The Two Romneys

For Michigan's Governor George Wilcken Romney, the six-state 8,270-mile western tour he concluded last week should have been a breeze. The territory was generally friendly, the audiences for the most part restricted to fellow Republicans and brother Mormons. No rivals have yet ventured out on delegate-hunting safaris. At this stage, the not-yet-announced candidate for his party's 1968 presidential nomination needed only to make friends and influence local politicians--which Romney did with his usual energy and skill. But there was another chap along, with the same iron grey hair, rugged profile and strong delivery. This other Romney, petulant, portentous and contradictory, too often chilled the breeze.

The test, as for so many public officials these days, was Viet Nam. For months Romney has declined to take a definite stance, asking time for deep study of the problem that will include an Asian tour later this year (he first visited Viet Nam in 1965). Fair enough. But last week, with the conclusion of his ruminations still far off, Romney began to claw at Lyndon Johnson's Viet Nam policy without offering a hint of possible alternatives.

No Pushing. In Utah he declared grandiloquently that Johnson is being "ambivalent in a completely flexible situation." In Alaska and Idaho, on the other hand, Romney found Johnson "locked into his own mistakes and a rigid defense of his position." He also denounced the Administration's approach as "clumsy, ill-timed and poorly coordinated." In stop after stop, Romney called Johnson "sincere in his search for peace. I do not wish to be one of those who undermine his efforts."

But at midweek in Pocatello, he pronounced Johnson guilty of "political expedience" concerning Viet Nam.

Reporters already sated with generalities asked him to cite examples of political expedience. "No," shot back Romney, "I will not." Why not? "Because I choose not to." Thoroughly angry now, Romney admonished the newsmen: "You are not going to push me into a decision."

The bombing of North Viet Nam, he said, had failed to accomplish its objectives. Does he want to stop the bombing? "No comment." As a general proposition, he argued that the U.S. should never have got into an Asian land war. "But now we must see it through honorably" by attempting to "establish a South Vietnamese government that would not be supported by forces outside South Viet Nam."

Nose Rub. Luckily for Romney, his resident hosts were far more enthusiastic about him than the itinerant press. Republicans crammed dining rooms and meeting halls to see him, and most of them paid. By Romney's count, 18,500 had turned out contributing a total of $200,000 for state Republican organizations. Whether rubbing noses with Eskimo babies in Alaska or eating barbecue with elderly residents of an Arizona development called Dreamland Villa, Romney proved to be an attractive, energetic campaigner.

He delighted partisan audiences with his swinging attacks on Johnson. The Administration's domestic programs, he said, resembled a "20-mule team harnessed at night by a blind, one-armed idiot." There was the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt, the Fair Deal of Harry Truman, and now the "ordeal" of Lyndon Johnson. He also produced a passable caption for a future Romney administration. "A new generation of progress," he said, "is forming up on the horizon." As usual, Romney laced his talk with moral homilies, and even his discussion of public responsibility carried a churchly ring. He told an Elks Club meeting in Idaho Falls that "the people of this country would respond in overwhelming numbers if their leaders asked them to give a tithe of time in constructive, voluntary effort"--four hours out of a 40-hour work week.

The Unforgiven. In Salt Lake City, where he conferred with David McKay, head of the Mormon Church, Romney was at his forthright best. He attended an interfaith ministers' meeting and was fully prepared when the inevitable question arose about the inferior status of Negroes in the Mormon Church. "I was raised in the conviction that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are divinely inspired documents of the Creator, and all mankind is the child of God with basic rights," he said. "I have fought to eliminate racial discrimination. I want to be judged on the basis of my actions rather than someone's idea of what the precepts of my faith are." It was a confrontation reminiscent of John Kennedy's with the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, where Kennedy convinced many skeptical Protestants that a Roman Catholic could be a fair President.

For many Republicans, however, Romney's party creed is more important than his religious doctrine. Wisely, perhaps, the Michigander shied away from aligning himself with any party faction. "I'm just a Republican," he said, "and, by golly, anyone who is a Republican is a Republican, as far as I'm concerned." Because it was not ever thus, Goldwater fans greeted Romney in Phoenix with signs reading ROMNEY WOULD RATHER SWITCH THAN FIGHT and REAGAN FOR PRESIDENT. Goldwater, who was conveniently in Washington, said there that he still had not forgiven Romney for his 1964 defection. "I don't know whether I ever can," Goldwater added, but he promised to support Romney if he wins the nomination.

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