Eagleton: After the Fall

"Charley! How 'bout that for the shortest campaign in history ... Naw, I'm not a bit down in the dumps about it . . ."

"Hello, Joseph ... I like short campaigns ... I've got nothing but smiles ... It was an interesting week, to say the least.. ."

"No, no, Congressman ... Give him all the help you can ... We need a new President."

Feet propped on his desk in the New Senate Office Building, cradling the phone as he took calls from friends, political associates and downright strangers, ex-Nominee Tom Eagleton was probably more relaxed than he had ever been during his frenetic political career. Gone were the trembles that sometimes appeared during his brief and furious reign on the Democratic ticket. At times his manner was a bit too bluff and hearty, sometimes wistful, but rarely if ever self-pitying. "For seven days in a row, I was under the greatest pressure I've ever been in my life," he told TIME'S Jess Cook with a certain satisfaction. "Being my own teacher, I give myself passing, indeed very high marks."

Eagleton's sudden rise and fall in national Democratic politics was one of the odder chapters of recent American politics, surely sufficiently swift to give any man the psychic bends. In his cheeriness, there was some suggestion that Eagleton himself might have had doubts about his ability to take the strain. But overall, he endured his abrupt anointment and excommunication with thoroughbred resilience. As he left the Senate after his final session with McGovern, Eagleton insisted upon shaking hands with a dozen onlookers on the street: "Goodnight folks. Vote for McGovern."

When he reached his white brick house in suburban Bethesda, Md., he found that his wife Barbara had coolly organized a gathering. "I have a long skirt on and the dog has a bow," she said determinedly. "We are going to have a party tonight." She passed cheese and crackers while the Senator circulated with small talk among 65 friends and neighbors who stopped by. He also warned his staff to avoid any sniping at McGovern. Said he: "I am not critical of anything in this experience in the past week."

Back home in Missouri, Eagleton's political allies took the whole episode with less equanimity. A few talked angrily of organizing a draft-Eagleton move this week when the Democratic National Committee meets to ratify his successor. It seemed that if anything, Eagleton's position was considerably strengthened in his home state, where he is up for re-election in 1974. "If the election were held today," said an aide to Governor Warren Hearnes, "Tom would be elected unanimously." At the same time, Eagleton's departure from the ticket unquestionably diminishes McGovern's chances of carrying the state.

Ordeal. From across the nation, Eagleton received an extraordinary outpouring of support and sympathy. His office reported that 98% of the initial calls and letters were favorable.* That flood was doubtless enhanced by Columnist Jack Anderson's public apology and retraction of charges he had made that Eagleton had a history of arrests for drunken driving.

Eagleton himself seemed philosophical. Said he: "I never had the burning ambition to be President that some people have. I'm not a Kennedy in that regard. My be-all and end-all since I was eleven was to get to the U.S. Senate." Should he ever be unexpectedly tapped again, he joked: "The first thing I'm going to do is ask, 'Do you know about my health problem?' " He also admitted to a vast relief that his history is now out in the open and no longer something hidden and always threatening his present.

All along, the Eagletons worried about the effect on their two children, Christie, 9, and Terry, 13. So far there seem to be no scars. Says Barbara Eagleton: "Christie has been a blithe spirit. The only thing she knows is that her social life has escalated fantastically. She's the most popular person in our neighborhood. Terry is at camp, where there's almost a news blackout." Tom called his son there to advise him to ignore any teasing he might receive and reported: "It sounded perfect. He's not thinking about me, he's thinking about scavenger hunts."

Hours after his ordeal ended, Eagleton wryly told a TV audience: "I'm not going to go around the country giving lectures on mental health." But after a day's reflection, he remarked that he might devote some of his future time in the Senate to promoting the cause of mental health. For the present, he looked forward to a previously planned vacation at Delaware's Bethany Beach, then some campaigning in the fall for the Democratic ticket.

By week's end his transition back to the relative privacy of a Senator's life was almost complete. His appointments schedule promised eventually to subside to a more sedate routine, and Eagleton's atmosphere had cleared like the aftermath of a severe and flukish summer storm.

* TIME discovered that, ironically, one group that did not support the idea of Eagleton for Vice President was made up of other former victims of depression who themselves have received shock treatments (see BEHAVIOR).

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