Getting Personal

The campaign for the Republican presidential nomination was getting personal.

Barry Goldwater, who spent three days campaigning in New Hampshire last week, complained that Nelson Rockefeller, immediately prior to President Kennedy's assassination and the 30-day political moratorium that followed, had issued misleading statements about Goldwater's views on such subjects as the income tax and the United Nations. "It hurt me because I couldn't do anything to set the record straight on these issues during the moratorium," said Goldwater. Moreover, he insisted that Rocky's own views were downright Democratic. "I've been surprised," he said, "at the number of President Johnson's points Rockefeller agrees with and supports."

"I Can't Tell You." As he had shown before, Goldwater was impressive when enunciating his general principles. But when pressed for details, he tended to weaken. Thus, in Wolfeboro, he insisted that the cost of U.S. Government could and should be cut by $5 billion to $7 billion. But when it came to what reductions should be made, he faltered. "I can't tell you where there is fat," he said. "But I have definite suspicions as to where it is."

Governor Rockefeller, who sent his $2.9 billion pay-as-you-go budget to the New York state legislature last week, spent only half a day in New Hampshire--but he drew good crowds and peppered them with some scathing references to Goldwater's campaign. "There is nothing so powerful as truth," he said. "I think it's just about time we had some truth in this campaign." He called for "an end to the attempt to distort, to deceive and to trick" Republicans into voting for a candidate who did not measure up to such G.O.P. heroes as Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower. Sometimes quoting from Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative, Rocky ridiculed Goldwater's views on foreign policy, the income tax and the U.N. Concluded he: "Unless you get mad about deceit, distortion and downright lying, I can accomplish nothing beyond making friends."

Always in the Ring. Having thus denounced his foremost announced rival, Rockefeller could feel complete. Earlier in the week, before going to Washington to speak to a convention of Young Republicans, he had had some scornful words about an unannounced opponent. Richard Nixon, he said sarcastically, is "lurking in the wings ready to make the supreme sacrifice."

Nixon was, indeed, appearing increasingly available. "I never wear a hat," he said half jokingly to an interviewer, "so it must always be in the ring." Among other top G.O.P. presidential possibilities, Michigan's Governor George Romney received a polite reception from the Young Republicans in Washington, and Pennsylvania's Governor William Scranton got a brusque brushoff from Goldwater. Recently Scranton asked Barry to make no attempt to win convention delegates from Pennsylvania. Scranton explained that he wants his state's delegation to go to the San Francisco convention uncommitted. But Goldwater declined to cooperate. Said he: "I'm not going to interfere with anyone in Pennsylvania who wants to do anything on my behalf."

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