For the Record

It’s Carter v. Kennedy; it’s going to be bloody. With Carter improving in the polls, Democratic leaders believe the race for the nomination will be poor, brutish, nasty, and long. The only possible way a bloodbath can be avoided is if Carter suffers a string of early primary defeats and then decides to step down, but “that is not the way it’s going to be,” says a Democratic official . . . Christian Science Monitor survey of Democratic Party leaders concludes: there is no stampede away from Carter yet, but a steady erosion is taking place. Carter strategists are all but conceding Kennedy the Northeast, but expect to beat him in the South. But South isn’t solid for Carter; he’s especially vulnerable to Kennedy in Kentucky and the other Border States. Carter has to sweep the South to have any chance at all . . . Kennedy is far ahead in the West. California pollster Hugh Schwartz says that as things look now, if Carter runs a good campaign in California, he’ll get no more than 25 per cent of the vote . . . Carter pollster Pat Caddell, who has roots in Kennedy country, predicts a “titanic struggle,” with urban, Catholic North pitted against rural, Protestant South. Other pollsters aren’t as apocalyptic, but they agree with Caddell on one thing: Chappa-quiddick is definitely an issue . . . Carter campaign has two big assets: incumbency and Robert Strauss. “Based on the amount of money President Carter poured into Florida,” cracked New York City Council President Carol Bellamy, “if we moved up the state primary we could solve New York City’s fiscal crisis.” Strauss, former chairman of the Democratic Party and possibly the savviest Democrat of them all, wasn’t among seven thousand invited to dedication of JFK library in Boston and because of that snub, says David Broder, Strauss is now a Kennedy antagonist.

Carter’s efforts to link passage of SALT with survival of NATO have come under attack in both U.S. and Europe. Sen. Sam Nunn, still undecided on SALT, dismissed Administration’s claims that Senate defeat of SALT might prompt European allies to refuse a new generation of nuclear weapons. “If the Europeans are concerned about their own security,” Nunn says, “the modernization of theater nuclear forces will go on regardless of what happens to the SALT treaty.” European failure to modernize, Nunn added, could prompt the U.S. to re-assess its role in NATO . . . Prodded by Franz Ludwig Stauffenberg, conservative member of West German parliament, Bonn has quietly released statement “that there is no reason whatever to link the loyalty of members in NATO, and especially the Federal Republic of Germany, to the SALT ratification.” . . . Kremlin is pulling out all the stops in drive to prevent NATO from modernizing its theater nuclear weapons. London Sunday Telegraph reports that the head of Kremlin’s campaign is Valentin Mikhailovich Falin, first deputy head of the USSR’s newly created International Information Department. Before assuming the post, Falin served seven years as Soviet ambassador to West Germany.

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Presidential Election

It’s Carter v. Kennedy; it’s going to be bloody. With Carter improving in the polls, Democratic leaders believe the race for the nomination will be poor, brutish, nasty, and long. The only possible way a bloodbath can be avoided is if Carter suffers a string of early primary defeats and then decides to step down, but “that is not the way it’s going to be,” says a Democratic official . . . Christian Science Monitor survey of Democratic Party leaders concludes: there is no stampede away from Carter yet, but a steady erosion is taking place. Carter strategists are all but conceding Kennedy the Northeast, but expect to beat him in the South. But South isn’t solid for Carter; he’s especially vulnerable to Kennedy in Kentucky and the other Border States. Carter has to sweep the South to have any chance at all . . . Kennedy is far ahead in the West. California pollster Hugh Schwartz says that as things look now, if Carter runs a good campaign in California, he’ll get no more than 25 per cent of the vote . . . Carter pollster Pat Caddell, who has roots in Kennedy country, predicts a “titanic struggle,” with urban, Catholic North pitted against rural, Protestant South. Other pollsters aren’t as apocalyptic, but they agree with Caddell on one thing: Chappa-quiddick is definitely an issue . . . Carter campaign has two big assets: incumbency and Robert Strauss. “Based on the amount of money President Carter poured into Florida,” cracked New York City Council President Carol Bellamy, “if we moved up the state primary we could solve New York City’s fiscal crisis.” Strauss, former chairman of the Democratic Party and possibly the savviest Democrat of them all, wasn’t among seven thousand invited to dedication of JFK library in Boston and because of that snub, says David Broder, Strauss is now a Kennedy antagonist.

Carter’s efforts to link passage of SALT with survival of NATO have come under attack in both U.S. and Europe. Sen. Sam Nunn, still undecided on SALT, dismissed Administration’s claims that Senate defeat of SALT might prompt European allies to refuse a new generation of nuclear weapons. “If the Europeans are concerned about their own security,” Nunn says, “the modernization of theater nuclear forces will go on regardless of what happens to the SALT treaty.” European failure to modernize, Nunn added, could prompt the U.S. to re-assess its role in NATO . . . Prodded by Franz Ludwig Stauffenberg, conservative member of West German parliament, Bonn has quietly released statement “that there is no reason whatever to link the loyalty of members in NATO, and especially the Federal Republic of Germany, to the SALT ratification.” . . . Kremlin is pulling out all the stops in drive to prevent NATO from modernizing its theater nuclear weapons. London Sunday Telegraph reports that the head of Kremlin’s campaign is Valentin Mikhailovich Falin, first deputy head of the USSR’s newly created International Information Department. Before assuming the post, Falin served seven years as Soviet ambassador to West Germany.