Democratic Treasurer Wants Galbraith Off Party Policy Council

John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics and former Ambassador to India under President Kennedy, is an extremist, according to the Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee.

Robert S. Strauss, a wealthy Texan who now heads the Party's fund-raising efforts, wants Galbraith removed from the Party's Policy Counsel.

Strauss took umbrage at a book by Galbraith, Who Needs the Democrats? published early this summer, in which Galbraith suggested that liberal Democrats allow the Republicans to organize the House of Representatives and name the committee chairmen there in order to break the power of conservative Democratic congressmen such as Rep. L. Mendel Rivers (D-S. C.).

Another bone of contention was a subsequent suggestion by Galbraith that Texas Democrats help elect George Bush, a Republican, to the Senate over Lloyd Bensen, a conservative who defeated the Democrat's incumbent Ralph Yarborough in the Democratic primary last spring.

Strauss-who was a strong backer of Bensen's campaign-then called for Galbraith's removal from the Policy Council, an advisory body appointed last year by the current National Chairman, Sen. Fred Harris (D-Okla.), The group is chaired by Hubert H. Humphrey, and its members include Harris, Sen. Edmund Muskie (D-Me.), Averell Harriman, Morris Abram, and Sen. Walter F. Mondale (D-Minn.)-all of whom are generally considered members of the Party's liberal wing.

Galbraith on Friday called Strauss "one of the Dallas dropouts from the tax structure," adding, "I have the support of everyone North of the Mason-Dixon line."

Dead Nationally

"Strauss and his friends are dead on the national scene," he said. "If I had thought there was a way to get Strauss to smoke himself out like this, I would have done it."

"I don't think this is going to have any effect except to cost the National Committee some money. The people who give big donations are mostly liberals," he added.