ustxtxb_obs_1972_06_09_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

Connally’s co-conspirators Austin Anyone who lets John Connally or his co-conspirators have one whit of influence in the deliberations of the Texas Democratic Party this summer and fall should be counted as a “Democrat for Nixon” on the spot. Connally, having served as the Johnson Democrat in the Nixon Cabinet for 18 months, stated, as he resigned, that the President’s domestic economic and international policies “have my complete support.” At a subsequent discussion with reporters, he stated that he will “personally vote” for Nixon. The Democratic nominee for President is not yet known, but Connally has pledged his vote to Nixon. The speculations why Connally quit the cabinet are tiresome and fundamentally trivial. The interest is not what he says his motives are but what he has done. He took high honor from President Kennedy, but quit Kennedy’s government after less than a year to run for governor of Texas and hold the state steady for the big-money interests. Then he abandoned his own political party to serve those same big-money interests in Nixon’s government. Now, all but ruled out for the vice-presidency by the Nixon circle and the polled preferences of Republican voters \(43 percent for Agnew, only 8 percent for the Nixon cabinet, too. Connally gets everything he can out of association with power and then breaks loose so he can follow the course that best advances his self-interest. He is a political opportunist of the most obvious type. Democrats cannot relpy on him he is for Nixon in 1972. Republicans cannot really appreciate him they know he’s supposed to be a Democrat, just as well as the Democrats know it. Much else can also be said. He is a bold and interesting politician. He had much influence with Nixon, still has it, and could become Nixon’s secretary of state or defense if Nixon is re-elected. But nothing is more obvious than the fact that Connally’s personal future, which is his guiding interest, depends on Nixon carrying Texas. Even if Nixon wins the election while losing Texas, Connally would be further weakened with Nixon among those who regard the Texan as a Judas goat to be used and then run off. \(Mr. Agnew is clearly one of those who so this time for Connally to keep his marbles together. The guest list for the Connally-Nixon dinner at Connally’s ranch a month ago X-rays the power structure whose managers Connally intends to use to help carry Texas for Nixon. The guests included George Brown, the chief honcho at Brown and Observations Root; Johnson people George Christian, Jake Jacobsen, Larry Temple and Warren Woodward; newspaper publishing powers Amon Carter, Felix McKnight, Houston Harte and Everett Collier; John Peace, chairman of the UT board of regents; James Elkins and David T. Searls of the large Houston law firm that represents out-of-state capital in Texas; Robert Kleberg of the King Ranch; former governor Allan Shivers; H. B. Zachry, the San Antonio construction magnate; and many Republicans and corporate executives. These people are the nexus of the double deal Connally will spend part of his summer and fall trying to bring off: the conservative wing of the Democratic Party supporting the Republican presidential nominee. Nothing has helped Connally’s purpose more so far this year than labor’s failure to endorse Sissy Farenthold for governor against Dolph Briscoe. Nothing can help Connally’s purpose more in Texas during the rest of the year than would labor’s failure to join the McGovern delegates at the state convention June 13 in San Antonio in an all-out fight for respect and enforcement of the new rules of party reform, whether these rules work for the benefit of the McGovern, Humphrey, Wallace or uncommitted delegates. People who cannot understand Roy Evans’ role in this matter should, I think, keep in mind that Farenthold is for McGovern and Evans is for Humphrey. Sissy went to her precinct convention and was chosen as a delegate for McGovern; Dolph Briscoe is making deals with the Humphrey people to turn the uncommitted delegates to Humphrey. These are the stakes that reach beyond Texas and make explicable, but not justifiable, labor’s failure to endorse Farenthold. If the Texas Democrats let the Connally people and Republicans rule their state convention disqualifying McGovern delegates, openly violating the new Democratic Party rules in deliberate provocation, improperly stacking up the vote for Humbert Humphrey there will be no choice but another nasty split in the representation of Texas as the Democratic National Convention. That is exactly what Connally must want, because it will help Nixon. There is a line of argument running among Humphrey people that the McGovern people are hard to deal with, hard to get along with. That is correct, they are, and they should be. What is going on now in the Democratic Party is no tea party or “fight in the family.” It is a part of the continuing fight for the soul of the United States. Shall this country continue to be a militarist world power ruled by an increasingly fascist domestic economic power structure? That question is more important than the future of any political party, including the Democratic Party, and the Americans who understand this are not going to fall for time-worn appeals to party unity or accept with friendly little laughs the hypocrisy, doubletalk and sellout which have characterized Democratic Party politics for more than a decade. Labor people had better get used to the idea that they, not the McGovern-Kennedy types, are the problem, and they, not the idealists without whom the Democratic Party is nothing but a collection of special interests, will be to blame if they play into Nixon’s hands by forcing Humphrey’s nomination against the wishes of the delegates. The vital thing is that the neophytes in Texas Democratic politics have no illusions about what they face going into the Texas Democratic Convention in San Antonio June 13. The credentials committee at the state convention has been appointed by Roy Orr, the right-wing chairman of the State Democratic Executive Committee. Orr would probably just as soon have the Texas delegation contribute to a blow-up of the national convention so Connally can carry the state for Nixon. Orr’s credentials committee makes this clear. Glen Castlebury, who was recently fired from the Austin-American, wrote a story detailing the presidential preferences of the members of that committee. “The credentials committee named by Orr,” Castlebury reported, “includes SDEC members Dr. Carl Burney, LaPorte, Humphrey delegate; Mrs. Leonard McDonald, Dallas, uncommitted; Mrs. Morris Atlas, McAllen, uncommitted; Judson Robinson, Houston, one of the only two blacks on the committee, presidential pledge unknown; Ralph Brock, Lubbock, Humphrey; Jess Young, San Antonio, uncommitted; Joe Bob Golden, Jasper, uncommitted; and John Brunson,’ Houston, uncommitted. “Lay Democrats appointed by Orr are Earl Luna, Dallas, uncommitted; Robert Gay Houston, uncommitted; Mrs. Neal Spelce, Austin, uncommitted; Donna Bass, Amarillo, uncommitted; J. Guy Sowell, San Antonio, a black, presidential pledge uncertain; Mike Hopkins, Austin and Dallas, uncommitted; Alfredo Montoya, El Paso, uncommitted or for Humphrey; and June 9, 1972 7