The Cinched Nomination

In its main order of business, the 1964 Republican National Convention was all but over before it began. Barry Goldwater's presidential nomination was as close to a cinch as anything in politics can be.

But that conclusion did very little concluding. Still stretching ahead was the steep, stone-stubbled campaign road to November. And in their anger and anguish at Goldwater's imminent nomination, Barry's Republican critics seized on battle cries that will echo hither and yon--and be picked up by the Democrats--throughout the coming campaign.

When Forthrightness Is Wrong. Candidate William Scranton put it one way. He told the sparse airport audience that greeted his arrival in San Francisco that he would continue his anti-Goldwater fight to keep the G.O.P. from becoming "another name for some ultra-rightist society."

Nelson Rockefeller avowed to the convention Platform Committee that the party cannot expect to win if it seeks to serve "the narrow interests of a minority within a minority"--that is, the Goldwater interests. Henry Cabot Lodge said: "We must never countenance such a thing as a trigger-happy foreign policy which would negate everything we stand for and destroy everything we hope for--including life itself. Many times in foreign relations the thing to do is not to be forthright." Michigan's Governor George Romney asked that the G.O.P. "unequivocally repudiate extremism of the right and the left and reject their efforts to infiltrate or attach themselves to our party or its candidates."

Suicide in Full View? What all this strong talk added up to was the proposition that Goldwater's nomination would cause an irreparable party split, that by nominating Barry, the G.O.P., in effect, would be committing suicide in full public view.

But would it? Though many Democrats might desire it, the answer was no. If Goldwater, by some miracle of political chemistry, were to be denied the nomination, there would indeed be a split, even the possibility of a third party formed by his followers. But with Barry on the very brink of victory, there was no evidence whatever that his Republican critics had enough cohesiveness to make 1964 a Bull Moose year.

Goldwater's nomination may cause some professional Republicans, for their own particular and perhaps understandable reasons, to stray from the national party fold. Among these is New York's Senator Kenneth Keating, up for re-election this year in a northeastern industrial state where Barry has little appeal. Keating has decided to wage his Senate campaign as an "independent" Republican if Goldwater is nominated, and last week he hinted that he might even vote for Lyndon Johnson in November. "I'm a good Republican," said Keating, "but not a hidebound Republican."

Next Step. As for all the talk that Goldwater represents only a small segment of the Republican spectrum, that he would be the nominee of "a minority within a minority," Barry had his own facts and figures to point at. After all, the overwhelming delegate strength that he brought to San Francisco came from all sections of the U.S., and could by no means be narrowly categorized as a mere handful of "extremists."

None of this means that Goldwater is going to have anything but a desperately difficult time trying to beat President Johnson. His party, if not split, is deeply divided. Having surged to the nomination as the G.O.P.'s Mr. Conservative, he must next conciliate and corral his party's more liberal members if he is to have a chance of election. In other words, his theme from now on must be party unity.

He made a good start in San Francisco. Warnings went out to his workers, who were thronging into the city, not to be too obstreperous in their enthusiasm. When the anti-Goldwater forces tried to pick a fight over the party platform, Barry was all sweet reason. He could and would, he said, heartily endorse almost any document the Platform Committee chose to write, and in the unlikely event that the committee were to produce a platform upon which he could not stand, he would "do the only honest thing; I would withdraw from the race."

All for One & One for All. More than anything else, Barry preached party unity in his appearance before the Platform Committee, which furnished some of the few dramatic moments of the pre-convention week. At times his harsh, hoarse voice took on a quality that seemed to electrify his audience, which interrupted him 35 times with cheers and hand clapping.

In that statement, Goldwater spoke less of the arguments that divide Republicans than of "the great base of principle" that unites them. "It is urgent," he said, "that we revitalize our constitutional principles in all branches of government, that we reverse the accelerating drift into arbitrary and distant power by reclaiming our legacy of checks and balances."

Goldwater said he was startled by the few times that previous speakers had mentioned Communism. But he was quite willing to make it an issue. "The standard we raise at home is one to which men can repair around the world," he said. "In our reluctance to impose our own ways upon others, we must not be blind to the fact that the world, whether we like it or not, is in a time of choosing . . . When we speak of peace today, and the threats to it, we must, whether we like it or not, speak of Communism.

"We cannot condone the foreign policy of this Administration. This Administration pretends that Communism has so changed that we can now accommodate it. Our party cannot go the final and fatal step and pretend that it doesn't even exist. Your party and mine can responsibly remind all free men that Communism is the enemy--not a friend, and certainly not a fiction."

As a party, Goldwater concluded, the Republicans should identify the central issues of the times and declare the fundamental principles upon which they claim the right of leadership. It is principle, he said, principle and purpose that mark the path of Republican philosophy.

And it is principle and purpose, convincingly displayed during the campaign, that could reunite the Republican Party and give their nominee a chance to beat Johnson.

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