Idaho State Journal from Pocatello, Idaho • Page 29

PAGE 6SECTION CJOA C.IDAHO STATE JOURNAL POCATELLO, IDAHO, FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 19, Practically everything grows right in Orange County EDITOR'S NOTE Orange County. California: A land of affluence, fertile farms, scenic beaches and mountains, unusual amusement parks. Above all, right-wing politics flourish here. At least they did.

If that's not the case today, the reputation lingers on: Orange County, the must conservative county in the U.S.A. By KAY BARTLETT AP Newsfeatures Writer ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. (AP) Justaboutanything will grow here. Most things will flourish. Oranges, asparagus, strawberries.

Societies to fight income tax, counter committee to battle the "Communist infiltrated" PTA, even something called SHRIK (theSociety to Harass the Reds and Intimidate the Kikes). Miles and miles of freeway, acres of shopping centers, enough fast food" emporiums to feed a small nation. People who stand in lines to buy a lot and a house in an instant village that was farmland a few months back; with the certain knowledge the value of their property will skyrocket in a year or two. If that bores you, there's a 75- year-old goldfish that does card tricks at Japanese Deer Park, one of the score of amusement palaces which thrive here. Just south of Los Angeles and just north of San Diego, Orange County is a never-never land of affluence, sunshine and its own particular brand of patriotism.

Its citizenry tend to add fuel to the image: Four-star Gen. Curtis LeMay, four-star patriot John Wayne, Sen. Barry Goldwater, an Arizonian who keeps an apartment at Newport Beach overlooking a bay. Bordered by mountains on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west, Orange County has been, among other things, a stronghold of the John Birch Society, a former stomping ground of the Ku Klux Klan, the fastest growing county in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau figures), and the home of the first drive-in church.

Richard Nixon was born in the northern city of Yorba Linda and periodically presided from the southern city of San Clemente. Between lies Disneyland, the institution that is Knott's Berry Farm, an aerospace and electronics industry, one giant company that owns 20 per cent of the county's land, and a populace that believes there's something slightly odd about anyone who would choose to live elsewhere. Currently popular bumper i i "Comm(UN)ism," "Hanoi is Fonda Jane," "Kissinger My Ass," "Would You Want Your Daughter to Date A Kennedy," and "Nixon Is A Liberal." The Nixon is a swastika. Politically, Orange County has long had a reputation for its ultra conservatism, a reputation that has been the subject of national magazine articles and popular jokes. It once prompted John Sehmitz, a former congressman and 1972 presidential candidate of the American Independent party, to remark that he joined the John Birch Society to get into the mainstream of Orange County politics.

"Many of my neighbors were Birch members," says Mrs. Judy Rosener, who teaches a course in Orange County politics at the University of California at Irvine (UCI). That was several years ago. Mrs. Rosener said.

Since then Birch Society membership appears to have dropped off, or perhaps there's less discussion about belonging. The society itself doesn't give out membership figures. Many residents claim the image attached to their county never was justified. And then you meet a resident like Anthony Hilder, a self-proclaimed "new rightist" and author of a book "The War of Washington" which argues that international bankers conspired to involve America in World War II. "I'm slightly to the right of Genghis Khan and far, far right of the Birch Society," Hilder says.

"If I was in charge, I'd bomb London, New York and Washington. That's the seat of the international banking cartel that wishes to dominate the world." Roy Holm, mayor of Laguna Beach, one of the county's 26 cities says, "I think Orange County has been portrayed much too simplistically. I don't think Orange County was ever as conservative as it was portrayed east of the Colorado River." Most will agree that the county 782 square miles and 1.6 million people has more of a political mix now than it did 5 or 10 years ago. Still, it retains a uniqueness. "Politically speaking, I guess you could say there are only two counties left in the United States Orange County and Cook County," says George Delahanty, chairman of the county's GOP Central Committee.

And Barry Goldwater remarked that in his disastrous 1964election bid againstLyndon Johnson he carried five states and Orange County. Why did conservatism hang on when, between 1950 and 1965, the county was growing sometimes as much as 6,000 people per day? Some ascribe it to the agricultural economy that dominated for many years, and the traditional conservatism of farmers. Undoubtedly an influence, but one that does not explain why the conservatism lingered when the county's population tripled and the immigrants weren't farmers. Engineers, technicians, scientists and skilled workers arrived. School teachers came as the schools increased, postal clerks, grocery store clerks -everyone necessary for an area whose needs suddenly triple..