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Watching the Weather Vane. Working against Anderson, but for Strauss, were serious doubts in Democratic minds about how Senate rejection of Strauss would sit with the voters back home. Some responsible Democrats, convinced that refusal to confirm Strauss would seem spiteful and irresponsible, and would therefore hurt the Democratic Party, went to Wyoming's McGee, urged him to halt his campaign against Strauss. Last week the specter of anti-Semitism charges hit Democrats when New York Republican Representative Steven B. Derounian obliquely charged on the floor of the House that the opposition to Strauss "is based on religious prejudice." That same day, Pennsylvania's Republican Senator Hugh Scott, one of Strauss's most active backers, also raised the issue of antiSemitism.
Posture of Serenity. With such sensitive, potentially explosive issues hanging over the Strauss confirmation battle, many a Senator was waiting until the last moment to make his decision. If all 98 Senators either vote or pair off, Republican Leader Dirksen will need to muster 49 pro-Strauss votes, with Vice President Nixon standing by to break a 49-to-49 tie. Of the Senate's 34 Republicans, only North Dakota's eccentric William ("Wild Bill") Langer has announced his intention to vote against Strauss. By week's end, seven Democrats* had publicly declared for Strauss, while Strauss's fellow Virginian, veteran Harry Flood Byrd, was working hard to round up others from conservative Southern ranks. In the final showdown, the key man seemed almost certain to be Democratic Leader Lyndon Johnson, shrewdest of his party's political weather vanes, and last week Johnson, beyond warning that pressures on Senators might well defeat Strauss, was maintaining silence on his intentions.
As he awaited the outcome of his ordeal, Lewis Strauss himself assumed a posture of serenity. If his appointment is denied, said Strauss, he will "go down to my farm for four days a week instead of one. We have very good fishing down there. I will write a book I have been intending to do, and it will avoid personalities and controversies. Probably be very dull." But anyone who knew Lewis Strauss or his record also knew that he cared deeply about his confirmation. He has served too long in public life and fought too hard for the things in which he believes to take defeat easily. As the man who fought for the H-bomb, Lewis Strauss deserves his nation's gratitude. And that debt has been shabbily paid in the bickering, quibbling battle on Capitol Hill.
* The seven: Ohio's Frank J. Lausche, Oklahoma's Robert S. Kerr, Rhode Island's John O. Pastore, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, Virginia's Harry F. Byrd and A. Willis Robertson, plus Dennis Chavez from Clint Anderson's own New Mexico.