Gloria Steinem, journalist and feminist
Clerk at Household Finance

With three other volunteer writers, all of us working on a newspaper supplement for the [1968 Democratic presidential] primary states, I met McCarthy at the St. Regis. Each of us asked questions about the senator's areas of strength in order to get quotes for the supplement. And after each question, McCarthy would turn to campaign manager Blair Clark or to a young press aide and say, "I think we talked about that in a Senate speech," or "Remember the piece Look didn't publish? Get them that." We asked and asked. We turned ourselves inside out with asking. (Somewhere, there is a tape of this fiasco that could be sold as a comedy record.) But we got not one spontaneous reply. Finally, I hit on a question that he couldn't have written about yet. How did this New Hampshire primary differ from his past congressional campaigns? "It doesn't," he said flatly. "They're exactly the same."

Spiritually speaking, McCarthy reminds me of the distinguished-looking clerk at Household Finance who used to lean back, put the tips of his fingers together in a steeple, and say to my father, "No, you can't have a loan." (New York, 1968)

From "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions," by Gloria Steinem (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983)

Knowlton Nash, broadcast journalist
Awkward campaigner

The 1968 New Hampshire primary ... a legendary campaign. McCarthy trumpeted his anti-Vietnam politics ten and twenty times a day at factory gates, coffee parties, schools and churches, on the streets, and on the air. In an interview [for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation], he told me, "In the name of God, the killing must end."

He was an awkward campaigner. He felt and looked embarrassed every time he stuck out his hand to say to a stranger, "Hi, I'm Gene McCarthy." "I really don't like doing that," he told me, "but I guess I have to." At one point he went into the wrong factory and the owner ordered him out. At other factories he'd wander up and down aisles, smiling hesitantly and diffidently saying hello to workers bending over their machines. In one plant where I walked with him, he almost clutched me in gratitude at having someone with him whom he had seen before. He seemed so alone and unsure as he moved along, hesitatingly looking for which way to go, and breathing a sigh of relief when it was all over. It was agony for him. (New Hampshire, 1968)

From "History on the Run: The Trenchcoat Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent," by Knowlton Nash (McClelland and Stewart, 1984)

Larry King, TV talk show host
.342 in Iowa League

I don't know what sort of president Eugene McCarthy would have made, because he's sort of lazy, but he has a wonderful sense of humor and poetry, and he's a great baseball fan. In fact, he played semipro ball and hit .342 in the Iowa League one year.

I had a lot of fun discussing the 1968 campaign with him. I don't think anyone changed America more than he did at the time, when he challenged President Johnson in New Hampshire and almost won. (Washington, D.C., late 1960s)

From "Tell It to the King," by Larry King with Peter Occhiogrosso (Thorndike Press/G.P. Putnam's, 1988)

William Corbett, author
Hollow noises

He rounded the corner of a friend's house in Vermont. It was 1974. I was thirty-one and as eager to impress as I was to be impressed. McCarthy didn't stint me. We talked of baseball, boxing and Yeats' late revisions. He told me stories about the Kennedys and described a lunch with Henry Kissinger. Had I never met him again I could have vouched for his charm, intelligence and gift for flattery. But I did meet him again for dinner twice at the same house.

What disturbed me was that McCarthy had repeated himself in such a way that it was clear he no longer heard what he was saying, could no longer imagine the effect his stories might have on his listeners. I assume he told these stories at many similar evenings to many other people who could offer nothing of their own in return. He remained charming and polished as only politicians (I have now met two or three) can be, but he was making hollow noises.

From "Brushes With Greatness: An Anthology of Chance Encounters With Celebrities," by Russell Banks, Michael Ondaatje and David Young, eds. (Big Bang Books/Coach House Press, 1989)

Joan Rivers, comedian and TV show host
Sad

Eugene McCarthy, another guest [on "Show of Shows"], seemed terribly sad to me. He was a fumbler, a mumbler, indecisive, with very little to say. I thought, This is the man we're going to give the leadership of the country? (Los Angeles, 1986)

From "Still Talking," by Joan Rivers with Richard Meryman (Turtle Bay Books/Random House, 1991)

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