National Affairs: Mutterings on the Left

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"Emotional abhorrence of Nixon," wrote a columnist in the liberal New Republic last week, "seems to be about the strongest bond liberals have these days." Five pages later, the New Republic exposed the impoverished truth of the statement by taking off on its fellow-liberal weeklies, the Nation and the Reporter. Reason: they are "advising liberals to refrain from supporting Adlai Stevenson."

The Reporter's crime, as the New Republic sees it, was a December "Dear Governor Stevenson" letter written by Editor Max Ascoli. "Quite a number of those who were earnestly, even enthusiastically, for you in '52 cannot easily make up their minds whether or not to join the newly launched pro-Stevenson movement," Ascoli wrote. He advised Stevenson not to try to campaign as a "self-made lowbrow," urged him to open up on Secretary of State Dulles, then warned—with evident admiration—that President Eisenhower has learned a lot and has a great hold on the people.

For the Nation, the New Republic saved a scorn it has never before used on its venerable competitor in a political campaign. A Nation editorial entitled "Should Liberals Climb Aboard?'', said the New Republic, "seems to say a Republican President, able to keep the more aggressive anti-Communists of his own party in line, can best move towards the peace abroad that is ours for the asking." Indeed the Nation said more: in an oblique flick at Stevenson, it warned that the problems of peace are now so touchy that the U.S. could not "tolerate much knight errantry." The Nation's concluding advice to liberals: don't get committed until Ike declares his intentions; then wait to see what Earl Warren decides, and then wait to see whether the Republicans "shelve Mr. Nixon." There was the unifying thread again.