Eugene McCarthy, Anti-Vietnam War Senator, Led Peace Movement to Force LBJ’s Withdrawal

1968: What A Year

Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005) was a U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1958-1970, who gained fame by challenging President Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1967-8, primarily because he opposed LBJ’s policies in Vietnam. There was a groundswell of support among Democratic Party activists for someone to oppose Johnson, but no politician dared to do it.

“I am hopeful that this challenge may alleviate this sense of political helplessness and restore to many people a belief in the processes of American politics and of American government,” McCarthy famously said. “Whatever is morally necessary must be made politically possible.”

His campaign ads in the early primaries weren’t flashy.

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McCarthy was supported by the popular folk rock group Peter, Paul and Mary as well as movie stars like Paul Newman.

The Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement is maintained by St. Benedict College and St. John’s University in St. Joseph, MN. McCarthy was a graduate of St. John’s, and after obtaining a master’s degree, returned to teach economics and education. “In 1943, considering the contemplative life of a monk, he became a Benedictine novice at Saint John’s Abbey. Although McCarthy left the novitiate after nine months, his Catholicism, “refined and reinforced by his years at Saint John’s, was the single most important influence on his intellectual life,” according to one biographer, as stated on the center’s website.

In 1948, he announced his candidacy for the US House of Representatives, winning a seat and serving for 10 years before graduating to win a statewide race for the U.S. Senate in 1958.

“McCarthy was a seminal figure in Minnesota and national politics in the last half of the 20th century. He inspired a generation of young people, caused fundamental reforms of the political process and transformed the landscape of American politics.” his alma mater’s profile states. https://www.csbsju.edu/mccarthy-center/about-the-center/who-is-eugene-j-mccarthy/

One of the people who worked for McCarthy in the 1968 campaign was famed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh (in his early 20s).

A 100th birthday celebration was held in McCarthy’s honor in 2016 that’s on YouTube. Events included a musical tribute from Peter Yarrow, speeches from people who knew him, a preview of a documentary about his life, and a presentation of the winning poem from the McCarthy poetry contest.

In 1968, by doing far better than expected in the New Hampshire primary, and beating Johnson in Wisconsin, he persuaded the previously politically invincible Johnson to withdraw from the race. McCarthy’s success in the New Hampshire primary persuaded Senator Robert Kennedy (D-NY) to enter the race against Johnson on March 16, 1968. LBJ shocked the nation by withdrawing on March 31, 1968.

The Day Gene McCarthy Changed Politics

In 2018, on the 50th anniversary of McCarthy’s “victory” in the New Hampshire Primary, a documentary was introduced at the center about the historic venture.

Once President Johnson withdrew from the race, Gene McCarthy himself thought he’d lose the nomination to Robert Kennedy. He did win the Oregon primary against RFK, but did not win other primaries. The question was whether the antiwar movement would unite behind Kennedy or let Johnson’s surrogate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, run without proposing a major change in Vietnam policy.

One of the great “what ifs” of the 1960s was what would have happened if Robert Kennedy were not assassinated on June 5, 1968 as he won the California and South Dakota primaries? Would he have gone on to win the Democratic nomination and beat Richard Nixon in 1968? I used to think “yes,” but now I rather doubt it.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her 2024 book, “An Unfinished Love Story,” about her 1960s activism and that of her husband, Richard Goodwin, sheds new light on the subject. Dick Goodwin worked for Sen. Eugene McCarthy when he challenged President Johnson. Goodwin was also a good friend of Robert Kennedy, and switched to support RFK after McCarthy did well in the New Hampshire primary against Johnson and RFK entered the race. On the night of the California primary, upon learning the results, RFK told Goodwin that in order to win the nomination, “I’ve got to get free of McCarthy” because their competition was splitting the anti-war coalition. He instructed Goodwin to offer McCarthy whatever cabinet position he desired, including Secretary of State, if he withdrew from the race. Goodwin could lure McCarthy with the idea that he could become the Secretary of State who ended the Vietnam War.

I seriously doubt that McCarthy would have accepted the offer. He deeply resented his fellow Irish Catholic, Robert Kennedy, thinking he was arrogant and over-privileged. He mostly got his high government positions because of his father’s wealth and connection to his brother. He thought Bobby was ruthless. Though perceived as an anti-war leftist zealot in 1968, McCarthy was a mercurial and diffident personality who challenged Johnson partly because he was bored in the Senate, and didn’t plan to run for re-election from Minnesota in 1970.

McCarthy gave his fellow Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey a feeble endorsement in 1968 in the last days of the campaign, effectively discouraging his base of young anti-war students from working for Humphrey, who lost narrowly to Richard Nixon. McCarthy essentially lost faith in the system, and preferred pontificating and writing poetry to making a difference in politics. After leaving the Senate, he ran for president several more times, capturing almost no attention or support. In 1980, as an indication of his disillusionment with Democratic politics, he supported Ronald Reagan for president.

Related:

The Myth of Eugene McCarthy (NYT gift link), 2018, by Joshua Zeitz. “Commentators then and since have misinterpreted McCarthy’s upset performance in New Hampshire in a way that sharply misread public opinion and unfairly saddled Johnson with sole responsibility for a war that most Americans — and most American political leaders of both parties — still strongly supported on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. To understand how it happened, it’s helpful to wind the clock back to the fall of 1967.” Activist Allard K. Lowenstein persuaded McCarthy to challenge Johnson in the mostly symbolic primaries. Most of the convention delegates were chosen by party bosses…Exit polls suggested that a majority of McCarthy’s New Hampshire voters thought of themselves as hawks.