Rockefeller’s Support Embraced By Scranton

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30469, 17 June 1964, Page 17

Rockefeller’s Support Embraced By Scranton

GV-Z.P-A.-Reuter— Copyright) DES MOINES (Iowa), June 16. Hailing Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s decision to support him as “a tremendous boost,” the late-running Presidential candidate, William Scranton, today heads for Kansas in search of badly-needed delegate votes.

The Pennsylvania Governor, who entered the Republican race on Friday, has 114 firstballot delegates of his own and now . can apparently count on 127 Rockefeller delegates, at least on the early ballots.

He is also expected to get the 46 votes pledged to Henry Cabot Lodge.

Governor Scranton flew to lowa last night for a meeting with the State’s 24 convention delegates, nine of whom are uncommitted so far. Today he flies to Topeka, Kansas, with hopes of getting a majority of that State’s 20vote delegation. Chants of “We want Barry” drowned out Scranton as he attempted to speak to 1000 people after stepping from a chartered airliner in Des Moines last night. But Scranton backers held their own, shouting “We want Bill.” Governor Scranton said he was extremely pleased with the “terrific reception?’

Welcoming Governor Rockefeller’s surprise withdrawal, Scranton said: “I appreciate support from anyone—especially from one of the real leaders of the party.” Two chiefs of the national “draft Lodge" movement said they would go to San Francisco today to serve as consultants on the Scranton staff. They also promised to release Lodge telephones, switch-boards and other equipment to the Scranton forces.

Goldwater speaks today to the Texas Republican convention in Dallas confident that he will get all the State’s 56 delegate votes to push him over the top theoreticallv in unofficial tallies which give him 618 of the 655 votes needed to win in San Francisco next month. “Very Hopeful” Although Governor Rockefeller did not specifically withdraw from the race yesterday, most political correspondents took the line today that this was only a techni cality. Newspaper headlines in New York said flatly: “Rocky Quits” and “Rockefller Gives Up Race.” Senator Kenneth Keating, of New York, said the Rockefeller move yesterday “boosts Governor Scranton’s chances from the barely possible to the very hopeful.”