Nation: Gene's Bind

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As he fought gamely to spread nationwide the brush fire he started in New Hampshire, it was difficult to tell whether Eugene McCarthy was running harder against Lyndon Johnson or Robert Kennedy. And the underdog who promised to go the distance found it impossible not to acknowledge that reconciliation was possible with either rival at the August convention. It was a curious crusade. From St. Patrick's Day in Boston, through college campuses in Maine and Washington, D.C., to next week's primary-election battleground in Wisconsin, McCarthy displayed his customary nonchalance. The crowds were numerous and friendly, but he failed to ignite them.

Johnson's policies, foreign and domestic, came in for caustic criticism: "Mismanagement on a massive scale, mismanagement of our priorities here at home, mismanagement of our fiscal and monetary policies, and the loss of the good will and decent respect of mankind." At a Detroit fund-raising rally, McCarthy won moral and material support. Two thousand supporters paid $37,000 to look and listen; Mayor Jerome Cavanagh introduced him as the man who has "rescued an entire Amer ican generation from complete disillusionment in the political process." Declared McCarthy: "In the name of America, let the killing stop!"

Crash Course. Most of his gut thrusts, however, were reserved for Kennedy. The New Yorker's proposal for a commission to devise new approaches for Viet Nam was "untenable and pointless," an "insult to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee." Kennedy's offer to assist McCarthy in Wisconsin? An attempt "to fatten me up for the kill." He termed Kennedy's style a belated "crash course in great ideas." Kennedy's popularity? "I don't have the enemies in the party that Bobby has—or in the country, for that matter."

Even Kennedy's athletic prowess came in for the McCarthy treatment. "He plays touch football," said McCarthy. "I play football. He skates in Rockefeller Center. I play hockey." Because they both play the same tune about Viet Nam, however, McCarthy allowed that if his own campaign fizzled and the choice for the nomination came down to Johnson and Kennedy, he would support Kennedy. Then, at the University of Wisconsin's Racine campus, McCarthy admitted what no man who would be taken seriously as a presidential candidate should: that he "would —in order to save the country, not myself"—accept the vice-presidential spot on either a Kennedy or a Johnson ticket.

Committee Commitment. McCarthy's unorthodoxy is matched—and perhaps caused—by the ironic bind in which he finds himself. Although it is he who scored the moral victory in New Hampshire, it is he who finds himself with new problems. His formal campaign organization is still small, relatively amateurish and vulnerable to Kennedy rustling. In one week of active candidacy, Kennedy seemed to be attracting more support among Democratic professionals than McCarthy had in four months.