Nation: WHAT THE PLATFORM SAYS

As carefully and deliberately as an architect planning a skyscraper, the Republican Convention drew its 1964 platform design to the political and philosophical specifications of Barry Goldwater.

The Platform Committee was chaired by Wisconsin's Representative Melvin Laird, himself an unannounced Goldwater backer. It struck out against costly, deficit-creating federal paternalism in a way that went well beyond the 1960 Republican platform. It approved a platform of conservatism in the word's dictionary sense, promising tightfisted fiscal policy, deploring pervasive federal influence, and urging local action to deal with local problems. Foreign-policy planks have a distinctive hard-line look about them, promising staunch stands against Communist threats, expressing general skepticism of the idea that the Soviet Union has relaxed in any way in its ideological aim of worldwide Communist dominance, insisting on much harder bargains with the U.S.S.R. as the price of any East-West "accommodation." Principal planks:

GOVERNMENT SPENDING. Charging that Democrats have "burdened this nation with four unbalanced budgets in a row," the platform promises "a reduction of not less than $5 billion in the present level of spending" and "an end to chronic deficit financing." The 1960 Republican platform, in contrast, made no promise of a spending cut, even acknowledged the desirability of deficit spending in time of "economic adversity."

TAXES. In order that "each individual may keep more of his earnings," the G.O.P. pledges a removal of wartime federal excise taxes on such items as jewelry, cosmetics and luggage. Moreover, it promises further reduction in individual and corporate tax rates as "fiscal discipline is restored."

CIVIL RIGHTS. In a brief plank, the platform promises "full implementation and faithful execution of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and all other civil rights statutes" and "improvements of civil rights statutes adequate to changing needs of our times." It commits the G.O.P. to helping "assure equal opportunity and a good education for all." At the same time, the platform takes advantage of the burning issue popularly known as "bussing" by placing the G.O.P. on record as "opposing federally-sponsored 'inverse discrimination,' whether by the shifting of jobs, or the abandonment of neighborhood schools, for reasons of race."

MEDICARE. Unlike the 1960 platform, the plank summarily rejects a medical-aid plan financed and administered through social security. The G.O.P. favors "full coverage of all medical and hospital costs of needy elderly people, financed by general revenues through broader implementation of federal-state plans, rather than the compulsory Democratic scheme covering only a small percentage of such costs for everyone regardless of need."

REDISTRICTING. Taking issue with Supreme Court decisions ruling that representation in state legislatures must be apportioned on the basis of population alone rather than area or geographic interests, the plank pledges "support of a constitutional amendment, as well as legislation enabling states having bicameral legislatures to apportion one house on bases of their choosing, including factors other than population."