THE CONGRESS: Voice of the 84th

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With Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson skillfully backing him, George has effortlessly become the outstanding figure of the 84th Congress: ¶ He led the Formosa resolution, the SEATO pact and the Paris agreements to overwhelming Senate approval. When he arose to speak on the Formosa resolution one January day, there were worried, even hostile faces in the chamber. Nearly a score of Democrats were ready for a last-ditch fight against the resolution, and several Republicans had grave doubts. By the time he sat down after a brilliant oratorical display, the opposition had been shattered. Next day the resolution passed, 85 to 3. President Eisenhower wrote thanking George for a "superb" job, later telephoned additional congratulations. Secretary of State Dulles went to George's Mayflower hotel apartment and escorted the Senator to the White House for the ceremony of signing the resolution. The united front that the U.S. had turned to the world was a direct result of George's work. ¶ George took the initiative in urging that a four-power conference be held this year. The suggestion quickly became a rallying cry for other Democrats (none of whom George had consulted beforehand). Only after the plan was established as a politically attractive Democratic idea did President Eisenhower let it be known that his thoughts were—and had been for some time—much the same as George's. ¶ The climactic battle of the 84th Congress will come on the Administration's liberalized foreign-trade bill. Walter George, in his dual role of Democratic fiscal and foreign-affairs expert, will play the key part. A longtime reciprocal trader, still holding firm against protectionist pressures from Georgia's textile and plywood industries, he may make the difference between an adequate bill and one riddled with amendments granting tariff sops to individual industries. ¶ When House Speaker Sam Rayburn pushed a patently political $20-a-head income-tax cut through the House, it faced a humiliating defeat in the Senate. Lyndon Johnson came up with a formula for watering down Rayburn's bill that was so appealing that it lost (by six votes) only because Walter George did not support it. If he had, it would have passed by six or seven votes.

Democratic Leader Johnson had had high hopes of swinging George to the side of the tax cutters. When he failed, he learned only what others (notably Presidents Roosevelt and Truman) had learned before him—that Walter Franklin George is a highly independent man. But unlike most political independents, he steers clear of the extremes of left and right.