Hand at the Helm

Nominee Goldwater moved swiftly to assume control of the Republican Party machinery. Seven and a half hours before his formal acceptance speech, he announced his choice of Dean Burch, 36, as chairman of the G.O.P. National Committee, succeeding Bill Miller.

A relative newcomer to politics, Tucson Lawyer Burch's only national campaign experience has been as an assistant in Goldwater's own drive toward the nomination. But he is a model of a young conservative--in dress, speech, bearing and political philosophy. As a Goldwater Senate aide who later took on the thankless task of arranging campaign schedules for a campaigner with a notable tendency toward last-minute cancellations, Burch earned both Goldwater's professional respect and personal friendship. "Nobody," says Arizona Republican Representative John J. Rhodes, "knows Barry better." That fact will be of major importance, for Goldwater has served notice he is determined to take a personal hand in streamlining and steering the committee.

Unlike Nixon in 1960, Barry will run his presidential campaign through the National Committee rather than his own organization. Scholarly Denison Kitchel will stay on as Goldwater's personal campaign manager, but he will work closely with Burch through party machinery. Burch is already drafting a plan to "make the National Committee the instrument of the campaign and the party." The present National Committee staff will likely be pared by half. Key Goldwater men will move into commit tee offices in Washington.

Although Burch has publicly assured moderate Republicans that the job of the National Committee is "neither to reward nor to purge," many a non-Goldwater state G.O.P. leader is fearful of being dumped by the national party organization. Others fear that whether Goldwater purges or not, his zealous state and local supporters may try to do the job for him. In Colorado, for example, the Goldwaterites are already crying for the political scalp of Governor John Love, one of three Scranton supporters in the state's 18-man convention delegation.

Goldwater himself has long been fascinated by the workings of party organization. If he loses in November, he will be out of public office, but he will still be in control of the party machinery, and he is likely to work at it. Thus, win or lose, the G.O.P. can expect to feel his hand at the helm for quite a while.

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