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Show gnraUKffllllBHWIUUIffllM I dSelxind lite Jdeddlined 3 H SnintiiiiiHtmiHiiiiiniiiiiiHimtiiitniiiiiiiiiiw that both parties would prefer to bury the labor issue or agree behind the scenes on a labor bill compromise to avoid being hurt by a bipartisan "hot potato." It is at this point that Admiral Lewis L. Strauss has stepped back on the Washington scene. His critics regard him as the living, breathing symbol of the perfect "Strawman," or target for criticism in the Washington sense. He is determined and steadfast in his policies, which critics decry as stubborn. He has no great following, no eager enthusiasts. en-thusiasts. Strauss is little given to calming critics with quiet, effective public relations. As Secretary of Commerce he is open to attack on the recession-unemployment issue, on demands for more East-West trade, is a key figure in Washington's Wash-ington's never ending tariff vs. free trade issue. And as former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Strauss has already been charged with censorship, secrecy, misrepresentation and conniving in the Dixon-Yates vs. public power dispute. He has been attacked for soft peddling the danger of atomic test radiation. Strauss, a Wal St. banker, is charged with both restricting re-stricting the peaceful development develop-ment of atomic energy heje at home and at the same time, directing di-recting a widespread giveaway of atomic energy to private industry in-dustry at public expense. His appointment as Secretary of Commerce came while Congress Con-gress was in recess. It remains to be confirmed. Many of the Admiral's legion of critics have been waiting for the opportunity to make fair game of him and roast him in opposing his conformation con-formation to the Cabinet. Eventual approval is expected. But it's also virtually certain that, with few other "strawmen" left, the Democratic controlled Congress will tangle with Straus shortly in one of the few really big Congressional donnybrooks Washington has seen in many a day. , The nation's capital has always been a place where personalities overshadow issues and battles between personalities have always al-ways made the biggest headlines. But suddenly, the battling and embattled personalities seem to have disappeared. "Moderation" is the dominant theme. While the world teeters on the brink of the Berlin crisis, "national unity" is the loudest appeal now heard from either the epublican or the Democratic camp. It is all a little disquieting. If so, it is the lull before the storm, although it has been easy to understand why it has all been too quiet on the Potomoc and even a little unreal. ' Sherman Adams and the embattled em-battled Boston industrialist, Bernard Ber-nard Goldfine, have long since gone, from Washington. So has White House disarmament aide Harold Stassen, 'another one of those caught in the kind of controversy con-troversy peculiar to Washington in which the victim is lucky to get out with his skin. Vice President Nixon has skillfully skill-fully avoided giving anyone any reason to open fire on him once again. There has been a curious lack of criticism of Nixon ever since he won the nation's esteem last summer by standing up to anti-American street mobs during dur-ing his Latin visit. There is no great enthusiasm for reopening attacks on Agriculture Agri-culture Ezra Taft Benson, no stranger to controversy, since a mounting wheat surplus problem prob-lem he, warned against is stimulating stimu-lating a greater bipartisan approach ap-proach to the farm problem. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was another one of those caught in the crossfire of controversy, con-troversy, condemned by critics for his flexibility and brittle approach to foreign affairs. But alas! Since his illness, Dulles has been the object more of praise than censure and demands that he resign generally have backfired back-fired on those who would use him as a strawman or target for criticism, while he is ill. Senators and representatives barely whisper about the crisis in Berlin, since no one wants to risk upsetting a delicately balanced bal-anced international situation. In the Senate, old hands in the art of opposition, searching around for a target, have murmured mur-mured something about Senate Democratic Leader Lyndon L. Johnson's "dictatorial control of his party." But Wisconsin's em barrassed Senator Proxmire saw himself standing almost alone after raising the issue. Few of the Democrats appear anxious to take up the division of their own party as a battlecry. Two old hands at moderation and compromise guide their parties par-ties in the Senate. The Majority Leader Johnson and Republican Leader Everett L. Dirksen are more inclined to healing wounds and settling issues than making them. Attempts to make organized labor Washington's No. 1 whipping whip-ping boy have also come cropper. The reason is that- everyone agrees that Teamsters President Hoffa must be curbed. But every attempt to legislate restrictions on Hoffa has accentuated divisions divi-sions within the parties. Efforts to curb Walter Reuther for Mr. Hoffa's misdeeds have backfired cluttered up, and complicated and Hoffa issue and split the AFL-CIO itself into factions led by Reuther of the Automobile workers and George Meany of the merged labor organization. The likelihood may even be |