The Week

If the Biafran horror has a lesson, it is that man does not live by bread alone, and that sometimes this is too bad. The Ibos, whose children are starving, have turned down a Nationalist offer to open a relief corridor to Awgu in Biafran territory principally because they would have to halt their siege of the garrison there, where 1,500 Nationalist troops are holed up, in order to allow the relief to come in; and, also, because it is humiliating to accept help from the enemy. And now we learn that the Red Cross refuses to fly into Biafra with supplies stockpiled on the Portuguese island of Sao Tomé lest this be construed as support of Lisbon’s aid to the rebels.

So how goes it on the major political fronts with two weeks to go to Miami? Lindsay’s aides hint in one day’s New York Times that JVL might “accept a spot” on a Richard Nixon ticket, and Lindsay denies it in good time to make the next day’s page one. Nelson Rockefeller adds swinging Governor John Love of Colorado to his bag of governors (up to that moment containing only Shafer of Pennsylvania) and Governor Kirk of Florida admits—in public the very next day—that he is for Rocky, for the time being. The Harris and Gallup polls find everyone doing just slightly better, or just slightly worse, than they were doing a fortnight earlier, with George Wallace the only clearcut comer in the polls. Former Governor Mike DiSalle of Ohio announces that he will put Teddy Kennedy’s name in nomination whether Kennedy wants it or not, and Kennedy’s aides are silent, or noncommittal, or can’t be reached. Evans and Novak conclude there’ll be a big bustup between HHH and LBJ at or before the convention because Johnson intends to run that show (the telephone workers willing) and write the platform. Everyone agrees that Humphrey and Nixon seem to be well ahead but also that they just don’t seem to have what it will take to win. David S. Broder remarks that Clif White, who engineered the Goldwater win in San Francisco, is in Ronald Reagan’s corner, exuding confidence, and therefore Reagan shouldn’t be counted out. In short: it’s two weeks before the first convention. The press pundits are trying to make history or to cover themselves if they fail and the politicians are probing, to try to ascertain in advance the outside limits of the possible.

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Presidential Election

William F. Buckley Jr.

If the Biafran horror has a lesson, it is that man does not live by bread alone, and that sometimes this is too bad. The Ibos, whose children are starving, have turned down a Nationalist offer to open a relief corridor to Awgu in Biafran territory principally because they would have to halt their siege of the garrison there, where 1,500 Nationalist troops are holed up, in order to allow the relief to come in; and, also, because it is humiliating to accept help from the enemy. And now we learn that the Red Cross refuses to fly into Biafra with supplies stockpiled on the Portuguese island of Sao Tomé lest this be construed as support of Lisbon’s aid to the rebels.

So how goes it on the major political fronts with two weeks to go to Miami? Lindsay’s aides hint in one day’s New York Times that JVL might “accept a spot” on a Richard Nixon ticket, and Lindsay denies it in good time to make the next day’s page one. Nelson Rockefeller adds swinging Governor John Love of Colorado to his bag of governors (up to that moment containing only Shafer of Pennsylvania) and Governor Kirk of Florida admits—in public the very next day—that he is for Rocky, for the time being. The Harris and Gallup polls find everyone doing just slightly better, or just slightly worse, than they were doing a fortnight earlier, with George Wallace the only clearcut comer in the polls. Former Governor Mike DiSalle of Ohio announces that he will put Teddy Kennedy’s name in nomination whether Kennedy wants it or not, and Kennedy’s aides are silent, or noncommittal, or can’t be reached. Evans and Novak conclude there’ll be a big bustup between HHH and LBJ at or before the convention because Johnson intends to run that show (the telephone workers willing) and write the platform. Everyone agrees that Humphrey and Nixon seem to be well ahead but also that they just don’t seem to have what it will take to win. David S. Broder remarks that Clif White, who engineered the Goldwater win in San Francisco, is in Ronald Reagan’s corner, exuding confidence, and therefore Reagan shouldn’t be counted out. In short: it’s two weeks before the first convention. The press pundits are trying to make history or to cover themselves if they fail and the politicians are probing, to try to ascertain in advance the outside limits of the possible.