Nixon's New Humor (Cont'd)

As a wielder of behind-the-scenes influence, South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond is sometimes pictured as a rival of Rasputin. In return for the South's electoral support, the stories went, it was Thurmond who had final clearance on Richard Nixon's vice-presidential choice, Spiro Agnew, during the Republican Convention in Miami. Nixon recently alluded to his Dixie friend with some of his newly discovered humor. It was delivered at a dinner of the Alfalfa Club, a group of top businessmen, professionals and Government officials that starts off the term of a new President by putting forward, as a joke, their own choice (this year's joke: Harold Stassen) The way to pick a running mate, Nixon said, was to collect recommendations from friends and politicians, and mull them over until the mind clears in the early morning solitude of a hotel room. "And then," said the President, "you ask, 'What's his name, Strom?' '

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