Truth Squad' of 10 Law Students Trails Goldwater in N.H. Primary

A small group of Harvard Law School students is conducting a campaign to badger Senator Barry Goldwater while he stumps for the Republican presidential nomination in New Hampshire.

Dubbed the "truth squad" by members of the press, the group of about ten Republican students periodically trails the senator, asking him pointed questions at each of his stops.

Their first journey into New Hampshire, which holds the nation's initial presidential primary next month, was made two weeks ago on Jan. 21, 22, and 23. Another trip is planned for tomorrow evening, when Goldwater will be campaigning in the southern part of the state.

Question on China

At one point during their first day of activity, Goldwater reportedly became visibly annoyed over the truth squad's questioning. The incident came late in the day, when Edward S. Cabot 3L asked the senator what his policy would be if Red China were admitted to the U.N.

The law students belong to either the Harvard Graduate Young Republican Club or the Ripon Society, a group of liberal Republicans formed last fall, but their activities in New Hampshire are not connected with either of these organizations.

All the members of the truth squad are unconditionally opposed to Goldwater, although their allegiances are divided among the other potential Republican presidential candidates.

"A Set of Principles"

"We feel quite strongly that Goldwater represents a certain set of principles that we don't want to see the Republican party assume. If we can make him look bad, all the better," said Emil H. Frankel 2L, one of the members of the group.

Their questions to Goldwater have been concerned primarily with his positions on federal aid to education, Red China's admission to the United Nations, and his proposals both to make Social Security voluntary and to withdraw diplomatic recognition from the Soviet Union.

Cabot said that the group considers many of Goldwater's statements to be 'loaded with contradiction." In 1958, for instance, he said, Goldwater opposed the Kerr-Mills bill, which gives individual states the right to establish age medical care programs with the distance of the federal government. Since then, Cabot said, the senator has reversed his position three times, supporting the bill in 1961, opposing it in 1963, and now tacitly supporting it.

The group was formed, Cabot said, because it felt that the newspaper men following Goldwater were not pointing out these contradictions.