Nation: NOW THE REPUBLIC

• Share

(6 of 10)

Conservative Trio. Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer had dropped his favorite-son role in order to back Rockefeller. But neither Shafer's influence nor his choice to nominate Rockefeller could hold the entire delegation in line. Some of the Pennsylvanians had scant respect for their Governor, privately referring to him as "Dudley Do-Right," after the feckless cartoon character who usually ends up doing the wrong thing for the right reason. And Nixon had powerful supporters in the delegation, including George Bloom, chairman of the state public-utility commission, and Congressman James Fulton. When Rockefeller visited the Keystone Staters, District Attorney Robert Duggan of Allegheny County demanded: "And where in hell were you in 1964?" It became increasingly clear that Nixon would get some help from Pennsylvania.

Agnew's defection to Nixon was all but official before the convention started. Meanwhile, though, Nixon men were compelled to mount a defense operation among the Southern delegations. Reagan had been making inroads in Alabama, North Carolina and Texas particularly, and this trend could not be allowed to go on unchecked. Barry Goldwater, Senator John Tower of Texas and Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina—three of the most conservative men in the party—counterattacked on Nixon's behalf. Goldwater chatted with Southerners in his hotel suite. Thurmond and Tower took some waverers for boat rides. Their message was basic and concise. The real contest was between Nixon and Rockefeller; every defection to Reagan would ultimately only benefit Rockefeller.

Rumors that Nixon was going to pick a liberal as a running mate were everywhere. When a Miami paper printed a front-page story that it would be Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, Rockefeller's and Reagan's men distributed 3,000 copies on the convention floor to make sure that no one missed the point. Thurmond and company denied the report, but the most effective disclaimer came from Nixon in private meetings with Southerners. "I won't do anything that would hurt development of the two-party system in the South," Nixon told them. "I won't take anybody that I have to shove down the throats of any section of the country." Thus such Nixon loyalists as Party Chairman Harry Dent of South Carolina were able to tell skeptics on the floor: "I've got it written in blood."

Nixon was also artfully placating Southerners on certain sensitive issues. The Miami Herald managed to get a tape recorder into one of the private sessions (see THE PRESS). In the transcript it printed later, which Nixon's spokesmen did not knock down, he explained his public support of this year's open-housing civil rights bill as a matter of political tactics rather than conviction. "I felt then and I feel now," said the transcript, "that conditions are different in different parts of the country." But he wanted the issue "out of our sight" so as not to divide the party and risk a platform fight. The Southerners also remembered Nixon's criticism of Johnson's Supreme Court appointments. While Nixon did not quarrel with Abe Fortas' designation on personal grounds, the Southerners who did looked kindly on Nixon's position.