Knowing McCarthy, hating him.(Book Review)

Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism By Dominic Sandbrook Alfred A. Knopf, 416 pages, $25.95

Eugene McCarthy's place in history is secure because of his 1968 Presidential campaign, which led Lyndon Johnson to abandon his own quest for another term. More than managing to oust a sitting President of his own party, McCarthy helped set in motion a tumultuous election year that has attained a prominent place in popular consciousness. Yet as Dominic Sandbrook, the young British scholar and McCarthy's latest biographer, understands it, to view McCarthy only by the light of 1968 is to fail to see completely both McCarthy and the era in which he was active.

McCarthy was elected to Congress in 1948 and served there until two years after he helped Johnson depart the White House--a political career as wide-ranging as the book's subtitle indicates. McCarthy entered the political arena in the early years of the postwar liberal consensus that would operate for a quarter century. Accordingly, his political career effectively ended with the collapse of that consensus and the development of a new conservative one, driven by unease over social, not economic, disorder.

By examining McCarthy, Sandbrook identifies and illustrates the elements on which the old, postwar consensus was founded. They include not only the strong anti-communism, which was the province of both the Left and Right from the late 1940s to the mid '60s, but also the domestic principles of the Fair Deal, which were meant to build on the foundations of the New Deal.

As Sandbrook rightly points out, these principles were limited in their aims, seeking nothing like the social democracy that would gain ground in Europe. But in a country as economically robust as the U.S., the successful establishment of the ethos of the Fair Deal, which was based on the idea of activist governmental leadership, reflected the persistent grasp of the Great Depression on popular consciousness.

Eugene McCarthy was a part of the liberal leadership operating under the banner of anti-communism and government activism, but by the time Johnson assumed office, this ...