On July 1 the Houston papers reported the election of a new, "anti- extremist" Republican countyleader. This was James M. Mayor, who defeated James Bowers by a margin of 95 votes against 80 (^)
in the county executive committee. Mayor was endorsed by Bush, as well as by Senator Tower.
Bowers was an auctioneer who called for a return to the Goldwater "magic." GOP state chair
O'Donnell hoped that the new chairman would be able to put an end to "the great deal of dissension
within the party in Harris County for several years." Despite this pious wish, acrimonious factionfighting tore the county organization to pieces over the next several years. At one point the Ripon (^)
Society, a nationwide liberal Republican grouping which claimed to be part of a moderating
rebuilding effort after the Goldwater debacle, intervened in the county to protect Mayor against the
right-wing opposition. In so doing, the Ripon Society was also intervening in favor of Bush. The
Ripon people pointed to the guerilla warfare against Mayor as "another demonstration of thepersistent strength of the far right within the Texas GOP." Shortly after this scaramouche, the (^)
dissident faction of the Harris County GOP controlled 87 of 189 precinct chairs.
But at the same time Bush took care to police his left flank, distancing himself from the beginnings
of the movement against the war in Vietnam which had been visible by the middle of 1965. Aremarkable document of this manuever is the text of the debate between Bush and Ronnie Dugger, (^)
the writer and editor of the Texas Observer. The debate was held July 1, 1965 before the Junior Bar
of Texas convention in Fort Worth. Dugger had endorsed Bush--in a way Dugger said was "not
without whimsical intent" in the GOP senate primary the year before. Dugger was no radical; at this
point was not really against the Vietnam war, and he actually endorsed the policy of LBJ, sayingthat the President had "no easy way out of Viet Nam, but he is seeking and seeking hard for an
honorable way out." [fn 4] Nevertheless, Dugger found that LBJ had made a series of mistakes in
the implementation of his policy. Dugger also embraced the provisos advanced by Senator
Fulbright to the effect that "seeking a complete military victory would cost more than the
requirements of our iargued that anti-war demonstrations and civil disobedience could be beneficial. nterest and honor." So Dugger argued against any further escalation, and
Bush's first real cause for alarm was seeing "the civil rights movement being made over into a
massive vehicle with which to attack the President's foreign policy in Vietnam." He started by
attacking ConraUniversity" - that "The United States white supremacists' army has been sent to suppress the non-d Lynn, a "Negro lawyer" who had told students at "my old university- Yale
white people of the world." According to Bush "The Yale Daily News reported that the audience
applauded when [Lynn] annunced that several Negroes had gone to Asia to enlist in the North Viet
Nam army to fight against the United States." Then Bush turned to his real target, Martin Luther
King. King, he said, who is "identified with the freedom of the Negro cause, says in Boston theother day that he doesn't want to sit at a segregated lunch counter where you have strontium 90 in (^)
the milk, overlooking the fact that it's the communists who are testing in the atmosphere today, the
Red Chinese. It's not the United States." Then there was Bayard Rustin, "a leading individual in the
Negro struggle for freedom, [who] calls for withdrawal from Viet Nam." This is all hypocritical in
Bush's view, since "they talk about civil rights in this country, but they are willing to sacrifice theindividual rights in the communist countries."
Bush was equally riled up over anti-war demonstrations, since they were peopled by what he called
"extremists:" "I am sure you know what an extremist is. That's a guy who takes a good idea and
carries it to simply preposterous ends. And that's what's happened. Of course, the re-emergence ofthe political beatnik is causing me personally a good deal of pleasure. Many conservatives winced (^)
during 1964 as we were labelled extremists of the right. And certainly we were embarrassed by the
booing of Nelson Rockefeller at the convention, and some of the comments that referred to the
smell of fascism in the air at the Republican convention, and things like this, and we winced."
frankie
(Frankie)
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