The Sound of Footsteps

Even though he took over the G.O.P.'s front-running position months ago, Barry Goldwater was still nervous about the sound of footsteps behind him. "God knows," he complained, "I haven't sought this position. I'm still wishing something would happen to get me out of all this. It's all a little frightening."

Barry felt beleaguered. "Sometimes, he said, "I wonder why we ought to even bother with an announcement. If we say I'm going to run, everybody will just say that's no news. Rockefeller's announcement sure fell with a thud. And if I say I'm not going to run, I d better get out of the country first."

Appearing at a Better Business Bureau banquet in Chicago, Goldwater told 1,800 people that "I have my political hat on tonight." Then he laced into the Kennedy Administration, saying that the New Frontier has produced "1,026 days of wasted spending, wishful thinking, unwarranted intervention, wistful theories and waning confidence." The alliteration was admirable, but Barry proved once again that he delivers a formal speech with woeful woodenness.

Still, he is wonderful in the give and take of press conferences and other question-and-answer occasions. And in these, he seems to recover all the confidence he has lost during more stilted sessions. Asked last week about all the criticisms of his conservative views, Barry replied like the old Barry. "If they want Goldwater," he said, "they're going to have to take him the way I am. I'm not going to change my spots."

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