Irrevocably In

For months, Alabama's George Corley Wallace kept insisting that he would stay out of this year's presidential race if either major party nominated a man satisfactory to him. As the Montgomery Advertiser dryly noted, however, the U.S. has not produced such a man since John C. Calhoun, the champion of Nullification and states' rights, who "unfortunately has not been available since 1850." Bowing to the inevitable, Wallace flew up to Washington, D.C., last week to announce at a press conference that he will run for the job himself under the banner of his recently formed American Independent Party. "I fully believe we can win!" he cried. "I am in the race irrevocably."

Wallace is likely to carry Mississippi and Alabama, may win Louisiana and Georgia as well. Outside those strongholds of the Deepest South, his chief impact may well be to help re-elect Lyndon Johnson by siphoning away Republican votes. Last month in Washington, in fact, Florida's G.O.P. Governor Claude Kirk charged that Wallace was being promoted as a candidate by Democrats close to the President. Kirk's conspiracy theory gained some credence when some of L.B.J.'s operatives quietly encouraged loyal California Democrats last December to promote the former Alabama Governor's drive for the 66,059 signatures he needed to get on the state's ballot. He wound up with more than 100,000, is now trying to gather the 10,000 signatures he needs to appear on the Pennsylvania ballot.

Wallace told the press that his wife, Alabama Governor Lurleen Wallace, had been a spiritual force behind his decision to run. But Mrs. Wallace, recovering from her latest series of radiation treatments for pelvic cancer at Houston's M. D. Anderson Hospital, could not come to Washington for George's announcement.

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