Who's Ahead in the Sixth Arrondissement?

Munich last week was going all the way with L.B.J. A Bavarian brass band clad in lederhosen oompahed California, Here I Come while lusty stein clankers wearing campaign hats and Johnson buttons roared out "Prosit!" But in Paris they were shouting for "Goldwater in '64" as Republicans gathered in a mirrored conference room at the Ritz and collected $1,000 in campaign funds at the first passage of the hat.

Across the Continent, Democratic and Republican enthusiasts were hard at work to garner the votes of more than half a million U.S. citizens, either civilian residents abroad or members of the armed forces. Despite the red tape of obtaining absentee ballots, English-born, American-educated (Yale '29) Democrat Anthony Hyde in London believes that Europe might cast 100,000 votes, adding, "Just think, almost as many as the state of Alaska."

Service Ears. Since no electioneering is permitted inside U.S. bases, both sides prowl around outside. In Italy, where there are an estimated 35,000 eligible voters, Goldwater subcommittees are in operation in Vicenza, Verona, Leghorn and Naples, near U.S. military sites. At British market towns outside U.S. bases, the Democrats have parked decorated carts equipped with loud speakers playing Hello, Lyndon, hoping to catch the ear of U.S. servicemen and their wives on shopping tours.

Pier Talenti, the top Goldwater man in Italy, began organizing seven months ago, but he keeps colliding with Italian regulations, which require that any public gathering of more than five persons must be approved by a long list of officials ranging from the Interior Ministry down to the local fire department.

So the unofficial Goldwater headquarters are in an unmarked room at a Rome Y.M.C.A. Talenti, a onetime banker who now owns a cattle ranch ten miles outside Rome, grumbles, "If we made it the official headquarters without getting all the bureaucratic authorization we need, we might all be deported."

Heckling Colonel. The top Democrat in Germany, Businessman John Ryan, last week invaded Munich's annual Oktoberfest and, surrounded by eight U.S. students brandishing Johnson's picture, delivered a rousing get-out-the-vote speech in front of a tent advertising Loewenbraeu beer. He was repeatedly interrupted by a Goldwater heckler in the front row who, Ryan snorts, "must have been a colonel." The Johnson organization in Britain is the largest in Europe, and, with such guest speakers as Actors Anthony Quinn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Comedian Victor Borge and Novelist Eugene Burdick, has raised nearly $10,000, which is spent on direct mail and ads in service newspapers. Mail often comes from Americans uncertain of their electoral rights. Inquiries about voting eligibility have been received from a Marymount nun who has lived in Britain since 1932, and from a U.S. citizen currently doing three years in a British prison for a felony.

The liveliest battle is being waged in France, where Democrat Alfred Davidson and Republican Evan Galbraith have signed up for a debate at the American Art Students League. Johnson headquarters are in a handsome, red-carpeted apartment on the Place Vendome, where Chairman Davidson has received more inquiries about who gets the apartment after the campaign is over than anything else. The Johnson committee in Paris includes Novelists James Baldwin, Mary McCarthy and James Jones, as well as lawyers, journalists, businessmen and the wives of OECD and UNESCO officials.

Stimulated Livers. Goldwater headquarters are at 4 Estienne d'Orves, near the Opera, where a colorful sign directs passers-by to ascend to the second floor to the office of "Americans Abroad for Goldwater." A newsman asked the concierge what went on upstairs. She shrugged: "They come and go and make excited talk. They have big American cars and are very serious." Chairman Galbraith, who works for a French subsidiary of Morgan Guaranty Trust, is aided by Co-Chairman Colleen Moore, a star of silent movies, and both were pleased last week to have found a Goldwater chairman for Switzerland, Comic Strip Artist Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace). Many Goldwaterites from the U.S. have made the trip to Paris to give Galbraith and Moore a helping hand with their task.

But as Democrats and Republicans began sniping at each other and the campaign heated up, even the French got interested. "One gets the impression it stimulates sluggish livers," said a Paris editor. "I think we should be allowed to campaign and vote for the American President too. You are selfish not to share the pleasure."

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