For the Record

When the Republicans finally counterattacked in defense of Pres. Nixon on Vietnam, four freshmen senators were in the forefront: Robert Taft (Ohio), Lowell Weicker (Conn.), Glenn Beall (Md.), William Brock (Tenn.). Senator William Saxbe (Ohio), a longtime critic of the Administration on Vietnam, came to Mr. Nixon’s defense and confessed that what bugs him more than the war “is those who continually play politics with [it], I am also sick and tired of them.”… Sir Robert Thompson, the British victor in Malaya campaign, thinks Laos was a good thing. In U.S. News interview Thompson points out that North Vietnam will now have to deploy defense forces along the Trail and supply them, which will cut down substantially on what comes out the other end…. Administration sources are getting hints that North Vietnam is thinking in terms of ransoming U.S. POWs (the way the North Vietnamese in Paris put it is that a “defeated” America would pay “war reparations” for the prisoners). (In the Pueblo incident, the U.S. finally “admitted” to violating Korea’s territorial waters just long enough to secure the release of Commander Bucher and his men.)… Those New Left humanists: When I. F. Stone reported that H. Ross Perot had offered to buy the freedom of the POWs for $100 million, Dave Dellinger commented that the specialized training of the 339 men Hanoi admits having represents an investment of close to $150 million so that “even by capitalist values Perot was trying to buy them back at bargain basement rates.” (Four hundred thousand apiece!)

Best rundown on the non-bipartisanship of John W. Gardner’s Common Cause thus far is in Monday, publication of the Republican National Committee. Editor John Lofton ends up quoting Stewart Alsop: “John Gardner… is no more the head of a nonpartisan citizen’s lobby than I am. He’s the head of a lobby for liberal Democrats—which, of course, he has every right to be.”… Among surprising non-joiners of Common Cause, Sen. John Tunney (D., Cal.) and César Chavez (both refused to join sponsors list)…. How could the liberal Ripon Society most irritate Richard Nixon? By naming as its Man of the Year the one Cabinet member Nixon has fired. They did: former Interior Secretary Walter Hickel…. Surprised and pleased, Wm. F. Buckley Jr. at receiving check for $50 from N.Y. Times Washington columnist Tom Wicker to help out in Buckley’s suit against compulsory membership in AFTRA, the TV union.

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When the Republicans finally counterattacked in defense of Pres. Nixon on Vietnam, four freshmen senators were in the forefront: Robert Taft (Ohio), Lowell Weicker (Conn.), Glenn Beall (Md.), William Brock (Tenn.). Senator William Saxbe (Ohio), a longtime critic of the Administration on Vietnam, came to Mr. Nixon’s defense and confessed that what bugs him more than the war “is those who continually play politics with [it], I am also sick and tired of them.”… Sir Robert Thompson, the British victor in Malaya campaign, thinks Laos was a good thing. In U.S. News interview Thompson points out that North Vietnam will now have to deploy defense forces along the Trail and supply them, which will cut down substantially on what comes out the other end…. Administration sources are getting hints that North Vietnam is thinking in terms of ransoming U.S. POWs (the way the North Vietnamese in Paris put it is that a “defeated” America would pay “war reparations” for the prisoners). (In the Pueblo incident, the U.S. finally “admitted” to violating Korea’s territorial waters just long enough to secure the release of Commander Bucher and his men.)… Those New Left humanists: When I. F. Stone reported that H. Ross Perot had offered to buy the freedom of the POWs for $100 million, Dave Dellinger commented that the specialized training of the 339 men Hanoi admits having represents an investment of close to $150 million so that “even by capitalist values Perot was trying to buy them back at bargain basement rates.” (Four hundred thousand apiece!)

Best rundown on the non-bipartisanship of John W. Gardner’s Common Cause thus far is in Monday, publication of the Republican National Committee. Editor John Lofton ends up quoting Stewart Alsop: “John Gardner… is no more the head of a nonpartisan citizen’s lobby than I am. He’s the head of a lobby for liberal Democrats—which, of course, he has every right to be.”… Among surprising non-joiners of Common Cause, Sen. John Tunney (D., Cal.) and César Chavez (both refused to join sponsors list)…. How could the liberal Ripon Society most irritate Richard Nixon? By naming as its Man of the Year the one Cabinet member Nixon has fired. They did: former Interior Secretary Walter Hickel…. Surprised and pleased, Wm. F. Buckley Jr. at receiving check for $50 from N.Y. Times Washington columnist Tom Wicker to help out in Buckley’s suit against compulsory membership in AFTRA, the TV union.