The Teddy Issue

Many doctrinaire liberal Democrats do not quite approve of President Kennedy's brand of pragmatic liberalism, but they have little political choice but to back Jack--and, for that matter, Brother Bobby. When it comes to the Massachusetts Senate candidacy of young Brother Teddy, however, they seize with a vengeance upon the opportunity to dissent.

It was in this spirit that the National Committee for an Effective Congress (among its better-known leaders are Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger. father of White House Staffer Arthur Jr., Poet Archibald MacLeish, Harvard Law Professor Mark De Wolfe Howe, Political Scientist Hans Morgenthau) last week issued an unusual public report that amounted to a devastating blast against Teddy and an audible tut-tut at his big brother:

"Teddy's undistinguished academic career has not been followed by a record of serious personal accomplishment. He was his brother's pre- and post-convention manager for the Rocky Mountain and Western states--the great majority of which the President did not carry in 1960.

He has made a few trips to foreign lands, including the usual political Three-I' circuit: Ireland, Italy and Israel. And he went through the motions of serving for a few months in an appointive job as one of a score of assistant district attorneys in Boston.

"The fact that Teddy's candidacy involves exploitation of the reputation of the President is arousing widespread resentment. Virtually everyone in public life has been approached by friends who are deeply troubled by the implications of nepotism and disregard of precedent in this candidacy. Their loss of respect for a President can have profoundly damaging effect upon his ability to lead the country. Congressmen feel that a President must have the moral authority to come to them and ask them, at least by implication, to set aside their personal interests in the national interest. Mr. Kennedy's toleration of a brother basing his candidacy on the claim that 'if you send me to Washington, my voice will be heard is weakening his ability to make Congressmen responsive to such an appeal.

"Teddy's candidacy is an affront to the Senate. The members like to regard the Senate as an institution of some distinction--and membership in it as an honor earned through some measure of achievement and service. They do not like the spectacle of the President of the U.S.

acting as though he considers them meaningless. Democrats running in marginal districts or states have indicated fear of what the Republicans will do with the Teddy issue, capping the picture of the President's other relatives and friends swarming around official Washington. Candidates who feel threatened by this are a bit sardonic at presidential expressions of concern for their elections. The President cannot disclaim responsibility for his brother's candidacy."

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