Fitful Pause for McGovern

AS George Meany made his declaration of nonsupport, George McGovern was celebrating his 50th birthday in South Dakota's Black Hills. For almost the first time since he began his once lonely drive for the nomination 19 months earlier, the candidate had hoped for a few days of uninterrupted leisure before starting his campaign against Richard Nixon. His plan did not work out that way, of course. All week the telephone jangled in the rustic cabin that McGovern had rented on Sylvan Lake. When he went horseback riding, he was escorted by a troop of Secret Service men and photographers.

But whatever the demands of his new stature, McGovern did have time for some unwinding. He slept long and late, walked occasionally in the forests of tall South Dakota spruce. McGovern even made a pilgrimage to Mount Rushmore, where he consented to pose in profile against the granite likenesses of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. McGovern thought the idea might smack of hubris, but an aide told him: "Politics is theater."

Depressed. On his birthday McGovern had a party at Sylvan Lake Lodge, dining on barbecued buffalo with staff members and old friends from his boyhood home of Mitchell, S. Dak. Mitchell High School's summer baking class prepared an enormous birthday cake in the shape of the White House. Bob Verschoor, McGovern's finance chairman for each of his congressional campaigns, presented the candidate with 50 $50 bills--his harvest from a $50 bet he placed with Las Vegas Odds-maker Jimmy the Greek when the odds against McGovern's getting the Democratic nomination were reckoned at 50 to 1.

For all that, the candidate was in a somewhat melancholy mood. He confessed to being "a little bit depressed" at the thought of turning 50. He referred sarcastically to a poll showing him a certain winner in November only in South Dakota and the District of Columbia. His spirits were buoyed, however, by a letter from former John Kennedy Aide Theodore Sorensen, who assured him that J.F.K. had also started his 1960 campaign when "practically nobody who was anybody was for him."

McGovern's mood was only somewhat brightened when Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley halfheartedly announced that he would "support every candidate on the Democratic ticket, federal, state and local." Not once did Daley mention McGovern's name. Since Illinois might be crucial to a Democratic victory in November, the question remained whether Daley would exert his still considerable power in behalf of the national ticket or merely concentrate on getting local and state candidates elected. Asked whether he blamed McGovern for his exclusion from the convention, Daley replied with laughter: "What do you think?"

McGovern immediately telephoned Daley to thank him for his "magnanimous move." With that, Daley invited the candidate to come to Chicago for a conference--an invitation that had the quality of a summons. That meeting could at least begin negotiations for a possible bargain in which Daley might guarantee his support for McGovern in exchange for McGovern's endorsement of local Daley candidates.

All week McGovern concentrated on courting labor and the party regulars. After Meany's disavowal of the ticket, the candidate flew to Washington in order to vote in the Senate in favor of raising the minimum wage from $1.60 to $2.20 an hour--a bill opposed by the Administration, which wants to raise the minimum wage to $2.00. As it happened, McGovern's vote was crucial on one roll call, when an Administration measure was defeated 47 to 46.

In an effort to assure some degree of party unity, McGovern announced that Lawrence O'Brien would join the McGovern cause as national campaign chairman. Gary Hart, 34, the Denver lawyer who masterminded the McGovern drive through the primaries, will remain as campaign manager at the head of the regular staff. But O'Brien, running a separate operation out of Washington, will be, according to McGovern, "my liaison with Democrats in Congress, Democratic Governors, mayors, state legislative leaders, party officials, organized labor and other organizations supporting the principles of the Democratic Party."

The McGovern forces may have the most difficulty in winning back many of the big-money Democratic contributors who are now sitting on their wallets. Already Nixon's men are busy courting Democratic supporters. This week, for example, Financier Gus Levy of Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York City will be host at a luncheon and dinner for 100 big contributors.

Slighted. The McGovernites have been curiously inattentive to some of their wealthiest potential backers. In California, Millionaire Max Palevsky, who has contributed $350,000 for the McGovern campaign so far, felt slighted that he was not named finance chairman. Some, like San Francisco Realtor Walter Shorenstein and Los Angeles Realtor Harold Willens, are cautiously waiting to see how McGovern's campaign shapes up before they commit their funds. Says Shorenstein: "Our system requires a growth economy. You have to have free enterprise and competition and a good business atmosphere. If we are going to inhibit opportunity with heavy taxes and prohibitive inheritance taxes, then it is a new kind of country, not the kind people like me could relate to."

Others indicate now that they will not contribute anything at all to the presidential campaign. They include Beverly Hills Attorney Gene Wyman, a former Humphrey backer; National General's Gene Klein and Sherrill Corwin of Metropolitan Theatres Corp. of Los Angeles. It could be that many big contributors will concentrate their funds instead in congressional and state campaigns.

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