Nation: Images & Oratory

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While leaden skies drip rain, a twin-engine Convair rolls up the ramp at the Albany, N.Y., airport. Out step Barry Goldwater and Wife Peggy. There to greet them are Governor Nelson Rockefeller and his wife, Happy. The overheard conversation:

Peggy: Well, Mr. Governor. Nice to see you.

Rocky: Welcome to Albany.

Barry: Sorry we're late.

Rocky: Listen, we're just glad you're here.

Barry: Well, thank you. How do you do, Mrs. Rockefeller?

Rocky: We're sure glad to have you.

Happy: Sorry you didn't get here in time to come to the house.

With that, the Rockefellers and the Goldwaters were off to a political rally where Rocky affably introduced Barry as "one of the most dedicated, hardworking, courageous members of the Republican Party." Barry responded in kind, told the audience of 5,000 that "all across this country, we look to this state with envy for the Governor you have."

Goldwater, of course, was doing his bit for party unity; he even implored New Yorkers to vote for Incumbent Senator Kenneth Keating, notwithstanding the fact that Republican Keating has so far not returned the compliment. Barry's fleeting sojourn in New York, in fact, pointed up his effort of last week to smooth the jagged edges of his public image.

Earlier in the week he made a flying trip to Dwight Eisenhower's Gettysburg farm to tape a paid party telecast with Ike. While cameras whirred, the two leaned over a pasture fence and talked about the campaign. Then they moved on into a rambling discussion of presidential power, the dangers of centralized government, foreign policy and NATO. Toward the end, Barry mentioned his No. 1 political headache. What did Ike think about charges that Barry and Running Mate Bill Miller are trigger-happy warmongers? "Well, Barry." said Ike, "in my mind this is actual tommyrot. Now, you know about war, you've been through one. I'm older than you, I've been in more. But, I tell you, no man that knows anything about war is going to be reckless about this."

"Yo-Yo." But lest anyone mistake image-polishing for softness on Democrats, Goldwater rolled up his oratorical sleeves and walloped away with a vengeance. In Charlotte, N.C., he likened Lyndon Johnson to a dictator of despotic power, and in Odessa, Texas, to Neville Chamberlain. Over and over he linked Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as a team that seemed devoted to the ruination of the country.

Speaking before the American Legion convention in Dallas, Barry proposed that "YoYo" McNamara ("He keeps going down there to Viet Nam and coming back") "must be charged with mistake after mistake in evaluating the intentions of Communism. His efforts to turn the Defense Department into a Disarmament Department, his participation in the massive misevaluation of Soviet intentions, which led to the Cuban missile crisis, are parts of the indictment on this score."