CONVENTION OF THE LEMMINGS

IN Miami Beach the Republicans strove for harmony and produced monotony. In Chicago this week, the Democrats seemed certain to offer more discord than unity. Their presidential nominating convention shaped up like Combat in civvies. As the contenders battled bitterly over credentials, the platform and seating arrangements, there was a strong possibility that in the armed-camp atmosphere that prevailed outside the International Amphitheatre, police and demonstrators would clash.

The only weak part of the Democratic production may be the climax. Vice President Hubert Humphrey has long been odds-on favorite to win a first-ballot nomination, and remained so on the eve of the convention. But even there, the Democrats were contriving to provide some suspense. Thanks to Humphrey's stumbling performance in recent weeks, doubts were multiplying about him as a candidate--and as a potential President. Rumors circulated in Chicago and Washington that if deadlock developed, delegates would draft Senator Edward Kennedy, who emerged from 21 months of seclusion to deliver an impressive speech in which he rejected the idea of retiring from public life because "there is no safety in hiding." He also vowed "to carry forward that special commitment to justice, to excellence, to courage" that distinguished his three dead brothers. Other speculation was that the convention would turn in desperation to the man who has renounced the office, Lyndon B. Johnson. The fact that the President was demeaning Humphrey in private did nothing to stifle such speculation.

His Own Man. The Vice President's aides pooh-poohed all rumors, claiming at least 1,450 first-ballot votes for their man (needed to nominate: 1,312). Nonetheless, some Humphrey supporters were fearful that the whole operation was coming unstuck and that a delay in the convention--whether as a result of prolonged floor fights, paralyzing disorders outside the hall or anything else --could prove dangerous. The fact is that Humphrey has thus far failed to make much of an impression on the electorate or to demonstrate that he is his own man, not Lyndon Johnson's.

Of course, he has not been campaigning before the electorate. And as for delegates, they were clearly not convinced that the Vice President's rivals were more deserving of the nomination. Senator Eugene McCarthy's strategy was to force floor fights to stir up torpid delegates, but he was not optimistic about his chances. With characteristic detachment, he allowed: "I'm like the messenger who comes bearing the bad news. In the olden days they used to put him to death. I don't think they'll go quite that far in Chicago." Senator George McGovern, who went to Chicago claiming roughly 125 to 150 votes, hoped a deadlocked convention might turn to him. But backing from many supporters of the late Robert F. Kennedy has not meant much in terms of delegate strength.

Dismal Tidings. Despite his long lead for the nomination, Humphrey may enter the campaign as the distinct underdog. Nixon's high rating in the polls is part of the reason, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia is likely to enhance his appeal. Because Nixon still has the reputation of being a tough antiCommunist, he stands to benefit from Moscow's raw assertion of power.

Humphrey's own showing has lengthened the odds against him. He has been beset by bad luck and bad judgment. On major issues, he seems to play both sides of the fence or simply straddle it. Last week he told one Chi cago audience he would mobilize all the resources of the nation to maintain law and order, then told an interviewer less than an hour later: "You know and I know that law and order is es sentially a local problem." Having once dismissed the late Robert Kennedy's proposal of a role for the National Liberation Front in the Saigon government* as akin to putting "a fox in a chicken coop," he said two weeks ago that he and Kennedy "came to have remarkably similar views on Viet Nam." Four ex-Kennedy aides called the comment "false and misleading." Some of Humphrey's oratory was embarrassingly banal. "Every American," he intoned solemnly before a letter carriers' convention, "is at least entitled to have a postal address."

The Gallup poll bore dismal tidings. Where Richard Nixon led Humphrey by a scant 2% before his nomination as the G.O.P. presidential candidate, last week he had opened up a huge 16% margin, with 45% to Hubert's 29%. Humphrey aides pointed out, correctly, that even Barry Goldwater's polled popularity spurted dramatically immediately after his nomination, from 21% to 36%. All the same, the findings gave Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy's supporters an opportunity to proclaim that the Vice President was "not electable."

In a sense, Humphrey's gravest problem was Viet Nam. He had promised a white paper spelling out his views before the convention. Then he learned that the President was seriously thinking of suspending the bombing on the basis of assurances from Russia that Hanoi would follow up with reciprocation of some sort. Humphrey held off detailing his position but hinted privately that he would come out for a bombing halt. The Communist troops returned to the offensive in South Viet Nam, and the Russians, poised for their invasion of Czechoslovakia, apparently toughened their terms. Johnson's riposte was an angry speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Detroit. "This Administration," he declared, "does not intend to move further until it has good reason to believe that the other side intends seriously to join with us in de-escalating." The speech pulled the rug out from under Humphrey.

Feisty Mood. Humphrey's rivals sought to capitalize on that weakness in a bruising struggle over the Viet Nam plank in the party platform. McCarthy's supporters were in a feisty, uncompromising mood. They demanded a clause calling for an immediate bombing halt and inclusion of the Viet Cong's National Liberation Front in a coali tion government even before elections were held. The Administration sought a more vaguely worded plank. As Secretary of State Dean Rusk put it, while testifying before the Platform Committee in Washington, the party should describe the overall U.S. objective as "an early but honorable peace that will enable the free peoples of Asia to live together in freedom."

Humphrey, whose position lies somewhere between McCarthy's and the Administration's, wound up saying nothing during the platform fight. But his aides sought to win acceptance of a moderate plank, along the lines of one carpentered by Theodore Sorensen, former speechwriter for President John F. Kennedy. The effort failed, ironically, when two other former Kennedy men, representing the McCarthy and McGovern camps, forced Sorensen to agree to a more dovish statement than Hum phrey was likely to approve. During a daylong hassle, Sorensen clashed repeatedly with McCarthy Speechwriter Richard Goodwin and Pierre Salinger, a McGovern aide. The result was a plank incorporating many ideas set forth by Ted Kennedy in the speech he gave last week at Worcester, Mass. It demands an immediate bombing halt (which the Administration opposes), a cutdown in offensive operations by the U.S. and a phased withdrawal of all foreign troops; but it makes no mention of one of the most contentious issues--a coalition government. Though a floor fight over the plank was virtually certain, the doves' hopes of winning it were all but destroyed by the tough mood of the delegates in the wake of Russia's thrust into Czechoslovakia. Said Rhode Island's Senator Claiborne Pell: "The triumph of the hawks of the Kremlin has strengthened the hawks in Chicago." A Louis Harris poll showed that Americans opposed a unilateral bombing halt, 61 to 24, and a coalition government, 52 to 27.

Root Problems. Viet Nam overshadowed hearings on the rest of the platform. Testimony was heard from some 300 witnesses, including such disparate groups as the American Latvian Association and the Citizens League Against the Sonic Boom. Though the 110-mem ber Platform Committee was preparing to draft a stern "law-and-order" plank in hopes of neutralizing a similarly tough G.O.P. statement, Attorney General Ramsey Clark warned against allowing the phrase to become a slogan for repression.

Most impressive of the witnesses was former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary John Gardner, now chairman of the Urban Coalition. "If you are not filled with foreboding, you don't understand your time," Gardner declared. He compared the leaders of the developed nations to "old men bickering in a collapsing house," ignoring "the root problems of this troubled world." Despite his reproachful words, Gardner received a standing ovation--just three weeks after the Republican Platform Committee in Miami Beach had given him a similarly warm reception.

Disputed Challenges. Humphrey's rivals, particularly McCarthy, did their best to turn the Credentials Committee hearings to their advantage. In Chicago's Conrad Hilton Hotel ballroom, a record 1,000 delegates from 14 states were challenged on grounds ranging from racial discrimination to improper selection procedures. McCarthy hoped to increase his delegate strength by preventing hundreds of Humphrey supporters from being seated and to set the stage for dramatic floor fights this week. His challenges to the Washington, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Texas, Michigan and Indiana units were rejected. Though the Mississippi delegation was left unseated on the ground of racial bias and replaced by a half-white, half-black group, the decision hardly amounted to a McCarthy victory. Humphrey also supported the insurgents.

In a more bitterly disputed challenge, Georgia was ordered--and refused--to split its 43 convention votes between the regular delegations and a liberal, mostly pro-McCarthy slate. Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox, a declared candidate for the presidency, refused to accept the ruling and vowed to fight. Ironically, Maddox is likely to wind up without a seat and, possibly, without a single vote for his candidacy.

Fallen Standard. McCarthy's object was to cast Humphrey as the heavy: a hawk on Viet Nam, a racist for not having agreed to the peremptory disac creditation of several Southern delegations, an autocrat when it came to seating arrangements and telephone allocations. Humphrey's men, in fact, bent over backward to be equitable.

The Vice President remained above the battle, letting it be known that he was devoting some time to his accept ance speech. He was also pondering a running mate. According to a private poll that he commissioned, only two Democrats would enhance Humphrey's popularity. One is McCarthy, but his often-abusive treatment of Humphrey in recent days all but ruled him out. The other is Teddy Kennedy, who would add at least 15% to Humphrey's vote total. The figure might have been higher had the survey been conducted after Teddy's speech. However, Teddy described himself as one "who will not run for office this year," and Humphrey's chances of persuading him to become his running mate seemed remote at best.

Others on Humphrey's short list: Maine Senator Edmund Muskie; Ambassador to France Sargent Shriver, a Kennedy brother-in-law; New Jersey's Governor Richard Hughes; Oklahoma's Senator Fred Harris; San Francisco's Mayor Joseph Alioto.

Rocking-Chair Candidate. McCarthy's supporters charged that the whole convention was being set up with Humphrey's needs in mind. But in reality it was Lyndon Johnson who was in control, and he did not seem overly interested in rigging the convention for his Vice President. Each of the 5,611 delegates and alternates received a free copy of To Heal and To Build, a collection of Johnson speeches. In an otherwise cogent keynote speech, Hawaii's Senator Daniel Inouye devoted paragraphs to the President's accomplishments. A Japanese-American who lost his right arm fighting for the U.S. in Italy during World War II, Inouye was particularly attuned to the problems of another U.S. minority, the blacks, "whose aspirations have burst fullblown on us after more than 100 years of systematic racist deprivation." Asked Inouye: "Is it any wonder that Negroes find it hard to wait another hundred years before they are accepted as full citizens in our free society?"

Inouye's peroration was a lavish tribute to the President that could sway the whole convention. McCarthy's campaign manager, Stephen Mitchell, a former Democratic national chairman, helped feed speculation about a Johnson draft when he declared: "It may be that Mr. Humphrey feels a strong presence behind him, a man on a white horse, a certain large ranch owner from Texas." Delegates from both Tennessee and Texas fanned the rumors by urging that Johnson be drafted, particularly in light of Czechoslovakia.

The likelihood is small, and Johnson quipped at week's end: "I'm not a candidate for anything except maybe a rocking chair." But the fact that it was even being mentioned was a measure of the Democrats' uneasy mood as they assembled in Chicago. Said McCarthy Aide Richard Goodwin: "This is the convention of the lemmings. Everybody is swimming out to sea, screaming at each other--and Richard Nixon is sitting on the bank laughing."

* In February 1966, Kennedy urged that the N.L.F. be given "a share of power and responsibility" in the South's government.

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