Part: 1234         Session: 123         Page 8990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119 of 512

The one problem that would seem to me to be the situation that you are sort of a detached Republican, and you are, in fact, able to back the man who is the best man, tending to play down the consideration of whether he could win or not, because-

Oh, we never consider-

I had this impression, of course, from the first editorial. However, after the primary, it may have been my reading into things, but I began to get the impression that the feeling for Rockefeller had waned. I was wondering, if you were to take a stand in some of the other primaries, would this be taken into account? Also, in the first primary you tended to dismiss non-candidate number one, Mr. Lodge, and since then you've tended to dismiss him less. Could you discuss this?

Let's say the probability of a candidate winning plays an exceedingly small part in our own decision. I would say it plays no part in the basic decision of support of a candidate in print, although we refer to it and obviously have to take account of it in discussing in print the man's availability, the feasibility of his nomination.

Now, you're a very careful reader, I see, because what you said is a pretty exact description of the editorial in which we supported Rockefeller for the primary. We really didn't consider, particularly, whether or not he had a good chance. As a matter of fact, the primary was so complicated, it's awfully hard to decide who was going to win, and even who had won after the thing was all over because of the number of candidates. I guess everyone