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Politics

Revelation about senator rocked McGovern ticket

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 5, 2007

WASHINGTON - Former Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, whose star-crossed nomination as vice presidential candidate on the disastrous 1972 Democratic ticket sealed his place in American political history, died Sunday (March 4, 2007) of heart and respiratory ailments. He was 77.

Mr. Eagleton spent four decades in public life, yet will be forever remembered as the brief and ill-fated running mate of Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota.

Mr. Eagleton dropped out after it was revealed that he had been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment and had twice undergone electroshock therapy for depression. McGovern chose Sargent Shriver to replace Mr. Eagleton and lost to Richard Nixon in the general election.

But when Mr. Eagleton ran for re-election to the Senate two years later, Missourians rallied around him. He won by a quarter-million votes.

In the Senate, his interests ranged from foreign affairs to the cause of self-government in the District of Columbia. His gravelly voice would echo through the ornate chamber and colleagues would listen.

He looked the part, too, from his expertly tailored button-down appearance, to his handsome, graying features. But he was always just "Tom" to the public.

He retired from the Senate in 1986 at age 57 after three terms. Returning to his hometown to teach, write and practice law, he joked, "I wanted to make this metamorphosis while I was still suitable to be recycled."

Mr. Eagleton was born in St. Louis on Sept. 4, 1929, the son of noted civil trial attorney Mark Eagleton, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor and encouraged his son's interest in politics. "The way other kids wanted to be farmers or firemen or cowboys, I wanted to be a politician," Mr. Eagleton once said.

He was elected circuit attorney at age 26 in 1956, the youngest man ever elected to the position. He was elected Missouri attorney general in 1960 and lieutenant governor in 1964 before winning election to the Senate.

He became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. He was McGovern's seventh choice for running mate in the 1972 presidential campaign against President Nixon.

But the disclosure that he had earlier undergone psychiatric shock treatments doomed the ticket. Mr. Eagleton call the episode "one rock in the landslide."

He said in 2003 that he had no regrets. "Being vice president ain't all that much. My ambition, since my senior year in high school, was to be a senator. Not everybody achieves their ambition. I got to the level that I really had no great right to claim."

[Last modified March 5, 2007, 01:48:49]