The Third Brother

Wrote Columnist Stewart Alsop, an Adlai Stevenson devotee, during the 1952 presidential campaign: "This reporter [recently] remarked to a rising young Connecticut Republican that a good many intelligent people, who would be considered normally Republican, obviously admired Stevenson. 'Sure,' was the reply, 'all the eggheads love Stevenson, but how many eggheads do you think there are?' " Months later, Stew Alsop got around to identifying the man who introduced the word egghead to the modern political vocabulary. The "rising young Connecticut Republican" was Insurance Executive John deKoven Alsop, now 42, youngest brother of Columnists Joseph, 47, and Stewart, 43, and by all odds the least-known of the brothers Alsop. Indeed, precious few of generally Fair-Dealing Joe's and Stew's 12 million paid-up readers even knew that they had a brother-much less a Republican.

In his home state of Connecticut, John Alsop carries some impressive credentials. He belongs to an old Avon (Conn.) family, went to exclusive Groton and Yale ('37), served overseas in the cloak-and-dagger OSS in World War II, steadily climbed the promotion ladder in Hartford's Mutual Insurance Co. from field inspector ('46) to president ('53), twice won election to the Connecticut General Assembly (1947 and 1949), and won friends among Eisenhower Republicans as a Connecticut Yankee for Ike in both 1952 and 1956.

Last week John Alsop decided to present his credentials to the electorate, announced his candidacy for this year's G.O.P. nomination for governor. If he gets past four other Republican hopefuls at a state convention this June, the least-known Alsop brother will come up against incumbent Democratic Governor Abraham Ribicoff, no egghead, but one of the ablest votegetters in Connecticut.