Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Russell Baker, David Frost, Larry King, Gloria Steinem, Tip O'Neill and others recall their encounters with the legendary senator.
AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler
Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy outside New York's City Hall in 1996.
Dec 12, 2005 | John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and diplomat
Aloof polymath
His office walls were monastically unadorned. So was the furniture. He sat in back of his desk with the light behind him, rather remote, one thought, from the manifold trivia of the day. Or so it seemed that morning. His desk too was bare, for Gene, both out of principle and distaste, did not do much work.
I had known Gene, though far from intimately, from his first weeks in the House of Representatives. Henry Reuss of Wisconsin, my OPA [Office of Price Administration] colleague, friend and long-time congressman from Milwaukee, had then invited me to dinner to meet him, describing him as the most diversely talented man -- economist, poet, teacher, philosopher -- to be elected to the Congress in many years. (Washington, D.C., 1949)
From "A Life in Our Times," by John Kenneth Galbraith (Houghton Mifflin, 1981)
Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill, U.S. representative and House speaker (1976-1986)
Whimsical fellow
I knew Gene from the House of Representatives, where he had served all through the 1950s before being elected to the Senate. When the bells rang for a roll call, a group of us who all had offices on the same corridor would walk over to the floor of the House ... we'd pick up Gene, who would join us if he wasn't writing poetry or reading a book. He was a whimsical fellow who would come over only if he happened to feel like it.
... I respected him, even though he was lazy and a bit of a dreamer. He was also a loner. For a guy who wanted to be president, he never really worked the streets by asking for help from organizational types like me. Instead, he made his move outside the regular party structure. (Washington, D.C., early 1950s)
From "Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill," by Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill with William Novack (Random House, 1987)
Russell Baker, columnist
Genuine wit
I was really surprised to discover that Gene McCarthy also wanted to be president. A canny veteran of the House of Representatives, McCarthy was elected to the Senate in 1958. I took to him right away. A Catholic intellectual and that rarest of creatures in American politics, a genuine wit, he was a delight to consult on the problem of the day. Talking presidential politics one day in the Senate dining room, he said, "If the Democrats are going to run a Catholic liberal, they ought to nominate me; I'm twice as liberal as Humphrey and twice as Catholic as Kennedy."
I thought, Hey, he's not kidding. (Washington, D.C., late 1950s)
From "The Good Times," by Russell Baker (William Morrow, 1989)
Joseph Alsop, columnist
More Catholic than Kennedy
I had made friends with the Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy and his wife of those days, Abby. They were wonderful company, constantly enlivening, and I, as always, liked having them as guests at Dumbarton Avenue. Thus, I was aware that the senator was anything but enthusiastic about the Kennedy campaign. What stuck in his craw, I think, was that Kennedy was the first Catholic candidate to be taken seriously for the presidency, whereas he, McCarthy, a far more devout Catholic than Kennedy and, thus, a much more suitable representative of the Church if there was to be any Catholic candidate at all, was being snubbed. (Washington, D.C., 1959)
From "I've Seen the Best of It: Memoirs," by Joseph Alsop (Norton, 1992)
David Frost, TV show host (BBC)
Faddish columnists
By the time I met Senator McCarthy at 2 p.m., there was something in his demeanour that suggested that good news [about the New Hampshire presidential primary] was just around the corner.
Did the Senator generally recognize the picture of himself in the press, or did he sometimes feel it was of a different person?
The reply was vintage McCarthy. "Well, some of them I think have read me pretty well, but they run in fads here, especially the columnists. I'm not sure that the column is a really good device -- it calls for a kind of short-range, rash judgement -- especially when they write three columns a week. Three rash judgements a week are really too much to expect of anybody. If one does it, the other is hard pressed and likely to pick up the same themes; so they go around in circles. Then they'll change the line, and we say it's like blackbirds on the telephone line here in the fall. If one flies away, they all fly away. If one comes back, they all come back." (Manchester, N.H., 1968)
From "An Autobiography," by David Frost (HarperCollins, 1993)
