Columnists: Zealots of the Middle

At first glance, they seem an unlikely combination. Slim, suave, well-tailored Rowland Evans, 45, is the very model of a cosmopolitan correspondent. Swarthy, slangy, excitable Robert Novak, 35, often acts like a Chicago police reporter. Yet professionally, the two men complement each other perfectly; they have merged their talents in a joint political column, "Inside Report," that has a faster-growing readership than any of its competitors. Begun in 1963 with only 35 clients, "Inside Report" is now carried by 135 newspapers.

In an era when the press is surfeited with armchair experts, the column's striking success can be traced to its emphasis on reporting rather than punditry. "Fresh fact is our thrust," says Evans. And often enough, the two men have uncovered facts that no one else put in print. They were the first to disclose that a member of California's John Birch Society had joined the prestigious "President's Club" and that he and his family had contributed $12,000 to the Democratic Party. After the column appeared, Democratic leaders in California forced the national committee to return the money. Earlier, the team reported an attempt by the John Birch Society to take over the Republican executive committee in Houston; the plot was foiled.

Low Commitment. The columnists are equally skillful at exposing far-out leftists. They have devoted column after column to the black-power machinations of S.N.C.C., and they convincingly defended Sargent Shriver in his effort to take the Mississippi poverty program out of S.N.C.C.'s hands. "We have a very, very low ideological commitment," says Evans, who takes pride in the fact that the column cannot be identified with any political party or doctrine. "We are resolutely middle of the road," says Novak.

By underplaying ideology, Evans and Novak are free to concentrate on the mechanics of practical politics. In the recent election campaign, they contrasted Richard Nixon's shrewd construction of a cross-country network of political allies with George Romney's failure to build a national organization for a presidential drive. Bobby Kennedy's major weakness, the pair pointed out, is not that he is too much of a boss in New York but that he is too little of a leader. He throws his energy into winning "broad popular support," not into "brick-by-brick construction of organizational support." Last week, Evans was in Vietnam. After analyzing the effect of the Manila Conference on Saigon politics, he continued his search for facts by going into the field to observe the fighting. Novak remained in the U.S. to forecast a post-election struggle between Democratic liberals and conservatives over a seat on the House Ways and Means Committee.