Eagleton's Own Odyssey

Looking relaxed and puffing Pall Malls in a San Francisco hotel suite, Thomas Eagleton last week told TIME's Donald Neff, Karsten Prager and Eleanor Hoover in his own fashion how he felt about events of the past few weeks. He began with his agonizing wait in Miami Beach for a call he was not sure would ever come: George McGovern's request that he run as the vice-presidential candidate. Finally, McGovern was on the line, made his offer and Eagleton accepted. After that, Eagleton related:

GEORGE said, "Now I'm going to turn you over to Frank Mankiewicz. Work out some details." This lasted tops a minute and a half. Frank gets on and says, "You know now you got to get an acceptance speech. You got some clean shirts?" He said, "Let me ask: Do you have any old skeletons rattling around your closet?"

Now this is the key factor: I'm not being a Philadelphia lawyer when I say this. I never have viewed the hospitalizations in terms of being skeletons. I view skeletons as something you've done that is sinister, corrupt, evil, filthy--something in that sense. I very quickly said no. One word: no. I never was asked about the booze rumor or the nervous-exhaustion rumor that the staff knew about. The McGovern lieutenants--they were not just lieutenants, they were generals, higher-ups--had heard the rumors at the convention. Both of those items were talked about at the powwow where they were going down the names. I was asked about skeletons. If I were asked the same question today under the same circumstances I would give the same answer. You can call it nitpicking if you like. I don't. I'm not ashamed. There is nothing dirty or corrupt or evil about the fact that I had voluntarily gone into a hospital.

Friday the Eagleton staff and the Mankiewicz staff kicked the thing around. My people informed them that I had been hospitalized; my aides didn't know all the precise dates, but they knew about the shock treatments. Mankiewicz then went to the Virgin Islands, knowing about the health problem. He called me Sunday or Monday and said: "Can I talk with you about the health thing?" I said: "I don't trust the phones." He said: "I understand." So the first day he's back we had breakfast in the Senate dining room--Mankiewicz, Gary Hart, Doug Bennet, my administrative aide. I told Mankiewicz the full story of my health, leaving out no item, including the dates and electric shock. His reaction was calm, but he said, "This word shock. Boy, that's a tough word for the public."

Thursday of that week McGovern came back to Washington. I see George and I say, "George, if you've got some time there are some things I'd like to go over with you." One of which was going to be the health thing. He said, "Tom, there're some Governors in town. I'm going to use my time to maximum advantage to talk to them. We'll have our talk out there in the Black Hills." So the following Monday evening I go out to South Dakota, George called me on the phone, said: "Welcome. Could we have breakfast tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock? My cabin." We get there at 8. There are four of us--two wives and two candidates. George said, "Why don't we go over to the study to talk?" I said, "George, frankly I'd like to talk with Eleanor here." I then spelled out to him and his wife, as I spelled out to Mankiewicz, the health thing. I added: "George, if this comes to be an embarrassment or an impediment or hindrance to you, you just ask--you say the word--and I'll withdraw." He said: "Oh, no, no, no. Nothing like that. I understand."

He had a yellow legal pad, and he questioned me. He asked about the dates, where the hospitals were. The four of us talked till like 9:15. He said, "Why don't we bring over some of our people?" I said, "I don't want a whole army." He said, "I'll bring over Mankiewicz and Dick Dougherty. Why don't you bring over two of your guys?" So that made a group of eight. The whole thing was explained once again. We had two choices. One was to announce it then and there or next Monday: that's when I [was to] get back my physical I had taken that past week. I very strongly insisted that it be then and there. George McGovern very strongly seconded that notion. "Get it out in the open, get it behind us"--those were the kind of words we used. He said, "Well, I don't think this is so bad. You've been in good health for these six years?" I said yes. I'm in remarkably good health. I had no feeling that he felt any resentment.

After the press conference Tuesday in the Black Hills, I left for Los Angeles feeling relieved. In fact, I took a nap on the plane. The Eagleton low point started when I got off the plane. There was a bank of microphones, a lot of reporters --more than I'd ever seen in my life. I had mistakenly assumed that once having answered all these questions in South Dakota, I did not have to answer them again. Then I did an awful local TV show. The reporter kept asking questions and I kept declining to answer--an atrocious performance. Afterward I realized I'll just have to answer the questions as many times as they're asked.

Then we went to Honolulu, and we were enormously well received. It thrilled the hell out of me, frankly. Then came the Jack Anderson morning. That would be Thursday. I had left a call for 6:15. I wanted to swim. At 6:15 one of my guys comes in and says, "Well, you won't believe this, but Jack Anderson says, eleven times arrested, six times for drunken driving." I said, "Bull shit, it's a goddam lie."

I left an open contract with McGovern. If he at any time felt I'm an embarrassment I would abide by his judgment. But as I sit here today, I'm firmly convinced that I'm not a detriment to the ticket. I'm an asset to the ticket. The Eagleton poll--that's my stomach--says that Eagleton is now a household word and that the people are for him. I'm on the upswing with the people. You can't have those women splashing in the water in Hawaii to give me a big hug--these aren't teenagers, they are adult, mature women--without feeling the support.

I know that there are some people on the McGovern staff who want me off. I understand their thinking. If I had given a year and a half of my time and money, and all of my heart and soul, and now here's a guy who comes in at the last minute and he is put on the ticket, I can see how a guy in the splendid isolation of South Dakota could feel that I should go. But I haven't been in South Dakota. I have been in Los Angeles and Honolulu and San Francisco, and I feel a different mood. Politics isn't a science like physics, where you put things in a beaker and measure them. What makes or breaks a politician is how he perceives the public pulse, the public mood. I'm confident as I can be that the public is with me. I'm not living in a dreamworld. I know the stakes are high, but I firmly believe it.

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