Just One of Those Weeks

Little Bill Miller, the Republican candidate for Vice President, kept in there jabbing, hooking, and often just flailing away. But he might as well have been shadow boxing, since his blows never seemed to land--and anyhow he was playing to scanty crowds.

In Omaha, Neb., Miller cried: "When all is said and done, there's only one real issue in this campaign--character versus corruption. And in Barry Goldwater we have the character, and they can have the corruption." In Reno, Nev., Miller condemned the Administration's war on poverty as "a cruel hoax on the American people, put into effect two months before the election, not with any thought of correcting poverty but only to buy votes for Lyndon Johnson with taxpayers' money."

In St. Louis, after the publication of the Warren Commission report, Miller charged that the Kennedy-Johnson State Department had deliberately ordered destroyed "the bulk of their records containing data on Government security risks." In reply, the State Department quietly noted that only field duplicates of dead files have been eliminated and that originals remain in Washington.

To Miller, it must have seemed to be just one of those weeks. In Laramie, Wyo., he paced the locker room of the University of Wyoming field house for one hour before windy speakers who preceded him at a political rally had finished and he was summoned to the platform.

Arriving in Hutchinson, Kans., he walked through the lobby of the Baker Hotel, tried to get into an elevator. But the elevator was already jammed, and someone in the rear, recognizing Miller, cried out sarcastically: "Welcome to Hutchinson." Retorted Miller: "Thank you. And Merry Christmas." And in Reno, a little old lady who had just shaken Miller's hand turned to a friend and clucked: "The last time I shook a candidate's hand it was Dewey's. And it didn't do him any good either." The biggest audience that Miller drew all week was 5,000 in San Antonio. Most of the time, he spoke to audiences numbering in the hundreds.

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