Eugene McCarthy | |
|---|---|
 McCarthy in 1964 | |
| United States Senator fromMinnesota | |
| In office January 3, 1959 – January 3, 1971 | |
| Preceded by | Edward John Thye |
| Succeeded by | Hubert Humphrey |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromMinnesota's4th district | |
| In office January 3, 1949 – January 3, 1959 | |
| Preceded by | Edward Devitt |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Karth |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Eugene Joseph McCarthy (1916-03-29)March 29, 1916 Watkins, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Died | December 10, 2005(2005-12-10) (aged 89) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party | Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5 |
| Alma mater | Saint John's University (BA) University of Minnesota (MA) |
| Profession |
|
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | United States Army |
| Unit | Military Intelligence Division |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916 – December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic fromMinnesota. He served in theUnited States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and theUnited States Senate from 1959 to 1971. McCarthy sought theDemocratic presidential nomination in the1968 election, challenging incumbentLyndon B. Johnson on an anti-Vietnam War platform. McCarthy unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for president four more times.
Born inWatkins, Minnesota, McCarthy became an economics professor after earning a graduate degree from theUniversity of Minnesota. He served as a code breaker for theUnited States Department of War duringWorld War II. McCarthy became a member of theMinnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (the state affiliate of the Democratic Party) and in 1948 was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served until being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958. McCarthy was a prominent supporter ofAdlai Stevenson II for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, and was himself a candidate for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1964. He co-sponsored theImmigration and Nationality Act of 1965, though he later expressed regret about its impact and became a member of theFederation for American Immigration Reform.
As the 1960s progressed, McCarthy emerged as a prominent opponent of Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War. AfterRobert F. Kennedy declined the request of a group of antiwar Democrats to challenge Johnson in the1968 Democratic primaries, McCarthy entered the race on an antiwar platform.[1] Though he was initially given little chance of winning, theTet Offensive galvanized opposition to the war, and McCarthy finished in a strong second place in theNew Hampshire primary. After that, Kennedy entered the race, and Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. McCarthy and Kennedy each won several primary contests.
The race was upended in June 1968 when Kennedy wasassassinated. McCarthy won a plurality of both the popular vote and the delegate count in the Democratic primaries, but the rules at the time did not bind delegates to their primary results. After Kennedy's assassination, his delegates became uncommitted, with most ultimately backingVice PresidentHubert Humphrey, who had not actively campaigned in the primaries. He had entered the primaries in April 1968 and was the preferred candidate of PresidentLyndon B. Johnson. This gave Humphrey the majority needed to secure the Democratic nomination at the1968 Democratic National Convention.
McCarthy did not seek reelection in the1970 Senate election. He sought the Democratic presidential nominationin 1972 but fared poorly in the primaries. He ran in several more races after that but was never elected to another office. He ran as an Independent in the1976 presidential election and won 0.9% of the popular vote. He was a plaintiff in the landmark campaign finance caseBuckley v. Valeo and supportedRonald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.
McCarthy was born inWatkins, Minnesota. He was the son of a deeply religiousCatholic woman of German ancestry, Anna Baden McCarthy, and a strong-willed man of Irish descent, Michael John McCarthy Jr.,[2][3] a postmaster and cattle buyer.
McCarthy grew up in Watkins with his parents and three siblings. He attended St. Anthony's Catholic School in Watkins, and spent hours reading his aunt'sHarvard Classics.[1] He was influenced by the monks at nearbySt. John's Abbey and University inCollegeville, Minnesota, and attended school there, atSaint John's Preparatory School, from which he graduated in 1932.[4] He also went to college atSaint John's University, graduating in 1935. McCarthy earned his master's degree from theUniversity of Minnesota in 1939. He taught in public schools in Minnesota andNorth Dakota from 1935 to 1940, when he became a professor of economics and education at St. John's, working there from 1940 to 1943.[5]
While at St. John's, he coached thehockey team for one season.[6]
In 1943, considering the contemplative life of a monk, he became a Benedictine novice at Saint John's Abbey.[1] After nine months as a monk he left the monastery, causing a fellow novice to say, "It was like losing a20-game winner".[7] He enlisted in the Army, serving as a code breaker for theMilitary Intelligence Division of theWar Department in Washington, D.C. in 1944.[8] He was then an instructor in sociology and economics at theCollege of St. Thomas inSt. Paul, Minnesota, from 1946 to 1949.[5]
McCarthy became a member of theMinnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. In 1948 he was elected to theUnited States House of Representatives with labor and Catholic support,[9] representingMinnesota's 4th congressional district until 1959. He became the leader of young liberals, predominately from the Midwest, called "McCarthy's Marauders".[10]
In 1952 he engaged Wisconsin SenatorJoseph McCarthy (no relation) in a nationally televised debate in which he parodied the Senator's arguments to "prove" that GeneralDouglas MacArthur had been a communist pawn.[10] In 1958 he was elected to the U.S. Senate.
He served as a member of (among other committees) the powerfulSenate Foreign Relations Committee. McCarthy became known to a larger audience in 1960 when he supported twice-defeated presidential candidateAdlai Stevenson for the Democratic nomination. He pleaded during his speech nominating Stevenson, "Do not reject this man who made us all proud to be called Democrats!" He joked about his own merits as a candidate, "I'm twice as liberal asHubert Humphrey, twice as intelligent asStuart Symington, and twice as Catholic asJack Kennedy."[10] He was considered as a possible running mate for Lyndon Johnson in 1964, only to see fellow Minnesota Senator Humphrey chosen for that position.[11]
McCarthy voted in favor of theCivil Rights Act of 1960,[12] the24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,[13] theCivil Rights Act of 1964,[14] theVoting Rights Act of 1965,[15] and theMedicare program.[16] He did not vote on theCivil Rights Act of 1968[17] or on the confirmation ofThurgood Marshall to theU.S. Supreme Court.[18]
Along withTed Kennedy, McCarthy was one of the original co-sponsors of theImmigration Act of 1965. He later regretted this, noting that "unrecognized by virtually all of the bill's supporters were provisions which would eventually lead to unprecedented growth in numbers and the transfer of policy control from the elected representatives of the American people to individuals wishing to bring relatives to this country".[19] He became a member of theFederation for American Immigration Reform's board of advisors.[20]
McCarthy met withMarxist-Leninist revolutionaryChe Guevara in New York City in 1964 to discuss repairing relations between the US andCuba.[21] They met in journalistLisa Howard's apartment onPark Avenue in Manhattan.[22] The 2008 filmChe: Part One depicts this event.[citation needed]
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In 1968,Allard K. Lowenstein and his anti-Vietnam WarDump Johnson movement recruited McCarthy to run against incumbent PresidentLyndon B. Johnson. Reportedly, Lowenstein first attempted to recruit SenatorRobert F. Kennedy, who declined to run, then SenatorGeorge McGovern, who also declined (Kennedy eventually decided to run after the primary on March 16, 1968,[23] and McGovern also later briefly entered the race). McCarthy entered and almost defeated Johnson in theNew Hampshire Democratic primary, with the intention of influencing thefederal government—then controlled byDemocrats—to curtail its involvement in theVietnam War. A number of antiwar college students and other activists from around the country traveled toNew Hampshire to support McCarthy's campaign. Some antiwar students who had the long-haired,counterculture appearance ofhippies chose to cut their long hair and shave off their beards in order to campaign for McCarthy door-to-door, a phenomenon that led to the informal slogan "Get clean for Gene".[24]
McCarthy's decision to run arose partly as an outcome of Oregon SenatorWayne Morse's opposition to the war. Morse was one of two senators to vote against theGulf of Tonkin Resolution of August 1964. He gave speeches denouncing the war before it had entered most Americans' awareness. Thereafter, several politically active Oregon Democrats asked Kennedy to run as an antiwar candidate. McCarthy also encouraged Kennedy to run.[25] After Kennedy refused, the group asked McCarthy to run, and he responded favorably. After Kennedy entered the race and Johnson withdrew, however, McCarthy shifted his focus toward Kennedy.[25]
McCarthy declared his candidacy on November 30, 1967, saying, "I am concerned that the Administration seems to have set no limit to the price it is willing to pay for a military victory." Political experts and the news media dismissed his candidacy, and he was given little chance of making any impact against Johnson in the primaries.[26] But public perception of him changed following theTet Offensive (January 30 – February 23, 1968), the aftermath of which saw many Democrats grow disillusioned with the war, and quite a few interested in an alternative to Johnson. McCarthy said, "My decision to challenge the President's position and the administration's position has been strengthened by recent announcements out of the administration. The evident intention to escalate and to intensify the war in Vietnam, and on the other hand, the absence of any positive indication or suggestion for a compromise or for a negotiated political settlement."[27]
On December 3, 1967, McCarthy addressed the Conference of Concerned Democrats in Chicago, accusing the Johnson administration of ignoring and bungling opportunities for bringing the war to a conclusion.[28] Eight days later it was reported that he had suggested abandoning some areas of South Vietnam to theViet Cong.[29] On February 17, 1968, it was reported that McCarthy's campaign had raised only a quarter of the funds it had hoped to raise nationally.[30]
As his volunteers (led by youth coordinatorSam Brown) went door to door in New Hampshire, and as the media began paying more serious attention to the senator, McCarthy began to rise in the polls. When he received 42% of the vote to Johnson's 49% in the March 12 New Hampshire primary (and 20 of New Hampshire's 24 delegates to the Democratic convention), it became clear that there was deep division among Democrats about the war. By this time, Johnson had become inextricably defined byVietnam, and this demonstration of divided support within his party meant his reelection (only four years afterwinning the highest percentage of the popular vote in modern history) seemed unlikely.[citation needed] The folk trioPeter, Paul and Mary released a record "Eugene McCarthy For President (If You Love Your Country)", endorsing McCarthy, who they said had stood alone against Johnson over "more timid men" now echoing him.[31][better source needed]
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On March 16,Robert F. Kennedy announced that he would run; many Democrats saw Kennedy as a stronger candidate than McCarthy. On March 31, Johnson surprised the world by announcing that he would not seek reelection. After that, McCarthy won inWisconsin,[32] where the Kennedy campaign was still getting organized. McCarthy also won in Oregon against a well-organized Kennedy effort; it was considered his first official victory over Kennedy.[25]
McCarthy styled himself as a clean politician, but criticized his opponents. Known for his wit, when asked if Michigan GovernorGeorge Romney's comment that Romney had been "brainwashed" about theVietnam War had ended Romney's presidential hopes, McCarthy remarked, "Well... no, not really. Anyway, I think in that case a light rinse would have been sufficient."[33] He mocked Kennedy and his supporters. A major gaffe occurred in Oregon, when McCarthy called Kennedy supporters "less intelligent" than his own and belittled Indiana (which had by then gone for Kennedy) for lacking a poet of the stature ofRobert Lowell—a friend of McCarthy's who often traveled with him.[34] In May, Kennedy attacked McCarthy's civil rights record.[35]
Some of those who joined McCarthy's effort early on were Kennedy loyalists. Now that Kennedy was in the race, many of them jumped ship, urging McCarthy to drop out and support Kennedy.[citation needed] McCarthy resented that Kennedy had let him do the "dirty work" of challenging Johnson and entered the race only when it became apparent that Johnson was vulnerable.[citation needed] As a result, while he initially entered the campaign with few illusions of winning, McCarthy now devoted himself to beating Kennedy (and Humphrey, who entered the race after Johnson withdrew) and gaining the nomination.[25]
Humphrey, long a champion of labor unions and ofcivil rights, entered the race with the support of the party "establishment", including most members of Congress, mayors, governors and labor union leaders.[citation needed] He entered too late to compete in any primaries, but had the support of Johnson and many Democratic insiders.[who?]
Kennedy, like his brother John in 1960, planned to win the nomination through popular support in the primaries. McCarthy and Kennedy squared off in California, knowing that the result there would be decisive. They both campaigned vigorously up and down the state, with many polls showing them neck-and-neck, and a few predicting a McCarthy victory.[citation needed]
A televised debate between them began to tilt undecided voters away from McCarthy. He made two statements many found ill-considered: that he would accept a government including Communists in South Vietnam, and that only the relocation of inner-city blacks would solve the urban problem. Kennedy pounced, portraying the former idea as soft on communism and the latter as a scheme to bus tens of thousands of ghetto residents into white, conservativeOrange County.[34] Kennedy won the California primary on June 4, but wasshot after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and died soon afterwards. In response, McCarthy refrained from political action for several days. One aide recalled McCarthy sneering about his fallen rival, saying that Kennedy was "demagoguing to the last". Another heard McCarthy say that Kennedy had "brought it on himself"—implying that he had provokedSirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian gunman convicted of killing him, by promising military support to the state of Israel.[34]
Despite strong showings in several primaries—he won more votes than any other Democratic candidate—McCarthy garnered only 23% of the delegates at the1968 Democratic National Convention, largely due to the control of state-party organizations over the delegate-selection process. After Kennedy's assassination, many Kennedy delegates, remembering his bitter war of words with McCarthy, chose to supportGeorge McGovern rather than McCarthy.[citation needed] Moreover, although Humphrey was not clearly an antiwar candidate, some antiwar Democrats hoped that as president he might succeed where Johnson had failed and extricate the United States from Vietnam. On June 23, 1968,Hubert Humphrey defeated McCarthy, securing significant delegates in their shared home state of Minnesota.[36][37][38] Before election day, McCarthy confirmed that he would personally vote for Humphrey, but said that he would go no further than that, stopping short of endorsing him.[citation needed] Although McCarthy did not win the Democratic nomination, the antiwar "New Party", which ran several candidates for president that year, listed him as its nominee on the ballot inArizona, where he received 2,751 votes, and in Vermont, gaining 579 votes. He also appeared on the Oregon ballot as the New Party choice. He received 20,721 votes as awrite-in candidate in California.[citation needed]
Despite McCarthy's anti-Vietnam War stance, North Vietnam's Communist government had a cynical attitude toward him, largely because the lack of money in his campaign made it highly skeptical of what he could achieve, describing McCarthy as "a second-rate politician with little experience or money" in its analysis of the presidential election published in their Army Newspaper dated August 10, 1968.[39]
McCarthy returned to politics as a candidate for theDemocratic presidential nomination in 1972, but he fared poorly inNew Hampshire andWisconsin and soon dropped out.
Illinois was the only primary in which McCarthy actively participated. He got 38% of the vote to the then leading contenderEdmund Muskie's 59%, but the media ignored McCarthy's Illinois campaign.
After his 1972 campaign, McCarthy left the Democratic Party, and ran as anIndependent candidate for president in1976. During that campaign, he took alibertarian stance oncivil liberties, promised to createfull employment by shortening thework week, came out in favor ofnuclear disarmament, attacked theInternal Revenue Service,[40] and said whom he would nominate to variousCabinet posts if elected. Mainly, however, he battledballot access laws he deemed too restrictive and encouraged voters to reject thetwo-party system.[41]
His numerous legal battles during the election, along with a stronggrassroots effort in friendly states, allowed him to appear on the ballot in 30 states and eased ballot access for later third-party candidates. His party affiliation was variously listed on ballots as "Independent," "McCarthy '76," "Non-Partisan," "Nom. Petition," "Nomination," "Not Designated," and "Court Order". Although he was not on the California andWyoming ballots, he was recognized as awrite-in candidate in those states. In many states, he did not run with a vice-presidential nominee, but he came to have a total of 15 running mates in states where he was required to have one. At least eight of his running mates were women.[42]
Nationally, McCarthy received 740,460 votes, 0.91% of the total, finishing third in the election.[42] His best showing came inOregon, where he received 40,207 votes, 3.90% of the vote.[42]
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McCarthy opposed Watergate-era campaign finance laws, becoming a plaintiff in the landmark caseBuckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), in which theU.S. Supreme Court held that certain provisions of federal campaign finance laws were unconstitutional.[43] McCarthy, theNew York Civil Liberties Union, philanthropistStewart Mott, theConservative Party of New York State, theMississippi Republican Party, and theLibertarian Party were the plaintiffs inBuckley, becoming key players in killing campaign spending limits and public financing of political campaigns.
In1980, dismayed by what he saw as the abject failure ofJimmy Carter's presidency (he later said that "he was the worst president we ever had"),[44] he appeared in a campaign ad forLibertarian candidateEd Clark and wrote the introduction to Clark's campaign book.[45] He eventually endorsedRonald Reagan for president.[46]
In 1982, McCarthyran for his old Senate seat but lost the Democratic primary to businessmanMark Dayton, 69% to 24%.
In the1988 election, McCarthy appeared on the ballot as the presidential candidate of a handful of left-wing state parties, specifically the Consumer parties inPennsylvania andNew Jersey and theMinnesota Progressive Party in Minnesota. In his campaign, he supported tradeprotectionism, Reagan'sStrategic Defense Initiative and the abolition of thetwo-party system.[47] He received 30,905 votes.[48]
In 1992, returning to the Democratic Party, he entered the New Hampshire presidential primary and campaigned for theDemocratic nomination, but was excluded from the first televised debate. Along with other candidates who had been excluded from the 1992 Democratic debates (including two-timeNew Alliance Party presidential candidateLenora Fulani, formerIrvine, California mayorLarry Agran,Billy Jack actorTom Laughlin, and others), McCarthy staged protests and took unsuccessful legal action in an attempt to be included in the debates. Unlike the other excluded candidates, McCarthy was a longstanding national figure and had mounted credible campaigns for president in previous elections. He won 108,679 votes in the 1992 primaries. In his campaign for the Democratic nomination, McCarthy proposed the use of import fees to help Japan and Western Europe pay for military security and raise taxes on the wealthy in order to eliminate the national debt.[49][50]
After leaving the Senate in 1971, McCarthy became a senior editor atHarcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishing and asyndicated newspaper columnist.[51] In the 1960s he began writing poetry, and his increased political prominence led to increased interest in his work. "If any of you are secret poets, the best way to break into print is to run for the presidency", he wrote in 1968.[10] He published a collection of poetry in 1997,Cool Reflections: Poetry For The Who, What, When, Where and Especially Why of It All (ISBN 1-57553-595-5).
McCarthy and his wife,Abigail Quigley McCarthy, had five children.[52]
In 1969, McCarthy separated from his wife after 24 years of marriage, but they never divorced. The children stayed with their mother after the separation.[53] According to McCarthy biographerDominic Sandbrook, McCarthy had a romantic relationship with CBS News correspondentMarya McLaughlin[54] that lasted until McLaughlin's death in 1998.[55]
McCarthy's niece Mary Beth was married to folk singerPeter Yarrow.[56][57]
McCarthy died of complications fromParkinson's disease at age 89 on December 10, 2005, in a retirement home inGeorgetown, Washington, D.C., where he had lived for the previous few years.[47] Former PresidentBill Clinton gave his eulogy.
Following his death theCollege of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University renamed their Public Policy Center theEugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy.[58] The Democratic party memorialized his death during the2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, on August 28, 2008. The memorial included pictures of several prominent Democrats who had died during the four-year period since the2004 Convention displayed on a large screen. During McCarthy's tribute, the screen displaying his photograph mistakenly left off his first name but included his middle name, calling him "Senator Joseph McCarthy";Joseph McCarthy was a notable Republican Senator fromWisconsin famous for hisanti-Communist campaigning and sparring with journalistEdward R. Murrow.[59]
In 2009, his alma mater, St. John's University, honored McCarthy by establishing the Eugene McCarthy Distinguished Public Service Award.[60]
McCarthy's files as U.S. congressman (Democratic Farmer-Labor) from Minnesota's 4th district (1949–1959) and as U.S. senator from Minnesota (1959–1971) are available at the Minnesota History Center for research. They include executive files, general files, legislative files, personal files, political and campaign (including senatorial, vice presidential, and presidential) files, public relations files, sound and visual materials (with photographs), and speeches.[61]
| McCarthy's presidential campaign results | |||
| Election | Party | votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 (primary) | Democratic Party | 2,914,933 | 38.7% |
| 1972 (primary) | Democratic Party | 553,352 | 1.7% |
| 1976 | Independent | 740,460 | 0.91% |
| 1988 | Consumer | 30,905 | 0.03% |
At this point it is not likely many people, including McCarthy, think he has a chance to get the nomination away from Johnson although, if he can generate enough heat, somebody else might.
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromMinnesota's 4th congressional district 1949–1959 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 1) from Minnesota 1959–1971 Served alongside:Hubert Humphrey,Walter Mondale | Succeeded by Hubert Humphrey |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party fromUnited States Senator (Class 1) from Minnesota 1958,1964 | Succeeded by Hubert Humphrey |
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