The Late Late Show

However much the convention antics and dramatics on the Cow Palace floor seemed to be spun out by pro-Goldwater rote, one thing worth watching was the Republican moderates' death battle on the platform issues. Unfortunately, the climax came too late for much of the Eastern U.S. to follow it on television.

The platform fight was the dwindling anti-Goldwater platoon's final, forlorn hope. It wanted planks denouncing extremist groups, calling for "effective enforcement" of the 1964 civil rights law, and reaffirming the policy that only the President of the U.S. should be authorized to order the use of nuclear weapons.

Catcalls & Jeers. To start off the bout, Platform Chairman Melvin Laird arose before delegates already weary and bored after nearly three hours of sitting. For more than an hour and a half Laird, assisted by other committee members, droned through the entire 8,500-word platform. When they finished, it was nearly midnight on the East Coast.

The extremism amendment came first, and Nelson Rockefeller bounded up to the podium. The auditorium burst into a cacophony of catcalls, interrupted with chants of "We want Barry." Rocky gallantly persisted. "It is essential," he shouted, "that this convention repudiate here and now any doctrinaire militant minority, whether Communist, Ku Klux Klan or Bircher." The crowd booed. Chairman Thruston Morton of Kentucky angrily crashed down his gavel, but the noise dipped scarcely a decibel. Rocky snapped into the microphone: "It's still a free country, ladies and gentlemen."

The jeers continued, but Goldwater managers were alarmed about the exhibition. In an inconspicuous trailer parked behind the Cow Palace, F. Clifton White, a Goldwater lieutenant, picked up a microphone and barked: "All call! All call!" The message went over the lines to 30 phones on the convention floor. "If there is any booing in your delegations, stop it immediately," ordered White. Within three minutes Goldwater's legions pinpointed the main source of the catcalls in the galleries, scurried up the steps and asked offenders to give Rocky a break. They never really did.

Ramblers & Rights. Later, when Michigan's Governor George Romney tried to sell a mild extremism amendment of his own, the crowd was relatively gentle. Said former American Motors President Romney: "Unlike the Ramblers I used to sell, the Republicans must have a big wheelbase and a big body. I don't condemn them on the right or on the left--except the Communists."

To rebut, Colorado Senator Peter Dominick slapped away Romney's oratory contemptuously, calling it "an impassioned plea on behalf of an amendment that doesn't mean an awful lot."

The Cow Palace was no place for Republican moderation. The amendments on extremism and nuclear weapons control lost by huge head counts, with shoulder-to-shoulder phalanxes of Goldwater people rising to vote no. And when the long--and relatively listless--debate on civil rights ended, Morton polled each delegation, got a stunning show of Barry's strength: the amendment was beaten 897 to 409. When the delegates trudged out after eight hours, it was 3:30 on the East Coast--and the Goldwaterites' late late show of power had been missed by millions.

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