Finally, Zeroing In

Like their less ambitious party colleagues, the busy Republican presidential hopefuls, after several weeks of higgledy-piggledy campaigning, final ly seemed to be zeroing in on President Johnson's foreign policy, or the lack thereof.

Tailoring his talk to the locale, Barry Goldwater told an audience of 400 in dice-shooting Reno, Nev., that Johnson's handling of foreign affairs reminded him of "a fellow that just crapped out six times in a row." In New Hampshire, Nelson Rockefeller said the President "has shown a lack of ability to keep on top of the important things in foreign policy." Richard Nixon said in Cincinnati that he found it hard "to name any place in the world where the U.S. is not being blackmailed, threatened, insulted or knocked around by some pip-squeak dictator." Pennsylvania's Governor William Scranton said foreign policy was becoming the No. 1 campaign issue in 1964, urged the G.O.P. to "take advantage of this."

"Less of a Menace." But then, back to the higgledy-piggledy. Goldwater, whose campaign to date has had all the zip of a snapped rubber band, left New Hampshire's sub-zero climate for a region he finds more hospitable, the Far West. In Portland, he was greeted by an airport crowd of 300 sporting cowboy hats with the AuH.s0 symbol and signs inscribed, OUT WEST WE LIKE BARRY BEST, and he drew 5,000 with a speech at the city's new Coliseum. Arriving in San Francisco, Goldwater told newsmen that the John Birch Soci ety's latest attack on John F. Kennedy as a Communist dupe was "detestable," but he refused to disavow Birchite support. "The John Birch Society is far less of a menace to the U.S. than the Americans for Democratic Action or the U.A.W.," he said. "These are the people who advocate socialism." Up on Nob Hill, Barry got an enthusiastic reception from 2,000 at the Commonwealth Club, and in Sacramento, he predicted that the winner of California's June 2 primary "will be the Republican nominee." Added he: "I intend to win in California--win big."

Throughout the week Barry hit the theme of party unity, warning, "We can't afford the luxury of infighting." He said that he and Rocky were actually closer on the issue of "welfarism" than such Democrats as, say, Wayne Morse and Harry Byrd. But that still left them mighty far apart, and Barry could not resist wisecracking that a race between Rockefeller and Johnson "would be a choice of Tweedledee and Tweedledum."

Snowshoes & Skis. Meanwhile, Rocky and Senator Margaret Chase Smith were stepping up their campaigns in New Hampshire. The lady from Maine rose with the sun, stomped around in a beaver-skin coat to shield her from temperatures that reached 29 below zero, donned snowshoes to clump around in the Canadian border town of Pittsburg (pop. 200). Annoyed that press reports invariably mention her age, she said that "Winston Churchill was three years older than I when he first became Prime Minister." (Actually, he was 65 to Maggie's 66.) She also proved that she has energy enough for a pair of 33-year-olds, squeezing in two hours of campaigning before breakfast at 8:30 and making stops in places like Ellsworth, which has all of nine registered voters.

As for Rocky, he rambled through picturesque hamlets in a chartered bus, seemed to thrive on an endless round of "Hi there, fellah" sessions on frozen street corners. Happy, five months pregnant, stayed at home, but she managed to make the papers anyway by taking two of her four children--Wendy and Jamie--to hear the Beatles at Carnegie Hall (see SHOW BUSINESS). Rocky dropped in on Albany long enough to pose with a bunch of Boy Scouts, looking for all the world as if he were the one who had just been awarded the Eagle badge. But he devoted most of his energy to New Hampshire. He climbed a 5-ft. ladder to shake hands with three girls who were leaning out of a second-story window in Dover, dropped in at a Contoocook beauty parlor to chat with the ladies, and only once during the week did he seem slightly rattled. That came during a visit to Mount Sunapee State Park, when he was shaking hands with skiers and a six-year-old boy protested: "Rockefeller, will you get off my skis!"

You First. Among the rest of the field, Nixon visited Philadelphia and Cincinnati, laid on trips to Florida and Illinois in his avid nonpursuit of the nomination. Candidate Harold Stassen, who looks and sounds more like a non-candidate than the noncandidates themselves, admitted to Harvard's Young Republicans that he was "at the bottom of the totem pole" in New Hampshire. Even that was an understatement. And in Detroit, Michigan's Governor George Romney breakfasted with Pennsylvania's Scranton in the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel, and each tried to persuade the other to jump into the race. Scranton said he would be simply "delighted" if Romney would run. Romney said, "I would be delighted if Governor Scranton would." All in all, said Scranton afterward, "it was sort of an Alphonse and Gaston act." The only trouble with that kind of act is that it can be kept up too long.

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