Tuesday, March 24, 1964 University Daily Kansan
Page 5
Vice President Has Become Important Figure
By Alvin Spivak
WASHINGTON (UPI) Once upon a time there was a vice president named Throttlebottom who served under a president named Wintergreen.
Their constituency was a Broadway theater audience and they were the brainchildren of playwrights George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. Their antics in "Of Thee I Sing," with music by George I Ira Gershwin, resulted in a 1932 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
It couldn't happen now. No one would believe the show's premise, for example, that the only way Throttlebottom could see the White House was on a public tour.
THE ASCENDENCY OF the vice president's role was emphasized in the duties delegated to Richard M. Nixon when he held the office, and in his prominence during former President Dwight D. Eisenhower's illnesses.
has made it clear he wants the lesson to stick.
In his television interview Sunday, Johnson expressed a pointed credio for selection of a vice presidential candidate by the Democratic—and presumably the Republican—national convention. He said:
"I would hope that the only thing that would appeal to any delegate would be this question: Is this the best equipped and best trained and best fitted man to serve as president should he be called on to do so?"
WHEN KENNEDY MADE Johnson his surprise selection as a running mate in 1960, the general supposition was that it was to help win the Southern and Western areas where the Texan was popular.
After Kennedy's death, he was quoted as having also told friends that he chose Johnson because he considered the former Senate Democratic leader the best man—next to him—to be president if events decreed.
nominee for political value. A man with the qualifications Johnson described would be expected to have built up a favorable political record, too—by virtue of experience, name or associations.
THUS THE CURRENT Democratic roster of possibilities now includes Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, Peace Corps and poverty war coordinator Sargent Shriver, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, U.N. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson, New York Mayor Robert F. Wagner, and Sen. Eugene McCarthy.
Which one of these, if any, will be chosen is something that is expected to depend on Johnson's own desires as the undisputed prospect for the Democratic presidential nomination. What his desires are, he isn't saying except for that credo.
But in the Sunday interview he made a couple of things clear;
"The president must have great confidence in the vice president . . . so the president's recommendation's should not be treated lightly."
"I would be less than frank if I said that I thought that it was wise at this stage of the game for either the president or the (candidates for) vice president to be carrying on a campaign for the office."
The latter remark applied to the efforts by Robert Kennedy supporters in New Hampshire and Wisconsin to boom him for the vice presidency—despite his public efforts to discourage them.
nothing to encourage those efforts". Johnson said. He added that reports of a feud between them because of this situation were "newspaper talk."
"The attorney general and I have talked about that, and I think he understands my viewpoints, and I take his word that he has done
But presidential nominees don't like to be pushed—even unofficially into their vice presidential choices.
Johnson is continuing to keep his own counsel about a potential running mate and probably won't finally make up his mind until convention time, depending on the political situation then. He may come up with a big surprise for everyone. Jack Kennedy did in 1960.
Musical Monickers
ST. LOUIS—(UP)—Melodie and Merrie Tune are sisters, daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tune of suburban University City.