Eugene McCarthy

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Eugene Joseph McCarthy
McCarthy (back) speaking to President Johnson in the Cabinet Room of the White House, June 1968

Eugene Joseph McCarthy (born March 29, 1916 in Watkins , Meeker County , Minnesota , † December 10, 2005 in Georgetown , Washington, DC ) was an American politician ( DFL ) who represented the state of Minnesota in both chambers of Congress .

Life

Eugene McCarthy grew up in a deeply religious Catholic family. His father Michael McCarthy was of Irish descent, his mother Anna Baden McCarthy of German descent. He studied at Saint John's University of the Benedictines in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and in 1940 became Professor of Economics at Saint John's University. In 1943 he entered the Benedictine Abbey of St. John's as a novice . After nine months he left the monastery and served as a decipherer in the army during World War II . After the end of the war, he was appointed professor of economics and sociology at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul . During this time he joined the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL).

In 1948 he was elected for the first time as a member of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, of which he was a member until 1958. He was then Senator for Minnesota from 1959 to 1971 .

Eugene McCarthy was an opponent of his namesake, the anti-communist “witch hunter” Joseph McCarthy , and advocated tighter control of the CIA . In 1960 he proposed Adlai Stevenson as a presidential candidate, even though the election of John F. Kennedy was almost certain. 1968 he joined the primaries for the presidential nomination on, with surprisingly good results in New Hampshire (only narrow defeat against President Lyndon B. Johnson ) and Oregon (victory over Robert Kennedy ), but lost to the Democratic National Convention in 1968 in Chicago by the surprising murder of Robert F. Kennedy in June of the then Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey - presumably because of his too "leftist" positions. Humphrey was also supported by the party establishment and President Johnson. Since in 1968, in contrast to today, the majority of the delegates at the nomination party congress were determined by the local party machines, Humphrey was able to prevail without having participated in the primary elections. Ultimately, however, Humphrey lost the election to Republican Richard Nixon . Eugene McCarthy nonetheless remained a Democratic anti-war icon. For the 1970 Senate election, he did not seek another six-year term after he was given little chance to be nominated again as his party's candidate for that post. His presidential campaign in 1968 made himself unpopular with the democratic party leadership. Hubert Humphrey ran in his place and was then elected as his successor. McCarthy therefore resigned from Congress in January 1971. The attempt to become his party's presidential candidate in 1972 also failed early on. In the presidential election 1976 he took part as an independent candidate, where he came to 740,460 votes and thus a share of 0.91 percent; this meant third place behind victorious Democrat Jimmy Carter and incumbent Gerald Ford .

From 1973 to 1974 he was Professor of Political Science at the "New School for Social Research". He has been a freelance writer since 1977 . Eugene McCarthy died in his sleep on December 10, 2005 in a nursing home near Georgetown.

Works

  • Frontiers in American Democracy (1960)
  • Dictionary of American Politics (1962)
  • A Liberal Answer to the Conservative Challenge (1964)
  • The Limits of Power: America's Role in the World (1967)
  • The Year of the People (1969)
  • Mr. Raccoon and His Friends (1977; Academy Press Ltd., Chicago, IL) children's stories illustrated by James Ecklund
  • A Political Bestiary , by Eugene J. McCarthy and James J. Kilpatrick (1979) ( ISBN 0-380-46508-6 )
  • The Ultimate Tyranny: The Majority Over the Majority ( ISBN 0-15-192581-X )
  • Gene McCarthy's Minnesota: Memories of a Native Son (1982) ( ISBN 0-86683-681-0 )
  • Complexities and Contrarities (1982) ( ISBN 0-15-121202-3 )
  • Up Til Now: A Memoir (1987)
  • Required Reading: A Decade of Political Wit and Wisdom (1988) ( ISBN 0-15-176880-3 )
  • Nonfinancial Economics: The Case for Shorter Hours of Work , by Eugene McCarthy and William McGaughey (1989) ( ISBN 0-275-92514-5 )
  • A Colony of the World: The United States Today (1992) ( ISBN 0-7818-0102-8 )
  • Selected Poems , by Eugene J. McCarthy, Ray Howe (1997) ( ISBN 1-883477-15-8 )
  • No-Fault Politics (1998) ( ISBN 0-8129-3016-9 )
  • 1968: War and Democracy (2000) ( ISBN 1-883477-37-9 )
  • Hard Years: Antidotes to Authoritarians (2001) ( ISBN 1-883477-38-7 )
  • From Rappahannock County (2002) ( ISBN 1-883477-51-4 )
  • Parting Shots from My Brittle Brow: Reflections on American Politics and Life (2005) ( ISBN 1-55591-528-0 )

literature

Web links

Commons : Eugene McCarthy  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME McCarthy, Eugene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McCarthy, Eugene Joseph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Watkins , Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 2005
Place of death Georgetown , Washington DC