Sargent Shriver, brother – in – law of Edward Kennedy, is off and ambling on his drive to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Former head of the Peace Corps and the poverty program, former ambassador to France, McGovern’s second running mate in 1972, Shriver is being told by family friends that they are “waiting for Teddy.” It may be a long wait, in spite of Representative Thomas “Tip” O’Neill’s attempts to shorten it. O’Neill, House Majority Whip, never wastes an opportunity to tell the world that Kennedy, who is telling the world that wild horses could not drag him into the race, will run for President next year. How does O’Neill know? Kennedy tells him so, or so O’Neill says. So on a recent Face the Nation broadcast Martin Nolan of the Boston Globe—a sometime (actually, one time) NR contributor—asked O’Neill whether “Kennedy is lying to you or to everyone else.” Says Irishman O’Neill to Irishman Nolan, “About a week or ten days ago, as I was leaving him, I said, ‘Ted, do you want me to say that you’re not a candidate for the Presidency?’ And he says, ‘You know, keep me alive, Tip.’ ” So the next day Kennedy explained that they had had a . . . misunderstanding. Kennedy meant for O’Neill to “keep him alive” in his candidacy for re-election to the Senate in 1976.
■ Vice President Rockefeller, ever mindful of the need for Republican unity, told a Cincinnati news conference that the GOP cannot afford internal bickering about, oh, well, he didn’t say exactly what, but he could have meant, say, the question of who should be Vice President. Meanwhile, back at Ford’s election campaign committee, Chairman Bo (Callaway) was letting off steam, announcing that Rockefeller, 67, may be too old for the job and that, in any case, Rockefeller is Mr. Ford’s “Number One problem” in getting the presidential nomination. Gallantry is not dead, so Ronald Reagan rode to the defense of Rockefeller, denouncing as “shoddy” the various Callaway statements.
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