Senate to Vote on Meriwether Today; Recommitment Move Defeated

The Senate, after a heated and acrimonious five-hour debate today in which party lines were disregarded, rejected by a vote of 66 to 18 a motion to recommit to the Senate Banking Committee the controversial nomination of Charles M. Meriwether of Alabama as a director of the United States Export-Import Bank.

The Senate will vote tomorrow afternoon on the final question of confirmation of President Kennedy’s nomination of the Alabaman who had admitted association with Ku Klux Klan leaders and segregationist views and who had been accused during the debate today of having a police record.

Defeat of the recommitment motion, introduced by Senator Jacob Javits, New York Republican, was accomplished by a coalition of a number of liberal supporters of President Kennedy and the Dixiecrat-right wing Republican bloc. The debate found Senator Paul Douglas, Illinois Democrat, a leading liberal, joined with Sen. Everett Dirksen, the Republican leaded in urging that “mercy and compassion” be shown Meriwether.

The attack on the Meriwether nomination was opened by Sen. Javits who said Meriwether had shown a “lack of sensitivity to the public policy of the United States.” It was vigorously pressed by Sen. Wayne B. Morse, Oregon Democrat, who charged that Meriwether had a police record which the Senate should consider before confirming him in an important post. He read into the record an editorial from a leading Alabama newspaper protesting against Meriwether’s nomination.

Senator Prescott Bush, Connecticut Republican who voted to recommend confirmation when the Senate Banking Committee received the nomination, told the Senate he had reconsidered and would vote against confirmation.

Senator Edmund S. Muskie, Maine Democrat who abstained from voting on the Meriwether nomination in the Senate Banking Committee, told the Senate that if the nomination were sent back to the committee, he would vote for confirmation of the nominee.

Meriwether’s qualifications for the post, which were seriously questioned by Sen. Javits Sen. Keating of New York and Sen, Morse, were staunchly defended by Sen. Willis Robertson of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and by Sen. John Sparkman, of Alabama, who termed the attacks on Meriwether “McCarthyism,” and by Sen. Dirksen.

When Sen. Ernest Gruening, Alaska Democrat, suggested that since Meriwether’s views had international implications, the appointment be referred to the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Robertson angrily asked him of he had made a similar suggestion when the Senate acted on the nomination of a Jew from New York. He did not identify the nominee but was believed to have referred to Harold Linder, newly confirmed chairman of the Export-Import Bank.