Hickel Halted

Walter Hickel gave up his job as Governor of Alaska in 1969 to go to Washington as President Nixon's first Secretary of the Interior. That turned out to be a mistake because Nixon fired him less than a year later. Hickel made the observation, which then seemed presumptuous, that Nixon had cut himself off from the outside world; worse, he allowed that view to leak out to the public. In his current bid for a second term as Alaska's Governor, Hickel, 55, used his dismissal as a point in his favor, but it was not enough to win him victory.

In last week's Republican gubernatorial primary, the Kansas-born, millionaire real estate developer was defeated by a bearded poet-fisherman-bush pilot and big-game guide named Jay Hammond.

A former president of the state senate, Hammond, 52, is mayor of the borough of Bristol Bay and lives in the Eskimo fishing village of South Naknek.

A decided underdog when he entered the race, Hammond stumped the state with State Senator Lowell Thomas Jr., 51, son of the radio commentator, who won the G.O.P. nomination for Lieutenant Governor. At a time when Alaska is in the throes of pipeline fever, their winning platform surprisingly calls for "careful scrutiny" of the state's rapid growth and "no development for development's sake." In November, Hammond will face Governor William A. Egan, who was easily renominated in last week's Democratic primary.

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