("Pitchfork Ben") Tillman, one of the most unabashed racists in Southern history. Strom graduated from Clemson College, taught a high school course in agriculture for a while, studied law at night in his father's office, finally ran for curcuit court judge and won.

"Loving You As I Do." When World War II came. Thurmond put down his gavel. As a lieutenant colonel in the Army's crack 82nd Airborne Division, Thurmond went into Normandy by glider on Dday, was injured when his glider crashed, stayed in action until his men had secured their objective; his gallantry won him a Bronze Star. Today. Thurmond is a major general in the Army Reserve.

After the war, Thurmond returned to South Carolina where, in 1946, he ran for Governor and was elected. In the statehouse. Thurmond dictated a letter to his attractive secretary. Jean Crouch: "My darling Jean, Loving you as I do, I want you to be my wife without too much delay." Miss Crouch, 23 years younger than the Governor, without a word returned to her office and typed out her acceptance.

During the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, a handful of Southern delegates walked out in protest against a strong civil rights plank in the party platform. Reconvening three days later in Birmingham, rebelling Democrats set themselves up as the States' Rights Party, nominated Governor Strom Thurmond for President. His wife at his side, Thurmond campaigned in earnest, sounded alarms against "the federal gestapo," wound up with a popular vote of 1,169,063 and the electoral votes of Alabama. Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.

Thurmond left the Governor's mansion in 1951 and opened a private law practice in Aiken, S.C. In 1954 he staged a write-in campaign for the Senate seat of Burnet Maybank, who had died between the primary and general elections. Thurmond defeated a candidate who had been handpicked by the state's presiding Democratic leaders and went to Washington. There, he distinguished himself mostly for his windiness: in 1957, during a one-man filibuster against pending civil rights legislation, Thurmond kept talking for 24 hours and 18 minutes, stoked himself through the night with pumpernickel, hamburger meat and malted-milk tablets brought to the Senate by his wife (who was to die three years later, at 33, after surgery for a brain tumor). His performance set a new Senate filibuster record.

Living to Be 150. Last summer, following the General Walker incident, Thurmond turned from civil rights to soldiers' rights. He unleashed a flood of statements and speeches demanding an investigation and maintaining that "among military personnel lies the real bastion of knowledge and understanding of the Communist threat, an understanding and knowledge long since lacking in the White House and the State Department."

Off the floor. Thurmond devotes himself to physical culture activities; he keeps barbells and a chest stretcher in his office, takes daily workouts in the Senate gym, and rides a bicycle. He abstains from whisky, tobacco, coffee, tea and even Coca-Cola, but he drinks prune juice with great gusto. "My God," says a Senate colleague, "the way he's going he ought to live to be 150." If he does, it is still doubtful that he will ever change his mind about any of his causes. For, as a fellow member of the Stennis subcommittee said last week, "Strom is very stubborn."

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