LOCAL REPUBLICAN GROUP SEEKS GOP LEADER WITH JFK'S STATURE

A local group of young Republicans has urged the party to "seek in its future leadership those qualities of vision, intellectual force, humaneness and courage that America saw in John F. Kennedy, not in a specious effort to fall hair to his mantle but because our times demand no lesser greatness."

The statement was made in a 3600-word open letter sent by the Ripon Society to Republican leaders through-out the country. Founded in December of 1962, the group includes among its 25 members Harvard graduate and law students, four young M.I.T. faculty members, and various professional men. There are no undergraduate members.

"It is primarily a research and discussion group," according to Emil H. Frankel 2L, one of the founders of the Society. "Our first statement is a rather atypical one, which we falt was called for by the situation created by the assassination."

The letter describes President Johnson as "a prisoner of the past" who is not likely to win the hearts of the American people, as had Kennedy. "The transfer of power means that the center is once again contestable."

Calling the staunchly conservative approach "a strategy for consolidating a minority position," the group urged party leaders to adopt a moderate center strategy as the best means of building a durable Republican majority.

Although the letter is being sent to Republican leaders throughout the country, the group is particularly anxious to communicate their ideas to the younger men in the party, according to John S. Saloma, an assistant professor of Political Science at M.I.T.