Reviews for President's Letter Book

The average rating for President's Letter Book based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-08-05 00:00:00 Kinga Kazai If you read Eugene McCarthy's memoir Up 'Til Now a rather informal type book where our philosopher senator who gained immortality by challenging an incumbent president for renomination in his own party in 1968. With that act McCarthy made history. It had not been successfully done since 1856 when James Buchanan denied Franklin Pierce a renomination by the Democrats for a second term. Certainly Lyndon Johnson was far more powerful than Franklin Pierce and he knew better than most how to exercise said power. But growing disillusion in his own party with the American involvement in Vietnam led to a role in history for someone. When Robert F. Kennedy declined at first, Eugene McCarthy filled the void. McCarthy nearly won New Hampshire and then beat LBJ in Wisconsin forcing Johnson out of the race for re-election. But by that time McCarthy had been elbowed aside by Bobby Kennedy and the rest of 1968 played out as sad and tragic history. McCarthy was one of many involved in the joining of the Democratic and Farmer Labor parties in Minnesota, an effort led by the man who was elected Mayor Of Minneapolis and soon McCarthy's colleague in the Senate Hubert Humphrey. McCarthy went to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1958. McCarthy was always something of an odd duck in the Senate, too iconoclastic for most of his colleagues. Not a collegial guy by any means, but honest and more important to himself intellectually honest. in his public life. The only time he got national attention was in nominating Adlai Stevenson in 1960 for a third time at the convention in a draft Stevenson movement. The memoir is filled with incidents and anecdotes of his Senate colleagues and his service representing Minnesota. His early days and his breaking into politics you will find interesting. In fact Eugene McCarthy was interesting all around.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-07-06 00:00:00 Elizabeth Silva This is an autobiography of Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy (3/29/1916–12/10/2005) written almost two decades before his death and emphasizing primarily the political, as opposed to the personal or literary, side of his life. I read it because I had been very involved in his 1968 campaign for the presidency, somewhat involved in his 1972 effort, had met him glancingly on several occasions and had read several of his books as well as many books and articles about him.