Extremist Influence in Election Campaigns Lowest in 10 Years

There was less “extremist influence” in the election campaigns this fall “than in any other national election in the past 10 years,” the Anti-Defamation League of B’nal B’rith reported, but evidence of that influence did surface in some elections.

Richard Stone, 46, a Democrat, was elected U.S. Senator from Florida, becoming the first popularly-elected Jew ever to win a seat in the Senate from the south. Democrats complained that his opponents cited Stone’s Jewish background in their campaigning. Stone’s opponents were Jack Eckard, the Republican candidate, and Dr. John Grady, the American Party candidate.

The Democrats complained about advertisements in most Florida newspapers, placed for Eckard, which highlighted Stone’s Jewishness. The Democrats said the ads were meant to appeal to a latent distrust of Jews by many rural Florida Democrats. Dr. Grady made campaign speeches in which he said he did not intend to try to get votes by pointing out that Stone was a Jew. Experts said there is considerable anti-Jewish feeling in parts of Florida where fundamentalist religions are strong.

The ADL issued a pre-election statement in Miami urging leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties in Florida to repudiate “forthrightly and unequivocally” any candidates for public office soliciting the support of the Ku Klux Klan, “or any other exponent of bigotry.” The ADL said two candidates for state-wide office had solicited support from the KKK–Bruce Smathers “who denies he knew men he met are Klansmen,” and Jeffrey Latham. Smathers won the post of Secretary of State, and Latham lost his bid for State Treasurer.

JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY CANDIDATES

The ADL said that existing extremism had come chiefly from the John Birch Society which had four national leaders running for Congress and had engaged in smear tactics against other Congressional candidates.

The four Birch Society candidates were identified by the ADL as Clyde R. Lewis of Anchorage, Alaska, a member of the society’s national council; Dr. Lawrence MacDonald of Atlanta, a national council member and Democratic candidate for Congress from Georgia’s 7th Congressional District; Floyd Paxton of Yakima, Wash., national council member, and Republican candidate for Congress; and John Rosselot, Birch Society life member, the only Bircher in the outgoing Congress and candidate for re-election from California’s 24th District. Rosselot lost. MacDonald was listed as the winner in Georgia.

A fifth candidate listed by the ADL as an extremist, Carl Savage of Montezuma, Ga., was the apparent loser in his bid for a seat in Congress on the Republican ticket in Georgia’s Third District. The ADL said Savage’s campaign included verbal attacks on Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger on the basis of his Jewishness, and full page ads in 21 Georgia newspapers questioning Kissinger’s loyalty to the U.S. Returns were incomplete this afternoon on the races of Lewis and Paxton.