University of Virginia Library

Student Enters GOP Race;
Victor To Face Satterfield

By Mark Pirrung
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, second-year
law student and the first student
nominated to the Board of Visitors, has
announced that he will seek to oppose
incumbent Democrat David E. Satterfield
III for the Congressional seat of the third
district in Virginia.

Well known for his active role in
Governor Linwood Holton's fall
campaign, Mr. Wilkinson was encouraged
to run by party leaders in a Monday
meeting.

Mr. Wilkinson said Governor Holton, a
personal friend, asked him to enter the race.

Youngest Virginian

Mr. Wilkinson, at 25, if he should be elected,
will be the youngest Virginian to take a seat in
the House of Representatives since 1952.
Wilkinson said he would have to formulate
"alternative plans for my education" if elected,
but said he hoped to stay in school through this
year's exams.

Earlier this year, Governor Holton named
Mr. Wilkinson as the first student and youngest
member of the Board of Visitors at the
University.

The Republican district convention will be
May 25 in which Mr. Wilkinson should expect
the support of most influential Republicans in
the 3rd district.

Yale Graduate

Mr. Wilkinson is a magna cum laude
graduate of Yale University, class of 1967,
when he received highest honors on his thesis
"Senator Byrd and Virginia Politics." He later
adapted his thesis for publication as a book
which became a Virginia best seller in 1968.
The book was hailed as the most definitive
work on Virginia politics in years.

Always interested in politics, Mr. Wilkinson
worked many summers as apprentice on Capitol
Hill. Ironically he spent the summer of 1965 in
the office of Rep. Satterfield.

Mr. Wilkinson became familiar with primary
campaigning when he served as a volunteer aid
in the campaign headquarters of Democratic
U.S. Senator A. Willis Robertson in 1966.

In 1969 Mr. Wilkinson chose to align himself
with the moderate Republican drive led by
Holton. He was a speech writer for the Governor
during the campaign and also helped write the
inaugural address.

J. Harvey Wilkinson

Congressional Candidate In 3rd District

Mr. Wilkinson has said that he would wage a
"dawn to dusk" campaign that would adhere to
no blueprint of any of the earlier GOP attempts
to unseat Satterfield.

As to his position, Mr. Wilkinson describes
himself as a moderate or moderate conservative
Republican. In a news conference at the John
Marshall Hotel in Richmond Mr. Wilkinson
said: "There is a place in the public service of
our country for young men who believe both in
glory of the American past and the
greatness of the American future."