ROCKEFELLER REVISITED

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Your correspondent (CRIMSON, 12/3/1959) challenges readers to prove that Governor Rockefeller has betrayed his pre-election principles. This would be hard to do, since in his gubernatorial campaign Rockefeller avoided running on the national and international issues which he is now talking about.

On the other hand, many people have supposed that as a member of a high-principled and benevolent Eastern family, he would not be found on the side of Mundt-McCarthyrite principles. His support of the student loyalty oath, that fatuous relic of the hysterical era which no other Western country would be silly enough to dream up, comes as an apparent shock.

Yet this attitude fits in with his having taken what, in contrast to the Herter-Kennan-Pearson end of the spectrum, might be called a right-wing or Dulles-type position on summitry and other cold-war relaxation measures. Despite his acute political trendex-consciousness, Rockefeller need therefore not be accused of political opportunism. His views seem consistent, and in this your correspondent is quite correct. Rockefeller simply represents a right-wing alternative to middle-of-the-roaders like President Eisenhower and the new Nixon, at least on fundamental issues like loyalty control and East-west negotiations. Neither family background nor efficient handling of New York state problems should obscure this fact. The incidental agreement with his views on nuclear testing on the part of Dean Acheson and Harry Truman is therefore less significant than the more basic congruence of his views with those of Teller, Strauss, and Bill Buckley. Derek Hudson,   Arlington, Mass.