Dissidents' Dilemma

In Portland, Ore., the building that once housed the headquarters of Eu gene McCarthy's volunteers is now the campaign headquarters for Nixon and Agnew. Directly across the street is the Humphrey-Muskie headquarters, a 70-foot walk for any dispossessed McCarthyites in search of a cause. But last week, in Portland and across the na tion, few were taking the stroll.

Their reluctance to make it rattled Hubert Humphrey, who invoked his 20-year friendship with Gene McCarthy to ask once again for his support. "It is inconceivable to me that we wouldn't be together when the choice is between Nixon and Wallace and myself," he said. In a brief Washington press con ference, McCarthy merely announced that he would not declare support for any candidate until his return from a va cation on the French Riviera. He added that he would probably not decide to back Nixon.

The great majority of his followers would agree. Some have even gritted their teeth and gone to the aid of their party. But many of them are bitter, angry and frustrated; a number of youthful campaigners now actively op pose Humphrey by working in Nixon's youth division. A few disgruntled Mid west supporters even vow that they will protest by voting for George Wallace. Ann Hart, Michigan Senator Phil Hart's daughter, who tirelessly helped from New Hampshire on, says she cannot "in conscience" vote for Humphrey. Sue Moores, a 27-year-old Seattle housewife, puts her objection more bluntly: "I won't vote for a phony even if he's a Democratic phony."

Some McCarthy dropouts strike a wistful note. Says Nobel Prizewinning Biochemist Arthur Kornberg of Stan ford, who had never worked in politics before the McCarthy campaign: "I thought I could make some contribution, but it is very disappointing to have the business-as-usual people tak ing over." McCarthy's celebrity corner is largely in despair. Actor Walter Matthau calls the Humphrey-Nixon face-off "a choice between strychnine and arsenic." Paul Newman, one of McCarthy's busiest advocates at the convention, promises "a month of serious drinking" before he decides whether to support Humphrey actively, though he has already decided at least to cast his ballot for him. Only Steve Allen among McCarthy's Hollywood supporters has thus far lent his name to the Humphrey campaign.

Artist Ben Shahn, 70, who drew post ers for F.D.R.'s 1944 campaign, did the same for Henry A. Wallace in 1948 and this year produced the McCarthy peace poster, plans to sit the election out. "I don't have a candidate," says Shahn. "I feel disenfranchised." There are temptations, though. "I'm thinking of doing a painting called The Happiness Boys, showing Humphrey and Muskie dancing in straw hats--going offstage."

New Coalition. The McCarthyites who have switched colors and lined up behind H.H.H. are more frequently the political pros who value party allegiance. Some are in races in which party unity is important. Thus Oregon's Wayne Morse has solidly endorsed Humphrey. Iowa's Governor Harold Hughes, who nominated McCarthy for President, is not even anxious to have McCarthy support his own senatorial campaign--until and unless the Minnesotan also supports the national ticket, as Hughes does.

Others are working to take over the party and remake it to their own specifications. New Hampshire's David Hoeh, New York's Al Lowenstein, Georgia's Julian Bond and Wisconsin's Donald Peterson, who talked himself hoarse making McCarthyite motions at the convention, are hoping eventually to gain control of the party machinery through the New Democratic Coalition, headquartered in Minneapolis.

Numerous dissidents are putting pressure on Humphrey to modify his views in exchange for their support. Michigan McCarthyites returned home from Chicago and in a subsequent state Democratic convention pushed through a Viet Nam statement approximating the national convention's rejected minority plank. Thus armed, they may now offer to back Humphrey in exchange for a permanent role in the Michigan party structure.

Virtually every liberal Democratic organization not already for Humphrey may ask some price for its support. The Americans for Democratic Action will meet this week to decide whether to endorse Hubert, and John Kenneth Galbraith boasts: "Only our people can elect him." But, he insists, "we aren't going to endorse the war. We aren't going to endorse the old foreign-policy priesthood that got us into this mess, and we aren't going to endorse the right of the Chicago police to beat up the youngsters who work for us. So everything depends on whether Humphrey comes clean on these issues."

If he does not, most McCarthyites will dutifully go to the polls anyway to vote for local candidates, write in McCarthy's name, vote for a fourth party in the few places where that will be possible, or simply leave the presidential box unmarked. Unmarked ballots are counted in presidential elections, and the abstainers hope that there will be enough of them to shake the party hierarchy.

Picking Up the Pieces. The most disaffected of the McCarthyites cast themselves in the role of both punisher and redeemer. U.C.L.A. Philosophy Professor Donald Kalish, a leader of Los Angeles' Peace Action Council, insists that a Humphrey defeat "must be resounding" so that Democrats will know better next time. Anne Marcus, executive director of Robert (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) Vaughn's Dissenting Democrats, says more harshly that the party "should be destroyed." In their dream, these apostles of apocalypse see themselves picking up the pieces after the disaster and building a new party.

The trouble with that approach is that it is often the regulars who pick up the pieces after a disaster; witness the comeback of Richard Nixon, the G.O.P.'s man-in-the-middle after the party's monumental 1964 drubbing. Even if the McCarthyite irregulars were to succeed in wrecking the old party structure in order to build a new one, they might also succeed in guaranteeing an eight-year White House tenancy for Richard Nixon.

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