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JACK BASS:

But there is no question in your mind that as of now, he is in control of the party?

FERREL GUILLORY:

Yeah. I think that he's in control of the party machinery. I think he's the dominant personality in the party, though he doesn't have much of a personality, but he's the predominant figure in the party. But having said that, I go back to what I said about an hour or so ago, I'm not sure that the party will necessarily. . .I use the word "drift", but what I really mean is "align". . .in his type of Republican. I don't know who's going to run on the national level in '76, I don't know what kind of senatorial candidate (interruption on the tape). . .Mizell and he'll run on a race issue and all that. I don't know that yet, o.k. But you know, if a guy like Reagan runs in '76, he may, you know, the folks around here may get so enthralled with Reagan that they may not support the same way that the Governor might necessarily support if he were free to choose himself. The fact that he's the governor and that he has control of the party machinery, the Republican Party in North Carolina has a better chance of resisting the trend that I've been describing, that I saw in Atlanta, that my experience has shown me. The Republican Party in North Carolina has a better chance of not necessarily going through a southern strategy type party or a party just of disenchanted Democrats who are in the party merely because they are disenchanted. I think the party has a better chance of going another way with Holshouser there, with him in control of the party. But I'm not saying that it's necessarily going to do that, simply because he is there. I think the way the Nixon administration has just sort of set the temper of things and having Jesse Helms around. I think these will have another influence on it.