Shibboleth Smasher

Last month he was in the White House reporting to President Johnson on the troubled temper of the nation's cities. Three weeks ago he was in Saigon observing the Vietnamese elections.

Fortnight ago he was in Gibraltar watching the plebiscite on whether ownership of the Rock should revert to Spain. Last week Brobdingnagian (6 ft. 5 in., 280 lbs.), peripatetic Richard M. Scammon was back in his office in Washington, busily psephologizing as one of the capital's most sought-after ad viserson political trends.

Flypaper Memory. Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census from 1961 to 1965, Scammon, 52, comes to his role steeped in statistics and unafraid of conclusions. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a longtime Minnesota friend, calls Scammon "one of the smartest men in town," adds: "He isn't just a statistician--he's a profound and deep student." British Political Scientist Harold Laski, under whom Scammon studied for a year at the London School of Economics, pronounced him "the ablest American student I ever had." CBS's Washington Commentator Eric Sevareid, a University of Minnesota classmate, ascribes a "flypaper memory" to Scammon, says, "he's always startling you by coming up with the vote in some borough in England in 1872." His mastery of U.S. statistics is even more phenomenal. Scammon can recite from memory the political, social, economic and ethnic characteristics of hundreds of congressional districts throughout the nation.

Such praise results from Scammon's thorough knowledge of a huge bin of sociological statistics, from which he is able to sniff out the elusive mood of the voters and come up with the right answer. Though he is obviously not always right, he has been so consistently accurate that political bosses, Presidents, Congressmen and Washington observers have come to depend on his analyses. He was, for example, one of the minuscule band of political scientists who thought Harry Truman had a chance to win in 1948.

No. 1 Issue. Scammon's prescience springs in large part from his wide experience in studying people, politics and governments in the U.S. and abroad. He has observed and analyzed elections for the U.S. Government, and, in his capacity as the director of the Elections Research Center of the privately operated Governmental Affairs Institute, in a clutch of other countries, including Russia, Israel and the Dominican Republic. He has served as a senior consultant to the Lou Harris Poll (1959-61), is now chairman of the Select Committee on Western Hemisphere Immigration, a senior research consultant to the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, and wheelhorse of NBC's nonstaff election consultants. Between times, Scammon has, somehow, managed to edit all five volumes of America Votes, a classic reference work on U.S. elections, and collaborate on This U.S.A., a lively, statistically based debunking of the doomcrier's view of U.S. problems.

Nothing delights Scammon more than smashing shibboleths such as "the good old days." Says he: "The good old days were lousy days. People were pellagra-ridden, ill-housed, uneducated." Other Scammonized shibboleths: > It is the young and the Negro voter who will determine next year's presidential election. "Wrong," says Scammon. "The typical American voter of 1968 will be un-young, un-poor and un-black."

> The war in Viet Nam will be the No. 1 issue during next year's presidential election. "No. 2," says Scammon. "The No. 1 issue is and will be race. Popular feeling toward Negroes is very bitter, very deep. The depth of the feeling cannot be overestimated.". > Lyndon Johnson cannot possibly lose in 1968. "Of course he can," snaps Scammon. Well, then, Lyndon Johnson cannot possibly win. "Of course he can," repeats Scammon. "If anyone tells you Johnson either can't lose or can't win, then you are wasting your time talking to him. That's the sure sign that a person doesn't know what he's talking about."

Though he calls himself an independent Democrat, Scammon shares his advice with Republican and Democrat alike, sometimes charging upwards of $100 per diem, frequently giving it freely for the sheer joy of dispensing information. "I'm like the garbage collector," he says. "There is nothing partisan about garbage--and data are neutral too."

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