Mrs. Luce Hits G.O.P. Quarrels

Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce, former Congresswomen, ambassador, and author, performed exploratory surgery on the Republican Party last night and predicted that unless a remarkable comeback can be made, "the party has probably had it."

Speaking to an audience of about 300 at the Law School Forum in Lowell Lecture Hall, Mrs. Luce delivered a lesson in the history of American politics and decided that "parties don't make the issues; issues make the parties."

Although she delivered a seconding speech to Sen. Barry Goldwater's Presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention last July and campaigned for the Arizonan, Mrs. Luce admitted that "Goldwater's original mistake was running for the nomination."

"Splits in major parties have been a recipe for their defeat over the years," Mrs. Luce said as she pleaded for post-election unity within the GOP. "Rah-rah talk for any single leader will not bring the party to victory," she insisted.

John Saloma, assistant professor of Economics at M.I.T. and president of the liberal-Republican Ripon Society, took issue with Mrs. Luce, asking "What price unity?" He complained that the Republicans ought not to have welcomed Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.S.C.) into their ranks.

The most pessimistic predictions on "The Future of the Republican Party," the Forum's topic, came from Gerard F. Doherty '50, chairman of the Massachusetts State Democratic Committee. He called Mrs. Luce's discussion a collection of "dialectical politicalisms."

Mrs. Luce, who explained that she had campaigned in 1932 for President Franklin D. Roosevelt '04, claimed that FDR formulated the New Deal only after his election. "Today we might even consider his program well to the right of Goldwater's," she charged.

"We may find President Johnson the most conservative President the Democrats have had in many years," Mrs. Luce suggested.