Word: mccloskey
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Five Attempts. The challenge is all the stronger because it comes from an unlikely source. A Navy veteran, McCloskey volunteered for the Marines during the Korean War and won the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and the Navy Cross in combat as a second lieutenant. Elected to Congress in 1967 on a mild antiwar platform, outpolling among others Shirley Temple Black, he has been a supporter of the President on domestic issues...
Only on the war has McCloskey been out of step with the Administration; he has been a consistent dove in the pro-war House. Aides date his change of outlook to 1966, when a close friend returned from Viet Nam seriously wounded. McCloskey's first reaction was to attempt to return to active duty as a Marine officer and serve in Viet Nam. When he was turned down, he entered a period of deep introspection and re-examination of his attitudes toward the war. The result has been an ever growing commitment to withdrawal...
...McCloskey is greatly upset by what he believes to be the stepped-up use of firepower in the war, by the notion that "somehow we can save face by killing more Cambodian,Vietnamese and Laotian civilians." He does not accuse the Administration of falsification of the facts on the war, but of "willful deception of the American people" by the selective disclosure of facts. An old friend of Presidential Assistant John Ehrlichman, he has five times attempted to communicate his feelings to the President, once in a hand-delivered letter. He was a House co-author of the bill repealing...
...Ratings. His party's attitude toward McCloskey has been to pretend he isn't there. Says G.O.P. National Committee Chairman Robert Dole coyly: "I haven't heard of him. How do you spell that last name? McWhat? We really don't have much dealing with him. This is the Republican National Committee." But the posturing is unconvincing; the lesson of the 1968 Democratic primary in New Hampshire is not lost on G.O.P. strategists...
Comparisons to McCarthy, though, can be misleading. While sharing McCarthy's sincerity and distaste for demagoguery, the squarejawed, handsome McCloskey is more Kennedyesque in appeal. The father of four, he is a dedicated conservationist and at least once a year tries to head for Jackson Hole, Wyo., or the High Sierra for backpacking and fishing. He comes across well on television. After his 1967 race, McCloskey took a poll. It showed that of the people who had voted for him, only 5% did so because they knew his views and agreed with them, while 84% admitted they...