The Third Son

To the public eye, Arkansas' John L. (for Little) McClellan is a cold-eyed, stone-voiced, racket-busting U.S. Senator. But his few close friends know him for a sensitive, compassionate man who keeps his feelings hidden deep because they have been so sorely tested by sorrow. McClellan's mother died bearing him; his first wife died after they were unhappily divorced; his second wife died in 1935 of spinal meningitis. Son Max, by the first marriage, also died of meningitis while serving with the Army in North Africa in 1943. And in 1949, three days after Max was reburied in Sheridan, Ark., John Mc-Clellan's second son, John Jr., child of the second marriage, was buried beside his mother in nearby Malvern. John, the Senator's favorite, had been fatally injured in an automobile accident.

The trip-hammer blows forced John McClellan to change cherished plans to retire from the Senate and set up a law practice with John. But the blows also drew him closer to his surviving children, two daughters and a third son, James. Then young Jimmy went to the University of Arkansas law school. "I really didn't know what I wanted to be," said he, "but I wanted to be close to my father." The Senator made new plans. He established Jimmy in a practice, planned to leave Capitol Hill in 1960 and join the firm.

Last week John McClellan returned routinely to his office from a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Administrative Assistant Ralph L. Matthews was on the telephone talking long distance to Arkansas state police. After hanging up, Matthews led McClellan into the Senates private office. Said he: "This is the hardest thing I ever had to do, Senator, [pause] Jimmy is dead." McClellan blinked. "You mean my Jimmy?" Matthews nodded, filled in details. Onetime Army Pilot Jimmy McClellan, 30, a proficient light-plane flyer, was taking an examination for a multi-engine pilot's license, had at his CAA examiner's order feathered one engine of a Beechcraft to test his ability to handle the plane in a single-engine emergency. Something went wrong; the men died in the crash in an Arkansas cornfield.

John McClellan put a hand to his eyes, bowed his head. "How much," he murmured, "am I supposed to bear?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.