The Man Who Quit Kicking the Wall

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At a family breakfast in Atlantic City last Wednesday morning, Hubert Humphrey turned to his 16-year-old son Doug and asked:

"How would you like your Dad to be Vice President?"

"That would be swell," said the boy.

"Well," said Humphrey, "he's going to be."

As of that moment, Humphrey thought he had absolute assurance from the White House that he would be Lyndon Johnson's running mate. But before the day was out, the President, milking the last drop of suspense from a generally suspenseless convention, was to give Humphrey a few bad moments. Hubert withstood them pretty well. And why not? He had already suffered and survived many a bad moment and many a disappointment during his up-and-down political career.

Run Over. The son of a South Dakota druggist, Humphrey is an able, endlessly energetic, tirelessly talkative man with vaulting ambitions. As a student at the University of Minnesota, he was once told by a political science professor: "If God had given you as much brain as he has given you wind, you would be sure to be another Cicero." In fact, Hubert has brains to spare, a fact which helped to get him elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945. Three years later, by then a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Humphrey achieved his first national notoriety. Attending the Democratic National Convention, Humphrey made a flaming civil rights speech: "The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." Returning to Minneapolis, Humphrey was hoisted in triumph on the shoulders of acclaimers. But his performance had already caused a Southern walkout and led to the Dixiecrat presidential candidacy of South Carolina's Strom Thurmond.

Humphrey won election to the Senate that year, and no sooner had he been sworn in than he rose to lace into his Senate colleagues. "What people want," he cried, "is for the Senate to function! Sometimes I think we become so cozy--we feel so secure in our six-year term--that we forget that the people want things done."

This did not endear Hubert to the Senate's senior citizens. Neither did his performance the next year, when he denounced the conservative, economy-minded ideas of Virginia's Democratic Senator Harry Byrd. In response, a score of Senators, both Democratic and Republican, stood up and, without even mentioning Humphrey's name, delivered themselves of glowing tributes to Byrd. When Hubert tried to rebut, the entire Senate walked out on him in as crushing a rebuke as any Senator has ever suffered. Later, Humphrey met Byrd by chance in a Senate elevator and remarked ruefully: "I may be a country boy from Minnesota, but I know when I've been run over by a Mack truck."

The Trainer. Still, Hubert remained unabashed. He kept on talking, and criticizing, and introducing liberal bill after liberal bill. He suffered rebuke after rebuke, defeat after defeat. Finally, in despair, Humphrey took stock of himself. He had come to Washington to get things done. But his brashness, his refusal to kowtow to his Senate elders, were obviously rendering him ineffective. And late one night, in a moment of truth, Hubert Humphrey confided to a friend: "I'm going to stop kicking my foot against the wall."

Among the few who had already recognized that there were real gifts behind Hubert's gab was Texas' Lyndon Johnson, who had been sworn into the Senate on the same day as Humphrey. "I wish I could be that boy's trainer," Johnson once remarked of Humphrey. Now, realizing that Humphrey was ready to accept some training, Johnson sought out the Minnesotan. "Hubert," he said, "I want you to meet the people around here who count." Humphrey took to talking with Georgia's wise old Senator Walter George, who had been among the first to scorn Hubert as an upstart. Senate veterans still remember how Humphrey worked to win George's respect, constantly asking questions and seeking advice from the old man. Before too long, George was telling his colleagues that young Humphrey wasn't a bad fellow at all.

Thus began the metamorphosis of Hubert Humphrey. He was, and he remains, a torrential talker. In 1958 his 81-hour interview in Moscow with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev left interpreters reeling. His formal speeches have been clocked at a breathless 250 words a minute, and he will rapidly discourse until dawn on any subject, to any audience, on any occasion. Even last week, when Johnson finally told Humphrey that he would be the vice-presidential nominee, the President still felt compelled to warn Humphrey against talking too much.

Yet, with skill and determination Humphrey rose rapidly in the Senate. He assumed positions of power in the Foreign Relations, Government Operations and Appropriations Committees. In his first two terms he sponsored a phenomenal total of 1,044 bills and joint resolutions. And though the final bills did not bear his name, Humphrey proposals have led to such major legislative accomplishments as the Peace Corps, the National Defense Education Act and the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Last year Humphrey was deservedly among U.S. representatives at the signing of the limited nuclear test ban treaty in Moscow.

Winning the Winnable. Humphrey's fire-eating stance as a doctrinaire liberal has long since shifted to that of the pragmatist who is satisfied to win what is winnable rather than go down to defeat demanding all or nothing. "I am not a theologian," he has said. "I'm a politician." Where he was once vocally suspicious of any business much larger than the corner drugstore or the family feed mill, he now takes pains to assure big businessmen of his modified views. "For the most part," wrote Humphrey in his recently published book, The Cause Is Mankind, "big corporations are a source of strength and economic vitality. And certainly, big business is here to stay."

Humphrey also sanded down the sharp, brassy edges of his personality that so often rankled his colleagues. In the process, he became one of the Senate's most persuasive cloakroom negotiators, worked as one of Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson's most trusted lieutenants, and was named majority whip in 1961 when Lyndon left the Senate and Mike Mansfield moved up to become majority leader. Nowhere was Humphrey's negotiating skill better demonstrated than during passage of this year's civil rights bill.

In the end, it was Minority Leader Everett Dirksen who, with Democratic cooperation, practically wrote the civil rights bill. But as floor manager for the bill, Humphrey took on the thankless task of recruiting Republican support with judicious compromise, fending off hot-eyed civil-rightsers who might have upset the cart by demanding all or nothing, and at the same time keeping an uneasy peace with Southern Democrats even while leading the fight to invoke cloture against their filibuster. Like a man with four hands, Humphrey did it all, smoothly avoided antagonism, and in the process added new inches to his stature among his colleagues.

Onward & Downward. But mere Senate stature has never been enough for Hubert Humphrey. The druggist's son has always wanted to be President, or, failing that, at least Vice President of the U.S. In 1956 he thought he had been promised the vice-presidential nomination by Adlai Stevenson. Instead, Adlai declared that nomination wide open, told the delegates in Chicago to make up their own minds. Caught unprepared, Humphrey got lost in the sudden struggle between Estes Kefauver and John F. Kennedy. But he kept up his own forlorn fight, buttonholing whoever would listen, shaking hands until the last of the delegates streamed by him to take their seats and nominate Kefauver. Thereupon Hubert Humphrey burst into tears.

Not long afterward, Humphrey vowed he would never again seek the vice presidency, proclaimed that his Senate seat was far too rewarding to leave for a job "in which you would stand around waiting for someone else to catch cold." Instead, he decided, it would be far better if someone else did the standing around. In 1960 he became the first major Democratic candidate to announce for the presidency, but disappointment still dogged Humphrey. He lost the primary in his neighboring state of Wisconsin to Kennedy, was trounced again in West Virginia. In a sorrowful scene in Charleston, Humphrey stepped before television cameras to announce that "I am no longer a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination." Folk Singer Jimmy Wofford twanged at his guitar, struck up a final woebegone chorus of "Vote for Hubert Humphrey, he's your man and mine . . ." Once more, tears came to Humphrey's eyes. Next morning the Senator emerged from the Ruffner Hotel to take his leave of West Virginia. On his campaign bus there was a parking ticket.

On Tippy Toes. By then, even as ebullient and optimistic a man as Hubert Humphrey might have resigned himself to spending the rest of his political days in the Senate, even enjoying some leisurely living with his wife Muriel, their four children and two grandchildren, and perhaps more regular returns to the family's lakefront home in Waverly. Minn. To most men. this would hardly be an unpleasant prospect, and Humphrey himself admits that after hectic weeks in the capital, he likes nothing better than to visit Waverly to "put on a pair of blue jeans, get out in a boat--and just smell bad."'

But the assassination of President Kennedy and the accession of Lyndon Johnson again changed Humphrey's prospects.

Hardly had Johnson taken office last November when the Veep-guessing game began. From the very start, Humphrey ranked high, and little wonder. He would, after all, balance the ticket almost to perfection--Northerner Hubert with his pure liberalism and appeal to labor, along with Southwesterner Lyndon with his more conservative bent and appeal to the business community.

But other vice-presidential heads bobbed up with alarming frequency. Bobby Kennedy, to hear the pollsters tell it, was the popular favorite. Then there was Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, New York City's Mayor Robert Wagner, Montana's Senator Mike Mansfield, Connecticut's Senator Thomas Dodd, and a score of others, including Humphrey's fellow Minnesota Senator, Eugene McCarthy.

Humphrey, of course, badly wanted the job, but he had to walk tippy-toe in seeking it. He knew Lyndon Johnson would resent any overt pressures aimed at forcing him into selecting a particular running mate.

Therefore Humphrey remained carefully absent when, last February, some of his closest political associates began holding nighttime strategy sessions in the Washington home of Attorney Max Kampelman, onetime Humphrey legislative assistant and still a friend and adviser.

From newspapers and magazines the Humphreymen gleaned articles, polls and opinions favorable to Humphrey, sent off copies to party officials, labor leaders and potential convention delegates. In June they commissioned a leading pollster to survey farm and labor leaders. The results, which showed Humphrey an overwhelming favorite, were quietly called to Johnson's attention. That same month, at the annual Governors' conference in Cleveland, Minnesota's Democratic Governor Karl Rolvaag set about corralling more support. As a result of Rolvaag's work, several Democratic Governors casually indicated to Lyndon that Hubert was their personal preference.

Last Man Out. In retrospect, Hubert's top aides now feel that the only other serious contenders were McNamara, whom Lyndon admires tremendously, and Bobby, because he is a Kennedy.

Against McNamara, the Humphreymen could and did take counteraction. They circulated among labor leaders a report that the President had decided to choose between Humphrey and McNamara--and leaned to McNamara. The labor leaders, including A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany, rose to the bait, let the President know that McNamara, a former Ford Motor Co. president, was certainly not labor's idea of an ideal Vice President. Moreover, many longtime professionals were strongly opposed to McNamara as a man who, until he went to the Pentagon, had been presumed to be a Republican.

McNamara dropped back in the standings. But that left Bobby, who made no bones of the fact that he wanted the vice-presidential nomination. Always there was the implied threat that if Bobby did not receive the legacy, legions of devoted J.F.K. followers would withhold their support from L.B.J.

That was just the sort of pressure that Humphrey had wisely avoided. The President's response to Bobby came in his remarkable public announcement of July 30 that he was eliminating all Cabinet members from vice-presidential consideration. Most specifically, that meant the Attorney General.

"Take It Easy." At that, Hubert thought he was in, and his belief was bulwarked by a visit from Washington Lawyer James Rowe, one of Lyndon's oldest, most trusted emissaries. Rowe gave Humphrey the green light to go out and "get some exposure." Hubert did just that, taking time from his Senate tasks to make speeches from New York to California. Still, worried about Lyndon's sensitivities, Humphrey was careful not to get overexposed, turned down chances to appear on television.

By the time the Democrats started arriving in Atlantic City, Humphrey felt confident, had reserved a headquarters and communications center taking up a full floor of the Shelburne Hotel. But the word quickly came from the White House to "take it easy." Humphrey wound up sharing a modest, single switchboard headquarters with Gene McCarthy, who remained one of his few ostensible rivals for the Veepship.

Hubert's hopes sagged, but they were revived on Tuesday night, just before the convention started its second session. Humphrey was summoned to Atlantic City's Colony Motel to talk to Johnson's man, Jim Rowe. The President, said Rowe, wanted Humphrey to fly to Washington immediately to accept Lyndon's blessing as the vice-presidential nominee. Unfortunately, the Atlantic City airport was closed down by fog.

Hubert himself would gladly have driven, walked, or even flown under his own power to Washington. But Rowe decided no: Humphrey should wait until the next day. That night Humphrey went to bed happy, awoke next morning to tell Son Doug the good news.

A Few Pauses. On his flight to Washington that day, Humphrey was startled to discover that Connecticut's Tom Dodd had been summoned along with him. Had the President changed his mind? Was Dodd still in the running? Hubert waited apprehensively outside the President's office while Johnson and Dodd talked. Only when Hubert himself huddled with the President were his fears finally allayed.

That night in Convention Hall, President Johnson announced his choice to the Democratic delegates. But even then he dragged out the suspense. His speech was a classic of "the man who . . ." He extolled virtue after virtue. But only at the end of the final sentence--a sentence punctuated by excruciating pauses--did he bellow the name of "Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota."

Stealing the Show. The next night Lyndon returned to the convention to deliver his acceptance speech. But Humphrey spoke first, and in the process stole the show from the old show-stealer himself. Lyndon sat in the presidential box, by turns looking statesmanlike, preoccupied, annoyed, and just plain bored. On the rostrum Humphrey all but brought down the rafters.

Hubert warmed up with a long tribute to the President, then hit his stride as he began a rhythmic jabbing and chopping at Barry Goldwater. "Most Democrats and Republicans in the Senate voted for an $11.5 billion tax cut for American citizens and American business," he cried, "but not Senator Goldwater. Most Democrats and Republicans in the Senate--in fact four-fifths of the members of his own party --voted for the Civil Rights Act, but not Senator Goldwater."

Time after time, he capped his indictments with the drumbeat cry: "But not Senator Goldwater!" He occasionally switched it to "not the temporary Republican spokesman." The delegates caught the cadence and took up the chant. A quizzical smile spread across Humphrey's face, then turned to a laugh of triumph. Hubert was in fine form. He knew it. The delegates knew it. And no one could deny that Hubert Humphrey would be a formidable political antagonist in the weeks ahead.

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