Painful Outburst

In deference to teetotaling Mormon George Romney, his aides stuck strictly to sherbet punch during Michigan's Republican convention. But by convention's end, they could probably have used a real drink. Heckled by opposition within his own party, Romney had lost his temper and slashed out at Democrats in a fashion that was likely to haunt him.

Unhanded. The trouble began just a couple of nights before the Republicans met in Detroit to welcome Romney as the G.O.P.'s candidate for Governor and nominate the rest of his slate. Into the Statler Hilton walked a well-tailored man named Edward Kelly, 37. From an unsuspecting night clerk he wangled Room 1020, just two doors down the hall from Romney's headquarters. As it turned out, Kelly is state coordinator of Michigan's John Birch Society--and Candidate Romney has publicly promised to purge his party of its Birchers.

Romney and his followers were furious when Kelly hung a Birch sign outside his door and began peddling the Birch Society's Blue Book at $2 a copy to people heading for Romney's suite. At one point, someone tried to tear down Kelly's sign.

There was a scuffle, and Kelly played it for all he was worth. Cried he to one of the tusslers: "Unhand me, sir." Romney's men tried to persuade the management to toss Kelly out--or at least to transfer him to another room, preferably in the basement. But Kelly would not budge.

At first, Romney himself tried to stay above the battle. Then, at a 2:30 a.m.

meeting with newsmen, he switched the subject to Democratic extremism. Said he: "Their extremist group is the Communist Party elements. Their problem is in the form of Communism, not in the form of Birchism. That has been historically true. In the last 30 to 35 years, they [the Communists] have worked themselves into positions of importance not only in Government, but into the ranks of the party. I think that Communism is still a problem in the Democratic Party." Was Romney implying that Michigan's Democratic Party is presently infiltrated by Communists? Romney hedged: "It's difficult to say . . ." Appalled. Democrats, holding their own convention in Grand Rapids, made the most of Romney's outburst. Incumbent Governor John Swainson found it "incredible." Lieutenant Governor T. John Lesinski pronounced himself "shocked and appalled." The convention roared through a resolution labeling Romney a "political slanderer." There was no recourse but for beleaguered George Romney to issue a "clarification." He had never said that "there are Communists at the present time inside the Democratic Party." He did "not believe that the Democratic Party would knowingly harbor a Communist within the party." He simply thought that both parties "must be constantly on the alert" against infiltration from either the right or the left.

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