Nation: The Last Week

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President Kennedy spent his last days in pursuit of reelection.

In his campaign for a second term, he planned to waste little time or energy on the U.S. South, which his strategists thought might already be beyond his reach because of the civil rights issue. But there were two Southern states, the region's most populous, that Kennedy had no intention of writing off. They were Florida, with its 14 electoral votes, and Texas, with 25, and it was to these that he went on his final journeys.

During one ten-hour stretch in Florida, the President inspected the new Army-Air Force Strike Command headquarters, made three speeches in Tampa, flew to Miami for another. A sparse, unenthusiastic crowd appeared on the 71-mile route of his motorcade into Tampa, and his receptions were cool.

Only at a Tampa meeting attended by 4,000 members of the Florida State Chamber of Commerce did the President give one of his better performances, gently but effectively chiding businessmen for opposing his fiscal and economic policies.

True Story. He began by telling a story about how Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, flying to Miami with a leading Florida businessman a year or so ago, spent most of his time explaining how the man's company would benefit if the Administration's investment-credit tax bill were passed. When the plane landed, the man said to Dillon: "I am very grateful to you for explaining the bill. Now tell me just once more why it is I am against it."

"That story," President Kennedy said, "is unfortunately not an exaggeration. Many businessmen who are prospering as never before during this Administration are convinced, nevertheless, that we must be antibusiness.

"We have liberalized depreciation guidelines to grant more individual flexibility, reduced our farm surpluses, reduced transportation taxes, established a private corporation to manage our satellite communication system, increased the role of American business in the development of less developed countries, and proposed to the Congress a sharp reduction in corporate as well as personal income taxes, and a major deregulation of transportation, and yet many businessmen are convinced that a Democratic Administration is out to soak the rich."

When Kennedy concluded, his audience heartily applauded, and the President was plainly pleased. Yet that night, after a disappointing reception in Miami, he might well have been discouraged by his Florida trip, read a humdrum speech about Latin American policy in listless fashion.

Warm Crowds. Returning to Washington, Kennedy reviewed plans for a January fund-raising banquet on the third anniversary of his inauguration, joined Jackie in greeting 700 guests at the annual White House reception for the Justices of the Supreme Court. It was Jackie's first appearance as hostess at an official White House function since the death last August of her infant son. And then, next day, John and Jacqueline Kennedy left for Texas.