REPUBLICANS: Now the Republican Rumble

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Spontaneously, Illinois Congressman John Anderson moved "that the joint Senate-House Republican leadership of the Congress stand unswervingly and unstintingly behind the President and in firm support of his bid for nomination." Texas Senator John Tower seconded the motion. Republican Senate Leader Hugh Scott declared it carried unanimously. No one openly admitted that a President who requires a vote of confidence from his own party's key legislators is in deep trouble. "We all sensed he was a little down in the dumps," Anderson explained later. "We wanted to pick his spirits up."

But the concern of the G.O.P. leaders over Ford's campaign could not be quelled by cheerleading, and soon the discussion turned more serious. "It seems to me that we have to talk rather plainly," said House Republican Leader John Rhodes, who will preside over the G.O.P. National Convention. "I don't relish the idea of the U.S. having the choice of Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan." He went on: "There are issues being bandied around—like the Panama Canal. It didn't help any to have the negotiations resumed three days before the Texas primary.-It didn't do any good having [Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger in Africa a week before. We have to develop a new and more responsive strategy." Although Rhodes did not say so at the meeting, he wants Kissinger to announce that he would not be part of a second Ford Administration.

The leaders agreed that the question of future U.S. control over the Panama Canal was a phony issue, no more valid than the argument in the John Kennedy-Richard Nixon race in 1960 over whether the U.S. should have defended the Nationalist Chinese islands of Quemoy and Matsu. Rhodes told Ford to stop "chasing this goddam rainbow of the Panama Canal." He meant Ford should stop talking about it.

The legislators urged him to be more "presidential," to stop responding to each Reagan attack and take an "affirmative" and "statesmanlike" stance, emphasizing—as they felt he had failed to do so far—his best issues: peace, economic recovery and the restoration of integrity to the White House. They hinted that he had a lot of lightweights among his aides, that he needs new speechwriters and stronger staff support. Gently, they warned that he should not shift too far to the right, since there was no way to "out-Reagan Reagan."

With a touch of self-pity, Ford told the leaders: "You'd think we'd get some benefit from what we've done to improve the economy. But people are happy about the economy, and they've got time to talk about these non-issues." Ford was appalled at the possibility of a Reagan presidency. Said a White House aide of Ford: "He is convinced that it would not be good for the party or the country. So he is going to fight."