My evening with the Hawks and Eugene McCarthy

When running a science workshop in Boston one summer, David invited me to join him in a trip to a big sports stadium to hear Eugene J. McCarthy address a massive crowd in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination (1968). McCarthy was the first candidate to challenge incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, running on an anti-Vietnam War platform. The unexpected vote total he achieved in the New Hampshire primary and his strong polling in the upcoming Wisconsin primary led Johnson to withdraw from the race, and lured Robert F. Kennedy into the contest. Fellow Minnesotan US Vice-President Hubert Humphrey also entered the race after Johnson's withdrawal. 

McCarthy, though, was eventually defeated by Robert F Kennedy. McCarthy would unsuccessfully seek the presidency five times altogether.

I so enjoyed the experience. Listening to McCarthy's impassioned speech had such an impact - and the huge crowd loved every word.

McCarthy, I learned from David, worked in military intelligence during World War II, after which he was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1948, and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.

In 1971, he put politics aside and turned to writing and lecturing.

I was fortunate to meet Eugene McCarthy one summer (1986) when he was teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He and David met on the college campus and, later that week, Eugene McCarthy came to the Hawks for dinner.

The minute he came through the door, I was totally captivated. A very tall, elegant and eloquent man, I was so taken by the conversation between him and David, soaking in every word. After the niceties were exchanged, politics, of course, became the center of discussion. McCarthy wanted to know more about David's background, his time with Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, his left-wing views, and his experience when faced with the questioning by the federal government

At the end of the evening, Eugene McCarthy asked me to meet him for coffee. 
I was flattered and was excited to have chance to meet and talk with him again.

As we finished our coffee around 11 the next morning, he handed me a sheet of paper, saying, "Here, this is for you. You're quite the story teller, John Paull. Meeting you last night made me think of this poem."
"It reminds me of you."

Here it is: (when I find it and scan it!! :) Going to do that right now!!!!!

FOUND IT!! Reading it through, again, reminds me how he mixed up my place of birth  - Cornwall, not Wales.
But, again, I was flattered.

This poem has been kept safely ever since with other things of my past.

Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy, born March 29, 1916, died December 10, 2005.