■ Republican leaders are jittery about third party talk. House Minority leader John J. Rhodes recently made a series of Lincoln Day speeches. At every stop he was questioned about third party chances. Would he join? “Hell, no.” Richard D. Obenshain, Republican National Committee Co-chairman, says conservatives “have seen more clearly than others the utter bankruptcy of the liberal blueprint for America,” but he doubts third party chances because of new campaign reform law, which supplies money on basis of previous election returns. . . . Republican officials will try to get things together at March conference of 1,000 GOP leaders. . . . Conservative GOP governors have let Gerald Ford know they are not bowled over by thought of his candidacy in ’76. New Hampshire’s Meldrim Thomson states flatly he prefers Ronald Reagan over Ford. South Carolina’s James Edwards is leaning same way. Virginia’s Mills Godwin says he isn’t sure. Washington Gov. Daniel Evans, a liberal, has doubts about Ford but would love conservatives to leave GOP: “For every one who leaves, we’d get two to ten new ones.”
■ Saigon reports that from signing of January 1973 “peace treaty” to December 31, 1974, there have been 72,000 North Vietnamese truce violations; 24,000 South Vietnamese soldiers have been killed and 5,000 civilians. . . . Sen. Joseph Biden (D., Del.) is a liberal but no bleeding heart. He says he couldn’t imagine anything that would make him change his opposition to aid for South Vietnam—even a Communist bloodbath of South Vietnamese. . . . Rep. Bella Abzrg (D., N.Y.) is among congressmen making “fact-finding” tour of South Vietnam. When she returns she’ll probably try to rekindie leftist campaign about Thieu’s “political prisoners.” Abzug, as chairman of Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights, also plans her very own hearings on domestic spying. . . . Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell have been sentenced, but the end of Watergate is nowhere in sight. Appeals process could take up to twenty months. . . . Former Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski recently said Richard Nixon could have weathered Watergate if he had destroyed the tapes. The storm would have passed, he said. Jaworski is one of few who wallowed in Watergate who is not milking it for all he can get. John Dean’s nine-week lecture tour will net him $175,000. Book advances for him and wife come to $450,000. . . . Sam Dash, former chief counsel to Senate Watergate Committee, is on the circuit and plans a book. . . . Washington Post reporters Bernstein and Woodward are working on sequel to All the President’s Men, and Teddy White’s book on Nixon’s unmaking is due in March.
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