Ripon Blasts Miller's Role As Chairman

The Ripon Society has charged that defeated Vice Presidential candidate William E. Miller used his former position as National Chairman of the Republican Party to block opposition to Senator Party Goldwater's candidacy.

In a 20-page report released earlier this week, the liberal Republican group claimed that Miller withheld national committee support from the Republican Governor's Association and thereby kept the association, a potentially moderate voice in the party, from becoming an effective power in the party.

The Society expressed its feeling that lack of support from Miller and his "all but publicly pro-Goldwater National Committee staff" kept the governors' group unorganized. Had the association been given the opportunity to organize, the report stated, it could have presented moderate opposition to Goldwater at the time of the Annual Governors' Conference last July.

The association would at the very least, they believe, "have been helpful in drafting a platform on which the whole party could stand."

The Ripon report was prepared in preparation for a two-day meeting of the Governors' Association which begins today in Denver. It suggests several changes which would, the society believes, make the governors' group a "vital third force in the rebuilding of the Republican Party."