Word: eagleton
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Missouri Governor Warren Hearnes, no close friend of Eagleton's, had an explanation: "It is hard for people not in politics to understand Eagleton's position. Eagleton's lifelong ambition to be Vice President overshadowed any rational consideration...
...What effect does Eagleton's medical history have on his fitness for the vice presidency-which means, potentially, for the enormous burdens of the presidency? Past U.S. Presidents have had their emotional problems: John Adams had several nervous breakdowns, Franklin Pierce was an alcoholic, Abraham Lincoln had recurring periods of near-suicidal depression, Rutherford Hayes as a young man wandered about the streets of Sandusky, Ohio, weeping uncontrollably. Lesser officials have also been afflicted. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal committed suicide in 1949 while hospitalized for involutional melancholia. Alabama Governor George Wallace, who announced last week that he would...
There may be in Eagleton's background a clue to those psychiatric difficulties. Says a Republican acquaintance: "He was always being pushed by his father. This may have contributed to his difficulties." His lawyer-father was once an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of St. Louis, and when Tom came home after Amherst and Harvard Law, he soon plunged into the politics he had been weaned on. He was always the youngest-youngest city circuit attorney at 27, youngest state attorney general at 31, youngest Lieutenant Governor at 35. When he first arrived in Jefferson City, the rural, stodgy state...
...same time, because of his easygoing style, his youth and his ability, Tom Eagleton made a lot of friends in Jeff City and around Missouri. He is known as a smooth, effective campaigner, charming his constituents with his informality and wry, self-effacing wit. Pulling into small towns, he has been known to pop out of his Cadillac and announce: "Here I am, folks, in living color." In rural areas he can be as folksy as the soybean farmers in his audience. "I know," he will drawl, "that you don't want to hear this...
...Eagleton has been in the Senate since 1968, and with all of his attractive qualities it is no surprise that he caught George McGovern's attention, though the two men did not become close friends. By all accounts, his behavior in the Senate and around Washington was exemplary. Understandably -if in sharp contrast to last week's ringing statements that mental illness is no disgrace-Eagleton and his family were extremely careful all along to disguise the facts. When Eagleton was first hospitalized for shock treatments in 1960, his father gave out the story that Tom was suffering...