SCHOOL PRAYERS

BUSING

ABORTION

WELFARE LETNAM

GAY

LIB

TAX REFORM

AID TO ISRAEL

Democratic Platform

GUN

CONTRCES

D1972 THE PLANS DEALER

Inside Report

McGovern Compromises Fail

By Rowland Evans and Robert Novak WASHINGTON McGovern and Wallace forces in secret negotiations last weekend attempted to unite the Democratic party on the corrosive issue of racial school busing but barely failed-a dramatic episode showing how much Sen. George McGovern will compromise to be elected president but also indicating even that may not be enough.

In closed-door sessions of the 15-member platform drafting committee at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, agents of McGovern and Gov. George C. Wallace actually agreed on a busing plank that was later rejected by Wallace himself. Amazingly, McGovern then embraced the compromise unilaterally. But McGovern operatives the next day permitted the full platform committee to substitute a pro-busing plank, insuring a bitter challenge from Wallaceites on the convention floor in Miami Beach.

THE EPISODE FITS the inconsistency of McGovern's platform policy. His dominant forces refused to budge an inch from dovish positions on defense and Vietnam but bent miles on taxation, welfare and social issues. His strategy on the crucial domestic issue of busing has been mixed, reflecting the entire platform. On balance, McGovern's march to the center has been a sometime thing.

When the drafting committee came to school busing last Saturday, its liberal majority proposed a probusing plank: Forced busing is "another tool" to integrate schools. That plank would guarantee bitter opposition from Wallace delegates.

But State Sen. Pierre Pelham of Alabama, Wallace's skillful platform representative, intervened. Why not let him and former Gov. Grant Sawyer of Nevada, an uncommitted delegate and one of the few experienced politicians on the platform committee in New Politics 1972, try to work something out? Ted Van Dyk, a onetime aide to Hubert H. Humphrey when he was vice president, and now running McGovern's platform operation, agreed.

SURPRISINGLY, Pelham and Sawyer returned with a busing compromise worthy of the Delphic oracle: “Quality education is the issue-busing is not." Moreover, "transportation of students"-a delightfully vague term-is endorsed only when it achieves "quality education.” Whether that is antibusing or probusing depends on the eyes of the beholder.

Van Dyk quickly relayed McGovern's approval. But it was too late Saturday night to contact the hospitalized Wallace. Overnight, McGovern's inner circle was jubilant, joyously envisioning reconciliation between the McGovern and Wallace wings of the party to insure victory over Richard M. Nixon.

Sunday brought the McGovernites down to earth. Pelham reported that Wallace had vetoed the compromise, insisting on an overt prohibition against racial bus-

EVANS

NOVAK

ing. "Right at that moment," one drafting committee member told us, "George McGovern lost his chance to be president.'

Mrs. Abram Chayes, an ardently liberal McGovern delegate from Massachusetts, immediately started writing a more liberal busing plank. But Van Dyk stopped her; McGovern would accept the Pelham-Sawyer compromise anyway. This reflects McGovern's newly pragmatic view that over 70% of Americans opposing forced busing cannot be ignored.

BY THE TIME the full platform committee took up the busing plank Monday, McGovern's militant supporters were restive over Van Dyk's tight control. The McGovern-dominated drafting committee Sunday rejected planks on homosexual freedom and free abortion and approved milkand-water planks on welfare and taxation. On Monday in the full committee, Van Dyk engineered votes defeating radical taxation and welfare plans once espoused by McGovern himself.

But McGovern platform committee members, particularly blacks, wanted to return to the probusing "another tool" amendment. Since even the compromise would be opposed by Wallace at Miami Beach, Van Dyk made a spot decision not to impose discipline. So, the committee voted, 70 to 27, to record the Democratic party in favor of the massively unpopular integration device. McGovern's attempt at moderation on busing had failed.

But McGovern did not even attempt moderation on national defense. His lieutenants were frantic when the drafting committee, with Mrs. Chayes momentarily absent, voted 7 to 6 for a noncommittal national security plank. When Mrs. Chayes returned, the McGovernites got the drafters to send to the full committee both that plank and a rival McGovern version calling for defense spending cuts.

That insured both defense and busing would be battled out on the convention floor with McGovern seeming to oppose strong national defense and favor forced busing. Put in those terms, McGovern's effort to keep the platform well to the right of his own pronouncements may have been mostly in vain.

LABOR

BOSSES

POLITICAL

BOSSES

"It's outa control!”