The Non-Candidates

With ten months to go before the Republican Convention, every professed non-candidate last week was waging his noncampaign in his own noncommittal way. George Romney found his way out of the washing machine and into the ghetto. Nelson Rockefeller hummed September Song. Ronald Reagan transferred his pragmatic ire from Berkeley to the conduct of the war. And Rich ard Nixon, purring like a tabby at the cream bowl, mourned the decline of American prestige abroad.

On a 19-day tour of the nation's slums, Michigan's Governor did his best to erase memories of Viet Nam and his "brainwashed" gaffe. Convoyed by a horde of reporters and photographers, Romney loped through Negro districts in Detroit, Washington, Rochester and New York. "What's all this white trash doin' round here?" asked one Negro woman as she made way for the Romney cavalcade in Washington. Nonetheless, the response in the slums was generally enthusiastic. "I think he's a cool dude," said Rufus ("Catfish") Mayfield, head of PRIDE, a Negro self-help organization in the capital. "I mean he's O.K."

Inside Happenings. In the hope of nudging other Republicans to the same conclusion, Romney detoured the poverty pilgrimage long enough for a chat with New York's Mayor John Lindsay and a 21-hour political strategy dinner with Governor Rockefeller, the Michigander's strongest backer. Though he could write a Baedeker on New York's slums and the avoidance of riots, Lindsay decided not to join Romney on a trip through Bedford-Stuyvesant and Harlem. "I think it is better if he goes alone rather than be inhibited by the presence of other officials," the mayor said delicately. "In other words," a newsman asked, "it's best that the Governor is not 'brainwashed?' " "I didn't say that," laughed Lindsay. "You're being naughty."

Rocky, for his part, remained rigidly faithful to Romney, and ignored Republican moderates who insist that he rev up his own well-oiled presidential machine. All of a sudden the mellow elder statesman, Rockefeller allowed: "Something happens in life and you lose ambition because you have fulfillment. There are things that happen inside. I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist. I can't analyze it for you exactly. But I just don't have the ambition or the need or inner drive--or whatever the word is--to get in again. I've never been happier or more relaxed or getting more enjoyment or satisfaction out of what I'm doing."

Wish & Fact. Many Republicans--influenced perhaps by wish as much as fact--continued to believe that Rocky dreams privately of still greater enjoyment and satisfaction in Washington. Rockefeller's family even inclined to that view. "I remind you," noted Nelson's younger brother, Arkansas' Governor Winthrop, "that women and politicians have the right to change their minds." Maryland's Governor Spiro Agnew was more certain than ever that Rockefeller would run. Agnew's candidate for Vice President: California's Governor Reagan.

Reagan himself indicated that he would not consider the No. 2 spot--at least while No. 1 remained vacant and alluring. He chided the Johnson Administration for failing to intensify the war and, for Christmas delivery, taped a television interview for the troops, in which he urged the country to sacrifice a measure of affluence as a visible sign of its support for their efforts. At the same time, a San Francisco Reagan backer, Businessman Leland Kaiser, reported after a visit to New Hampshire that "there is a genuine Reagan groundswell" in that state, and that, despite the Californian's avowed wishes, his name will go on the ballot in the March primary, first in the nation. Rockefeller, however, was certain that, given time, Reagan would find Sacramento just as pleasant a place as he himself found Albany. His California colleague, Rocky remarked sweetly, should be judged as a presidential candidate only after he has been re-elected Governor--that is, some time after 1970.

Meanwhile, Dick Nixon, who has been quietly nailing down delegate pledges for next year's convention, continued to play up his reputation as an internationalist with an article on the fu ture of Asia in Foreign Affairs and a speech in Manhattan attacking the Administration's foreign policy. "Seldom," he said, "has a nation been so mistrusted in its purposes or so frustrated in its efforts. The gap is widening between what our spokesmen say and what others believe. Ideas should be our greatest export, and yet in the marketplace of ideas, people of other nations are simply not buying American."

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