Keating Defended

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

In your October 15th issue you supported Bobby Kennedy's drive to unseat Senator Ken Keating in New York. The Crimson endorsement did not display the balanced and judicious reasoning, cool eye, and steady judgment usually so evident in your editorial column. Had you displayed your customary good form, I do think you would have been kinder to Senator Keating.

The Crimson characterized Senator Keating as "mediocre". I believe the Senator is a bit more than that. Keating alerted the country to the Cuban missile threat and insisted the President answer the Russian challenge. His outstanding legislative record includes active support of the test-ban treaty, the tax-cut bill, the civil-rights bill, the anti-poverty program, and the medicare program. His dedicated service throughout his eighteen years in Congress has gained him the respect of fellow congressmen and has made him a leader of the moderate wing of the Republican party. It is hard indeed to accept as "mediocre" a man of such constructive accomplishments, a man whom the New York Times recently endorsed as "an enlightened, industrious liberal, sensitive to the needs of both state and nation."

On the other hand, you characterized Bobby Kennedy as "promising". Although it is true that Kennedy showed some "promise" as Attorney General, be fulfilled this "promise" by resigning when his support of the civil rights program would have been most useful, and his earlier record of "promise" includes the assistance he gave Senator Joe McCarthy as counsel. Kennedy's legislative record might show "promise"; it does not show achievement. His pledge to reform away the bosses who handed him the Senatorial nomination portends "promise" but little action, especially considering how ineffectually his family has combated bossism and corruption in Massachusetts.

Most "promising" of all is what Kennedy will do to New York. If, as you write, Kennedy's national ambitions will drive him to "amass a Senate record of extraordinary strength". It is doubtful that he will succeed. He can count on little help from a President whose animosity toward him is well known and who slammed the door on his Vice-Presidential aspirations. Surely he will be aided neither by the Southern Democrats who control the all-powerful committees, nor by the Congressmen over whom Kennedy has rides rough shod.  James W. Vaupel '67  President, Students for Keating