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RICH DIETMAN: The Politics of Joy, a Radio Remembrance of Hubert Humphrey, narrated by Walter Mondale with Paula Schroeder.

WALTER MONDALE: He was like a tornado. I don't know if you were told, but when he was elected to the Senate, Time magazine put him on the cover. That was his first big entrance to the national scene. And they had a tornado behind his head. And that's exactly what he was.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Now, listen here. We're going to have just-- we're going to end this little revival meeting. I'm not going to ask you to come down here and hit the altar. I'm not going to do that. But I'm going to tell you something, I want to know whether in this room, with this county committee that we have here, with these great Democratic leaders that we've got here-- I want to know whether or not you in this room are going to be movers and shakers.

WALTER MONDALE: He took the nation by storm, just like he took Minnesota. It didn't mean they necessarily bought him, but they sure knew he was there.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: I want to know whether you're going to go out in those neighborhoods. I want to know whether you're going to get out those votes. I want to know whether you're going to ring that phone right off the line. The telephone company can take it, don't worry about it.

I want you to get out and use some shoe leather. I want you to talk in church on Sunday, even if you talk out loud. I want you to speak at the Union meetings. I want you to talk on the street corner. I want you to visit on the bus.

WALTER MONDALE: We'd been together for a better part of, what, 30 years. In a sense, I think when Humphrey was dying, I was sort of one of his legacies. And we'd often talk about what we'd do if he could get healthy again. Boy, he had more ideas about that.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: We're a party like we've been here tonight. We have some fun, and we should. Politics ought to be a joy. Oh, I said that once, and they practically ran me out of town. But it ought to be. There ought to be a spirit of public happiness, as John Adams put it, that grips us.

We ought to be happy that we're permitted to share in political participation. We ought to be joyful that we live in a country like this, where you even have the right to be wrong. And then you have the time to correct the wrongs. That's what I want our party to believe in, that we can realize the impossible dream, that nothing can stand in our way. So my message tonight is let's build, let's grow.

[CAMPAIGN MUSIC]

(SINGING) Now, the man from Minnesota is for you and you and you

He fights for all the people, and not for just the few

On the farm and in the city, for the big man and the small

The man from Minnesota is the very best man for all

So let's all march together and--

PAULA SCHROEDER: Hubert Humphrey died 10 years ago. His passing in 1978 was marked in Washington in Saint Paul and throughout this country as the loss of one of the century's most important political figures. Humphrey was mourned and remembered 10 years ago as a man who'd helped reshape America, a man who'd spoken out for those in need. He was remembered as a good speaker, a good Senator, and as a man who truly cared about people.

WALTER MONDALE: I went over to Norway with Hubert and we were walking downtown Oslo going to that folk park there. And suddenly, a busload of something or other just stopped-- a tourist bus. The doors flung open and everybody in that bus came flying out the door. And they had to see Hubert. And half of them gave him a kiss. And they just having a wonderful time.

And I went over and asked them, I said, where are you from? Switzerland. But they knew Hubert and they had to see him. And there was something about Humphrey's reputation, they knew he was approachable, and that unloaded the whole bus.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Hubert Humphrey's career in public life spanned 30 years, five presidents, two undeclared wars, and a quiet revolution in the role of the American government. Walter Mondale was there for nearly all of it.

WALTER MONDALE: He came along about the time my dad died, so he became almost a surrogate father for me. I was all aflame with politics and social justice. And he was my hero and it just fit. I was-- in 1948, the first campaign, I could no more-- I was working in a canning factory in Fairmont. I could no more keep that up than the man on the moon.

So I just quit and walked out and started campaigning for Humphrey, set up our campaign headquarters there in Mankato. And together, we just went the whole way except one office that neither he nor I got. But we-- I think we made a damn good team around here.

[CAMPAIGN MUSIC]

(SINGING) Let's work in harmony for Hubert Humphrey

We'll go a long, long way

He's a great historian and a great American

He's the best security for me

Hubert Humphrey, Hubert Humphrey, he's the man for me.

WALTER MONDALE: I was a part of what was called the Diaper Brigade. Don Fraser was there. A lot of people like that. And we were all young people from the campus and elsewhere. And we wanted to remake Minnesota and the world Friday afternoon and fast. And Humphrey was our leader. And we just went banging out of there like something.

PAULA SCHROEDER: By 1948, Hubert Humphrey was one of the most well known political figures in Minnesota. Before the year was out, his fame would spread nationwide. That summer, at the Democratic National Convention, Humphrey led a challenge to the Truman administration's rather mild stand on civil rights.

ANNOUNCER: He has some further reports from the most important of all committees, the Resolutions Committee, which is now meeting down at the Bellevue-Stratford. For a report from that, we call in George Hicks.

GEORGE HICKS: I'm speaking now from the caucus floor of the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia. Here is Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis, a strong northern liberal who has led the liberal fight on the Civil Rights Plank. Now how does it stand, Mayor Humphrey, now?

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Well, as you know, we've had I think about another 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours on that Civil Rights Plank. And our general conference on--

WALTER MONDALE: Well, I have to be careful here. I was not an inside, close strategist for Hubert that early. I was helping him, but I believe, number one, he wanted to speak out on civil rights. He thought this could not continue this way, the way it was.

Humphrey was very ambitious. And he wanted to make a name at the Convention, no question about that. He wanted to show the world the remarkable talents of this young firebrand from the Midwest. And he sure did that.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Longtime Humphrey associate and former Minnesota governor, Orville Freeman.

ORVILLE FREEMAN: I advised him that he might have some serious political consequences, that I could see us being literally overwhelmed and laughed out of that Convention as a bunch of punks who didn't know what we were doing. And this was about 1:00 o'clock in the morning. And he said, look-- he said, if there's anything I believe and this is it, he said, just get the hell out of here and let me write the speech.

PAULA SCHROEDER: When Humphrey mounted the podium in Philadelphia to lobby for his stronger Civil Rights Plank, 40 million Americans were tuned in over the radio. His wife, Muriel, was listening back home in Minneapolis.

MURIEL HUMPHREY BROWN: He kept me in touch all the time. And I kept hoping that he would be able to follow through on it. And that day, he called me up and he said, I think I'm going to make the talk. And so I was glued to the radio. Wasn't TV then, it was radio. And I remember, I was busy sewing or something with my hands and tears were rolling down my cheeks. I couldn't believe it. It was so beautiful.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: My good friends, my fellow Democrats, I ask you for a calm consideration of our historic opportunity. For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole 2 billion members of the human family, our land is now more than ever before the last best hope on Earth. To those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them, we are 172 years late.

[CHEERS]

To those who say-- to those who say that this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this, the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states' rights, and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

[CHEERS]

PAULA SCHROEDER: Humphrey delivered perhaps 10,000 speeches during his career. Philadelphia in '48 may well have been his best, but there is no shortage of good oration from Hubert Humphrey.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Yes, my fellow Democrats, we have recognized, and indeed we must recognize, the end of an era and the beginning of a new day. And that new day--

[APPLAUSE]

--and that new day belongs to the people, to all the people everywhere in this land of the people, to every man, woman, and child that is a citizen of this Republic.

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

WALTER MONDALE: Humphrey was constantly practicing speeches. He'd practice with you. He'd practice with his friends. He'd practice on the Senate floor. He'd practice-- you know, he'd go in, there might be some small group of 10, 15 farmers come in from Minnesota, and suddenly, they'd get an hour of speech on the Soviet Union. I think they went out thrilled, honored, and baffled.

MAX KAMPELMAN: He looked upon himself as a teacher. I think he was one of the greatest teachers of his period.

PAULA SCHROEDER: State Department Counsel Max Kampelman is another longtime Humphrey friend and advisor.

MAX KAMPELMAN: Because he was interested in teaching, not just in making an impression that would pass. He wanted them to understand.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: A new bill, a creative amendment, a wise appropriation may mean the difference to this generation and generations ahead, between health and sickness, jobs and idleness, peace and war. The main job of Congress is to redress the grievances, to right the wrongs, to make freedom and justice living realities for all. This is the essence of politics.

WALTER MONDALE: They tell me a story-- and there are hundreds of stories like this about Humphrey coming down to North Carolina and George Wallace country. And he spoke in some auditorium. They had 15,000 people there. And when he got through speaking, he shook hands for 2.5 hours.

They-- all these people patiently got in line and they went around, they wanted to shake Hubert's hand. And he had them-- he didn't-- none of them voted for him. But he had them. And he could do that. And he did that all the time.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Now I believe in the power of prayer, Reverend.

REVEREND: All right.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Let me tell you, I really do. I was a mighty sick man two years ago.

REVEREND: All right.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: But I also believe that the Lord is busy. He needs a little help. I'm not-- I don't-- I'm not trying to choose up sides on whose side the Lord is going to be on in this business, but I want to tell you something. You're out here and you can get out and do the work, but these elections are never going to be won by us sitting around patting each other on the back. They're never going to be won by saying, gee, isn't Humphrey a great guy? And I getting up here saying, aren't you folks a wonderful people.

AUDIENCE: That's who you need.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: What we've got to do in a very real sense is almost like the gospel. You go out and go on out and save the sinners. You've got to go out and get the votes.

AUDIENCE: Yes.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: And you've got to go out and talk. You've got to go out and walk. You've got to go out and organize.

[APPLAUSE]

PAULA SCHROEDER: Norman Sherman was Humphrey's Vice Presidential Press Secretary.

NORMAN SHERMAN: One time when Humphrey was Vice President and Orville Freeman was Secretary of Agriculture, Orv came into Humphrey's office for an appointment. A dialogue begins.

Humphrey says, what are you looking so strained about, Orv? Well, he says, God damn it, I was up in New Jersey last night at their annual Democratic dinner. And nobody paid any attention to me. He said, Orv, all you have to do when you go to that event is you lean close to the microphone and you go, [ULULATING] and then you say, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And he said, the place will go wild. And he said when the applause ends, you lean close to the thing, and you go [ULULATING] Harry S. Truman. And he said it goes even crazier. And he said, if you really want to get them because it's a Catholic state, he said, then you say, [ULULATING] John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And he said, then you sit down.

[LAUGHS]

WALTER MONDALE: He was very angry at jokes directed at his speaking for too long. He wanted that stopped about gabbiness, because he thought that was sinking in as a caricature and hurting him. And he tried to moderate his speeches.

Remember John Pastore said in '68, he already said, I got the answer that elect you president with no problems at all. And Humphrey said, terrific. What is it? He said a 15-minute speech. But try as he would, he couldn't help himself.

RONALD REAGAN: This is Ronald Reagan speaking to you from Hollywood. You know me as a motion picture actor. But tonight, I'm just a citizen pretty concerned about the national election next month. This is why we must elect not only President Truman but also men like Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis, the Democratic candidate for Senator from Minnesota. Mayor Humphrey, at 37, is one of the ablest men in public life.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Hubert Humphrey entered the US Senate in 1948 as the first popularly elected Democratic Senator in the history of Minnesota. His reception in Washington was cool.

WALTER MONDALE: It troubled him deeply too. I know that-- I remember, he'd been there about a year or two, and there was a survey of who's the least important, least respected Senator. And Humphrey won that dubious honor.

And I was a young man, but I said, Hubert, what does this mean? And I could tell he was very depressed about it. And he spent some years not abandoning his policies but trying to shape his policies-- pursue them in a way that would permit him to become a force in the institution of the Senate. And he succeeded. But it took him some doing.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.

GAYLORD NELSON: He liked everybody, everybody liked him. He didn't carry any grudges. When he was on the other side of an issue, he never personalized it. He was intelligent. He was friendly. And he was well prepared. And anybody who has all of those factors going for them can be influential in the Senate, as he certainly was.

WALTER MONDALE: It's an intensely human institution, the Senate. And the action tends to go to people who are liked, because it's more fun that way. And Humphrey was just a lot of fun.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Humphrey rose in stature in the Senate during the 1950s. After being passed over as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in 1956, he ran for the presidential nomination in 1960. Of course, John F. Kennedy was elected that year along with his running mate, a man who would soon play a critical role in the life of Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson.

ANNOUNCER: Here is a bulletin from CBS News. In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting. More details just arrived. From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1:00 PM Central Standard Time. Vice President Lyndon Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas.

SARAH TILGHMAN HUGHES: That I will faithfully execute--

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: I will faithfully execute--

SARAH TILGHMAN HUGHES: --the Office of President of the United States.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: --the Office of President of the United States.

SARAH TILGHMAN HUGHES: --and will, to the best of my ability--

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: --and will, to the best of my ability--

PAULA SCHROEDER: Again, Norman Sherman.

NORMAN SHERMAN: There were people the afternoon of Kennedy's assassination before he got-- his body was brought back to Washington, who were calling the office saying, this is your chance to be Vice President, and then President again. There is not a lot of embarrassment about that in many people's minds. I literally threw a guy out of the office that day who was in, waiting to talk to somebody about Humphrey's running for Vice President.

WALTER MONDALE: First of all, it meant the loss of a good friend. I mean, he really liked Jack Kennedy. But Humphrey always had that urge to become President. And there was now a vacancy in the Vice President. He had a good shot at it.

PAULA SCHROEDER: While Humphrey maneuvered his way toward the vice presidency, his Senate career peaked in a rush of legislative successes. For years, the leader of the Senate's outnumbered liberals, Humphrey in the early 1960s saw the bulk of his personal legislative agenda signed into law. Civil Rights, the Peace Corps, Food for Peace, arms control-- each had been proposed by and shepherded through the Senate by Humphrey.

Former Maine Senator Edmund Muskie.

EDMUND MUSKIE: It was compared, I think, rightly so as with the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration in 1932. And of course, what you had here was a combination of Lyndon Johnson's considerable legislative talents. And when you combine that with Hubert's own skills and the fact that he was so well liked by senators, I think the combination was impregnable.

PAULA SCHROEDER: When Lyndon Johnson chose his running mate in 1964, he selected his longtime friend and ally, Hubert Humphrey. It was the culmination of a personal and political relationship dating back a decade. Humphrey responded with a rousing speech to the faithful at the '64 Democratic Convention.

[APPLAUSE]

HUBERT HUMPHREY: In the last 3 and 1/2 years, most Democrats and Republicans have agreed on the great decisions our nation has made, but not the Republican spokesman, not Senator Goldwater. Most Democrats and most Republicans in the United States Senate, for example, voted for the nuclear test ban treaty, but not the temporary Republican spokesman.

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

Most Democrats and Republicans in the Senate voted for education legislation, but not Senator Goldwater.

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

Most Democrats and most Republicans in the Senate voted for the National Defense Education Act, but not the temporary Republican--

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

And my fellow Americans, most Democrats and most Republicans in the Senate voted to help the United Nations in its peacekeeping functions when it was in financial difficulty, but not Senator Goldwater.

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

WALTER MONDALE: He had that crowd rolling. I was there as a delegate. And they were all right with him, you know, but not Barry Goldwater. And the place just rocked. And the funny thing about it, he told me later, Lyndon Johnson, of course, was one of the world's worst speakers.

And Lyndon had a very short temper and a big ego. And poor Humphrey got into this speech, which was a real ear splitter. Everybody loved it. And he was laughing up there. And the thing was rolling. And all he could think was that Lyndon Johnson's going to hate this. Because Johnson was sitting there-- and I think he did hate it. And so Humphrey said he tried, toward the end of the speech, make it a lousy speech so that he could get out of there and talk to his next President.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Lyndon Johnson's treatment of Hubert Humphrey has often been described as arbitrary. But it is also said of Johnson that he treated everybody that way.

WALTER MONDALE: I think Johnson has been very tough on him. I think it was hard for him to keep his dignity and his stature the way he needed it. He would say things like, we need a Marshall Plan for the cities. And the next morning, Lyndon Johnson would go out of his way to say that Hubert was lipping off and had no authority. And this sort of thing used to happen all the time. And I think it was very hard for Hubert.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I think Humphrey figured after Kennedy beat him in '60 that his chance of being President were pretty well wiped out. When Johnson made him Vice President, it was like giving him new life. And so he was grateful for that. I thought that was the year in which Hubert really kind of surrendered to Johnson beyond what I would have considered reasonable.

WALTER MONDALE: I don't agree with that. There is no question that Humphrey wanted to be Vice President. But I think there's another explanation. And I think Humphrey took that job and was doing his loyal best to help the President be a good president, and hoping that one day, he would have a shot at the presidency himself. But I think it's a more logical and expected explanation that he was just being his usual, enthusiastic self.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Again, Norman Sherman.

NORMAN SHERMAN: Johnson was difficult on all sorts of grounds. He had a huge ego. He had a mean spirit as well as a generous one. Now you can focus on Johnson's meanness and the personal relationships. I think they are less important than the institutional relationships. A vice president, despite thinking he has power, has none.

WALTER MONDALE: Well, you know, when I thought I had a shot at it, I went to see Humphrey. And I said Hubert, I think I've got a good shot at being vice president with Carter, but I'm not sure I want to take it. I saw what it did to you. What's your advice?

He said, take it. He said, the best four years of my life were as vice president. Said I know all the talk about Vietnam and so on. And that was rough. But he said I was broadened as a person, my experience, my perception. I'm a better person because of those years, and you will be too. And he said, if you get a shot at it, take it.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Throughout his career, Humphrey had seen the vice presidency as a natural perhaps mandatory stepping stone to the presidency. And Humphrey wanted to be president.

WALTER MONDALE: Oh, bad. Yeah, that tongue was hanging out most of his life. That's right. He was so bright and he knew it. And he was such a good speaker. And people liked him. And he was so engaging and contagious. And he sparkled where others were dull. And it is natural that he would have thought he could go all the way.

It was also almost childlike. I mean, the fact that he wanted to be president, there was never any question about it. He just-- it was right out in his sleeve and off we went.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: And so my friends and fellow Americans, facing and knowing the hard realities of the office yet also knowing the potential for good which lies within it, I shall seek the nomination of the Democratic Party.

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

PAULA SCHROEDER: Hubert Humphrey announcing for the presidency in 1968.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: And here we are just as we ought to be. Here we are, the people. Here we are in the spirit of dedication. Here we are the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, the politics of purpose, and the politics of joy. And that's the way it's going to be too all the way from here on out.

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

NORMAN SHERMAN: That phrase, I am sorry to say in one sense, and proud to say in another was my suggestion.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Norman Sherman.

NORMAN SHERMAN: It comes from John Adams. It was used by Gene McCarthy in the spring of the year. And turned out to be grossly inappropriate and one which we were lacerated with. It was not-- in its context, it was not a bad idea.

Well, that's wrong. In the context, it was a bad idea. In the context of the Vietnam War and what was going on. But I think in his autobiography, you will find a quote where he says I'm an optimist about my country with joy and without apology. And that had to-- that reference goes back to the speech.

[DRUM ROLL]

[CAMPAIGN MUSIC]

(SINGING) When Humphrey is voted in and becomes our president

He will preserve our country when Hubert Humphrey wins this year

He'll give us peace in Vietnam when he becomes our president

He will secure our economy when Hubert Humphrey--

PAULA SCHROEDER: The overriding issue of the 1968 campaign was, of course, Vietnam. It had been the war which drove Lyndon Johnson from the race. And the growing anti-war sentiment fueled the campaigns of Democratic candidates Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Humphrey was a stand-in for Johnson. In effect, I said the issues of war and the issue is Johnson's conduct of it. Johnson, in effect, laid the burden of the war on the party and on Hubert.

PAULA SCHROEDER: The anti-war movement gained momentum in 1968, attracting even Democrats who considered themselves Humphrey liberals. Minneapolis Attorney Vance Opperman.

VANCE OPPERMAN: And while they may have held Humphrey in great regard, they nonetheless didn't want to get shot at. They did not want to be part of an immoral war. They did not want to be part of the war machine. They did not want to be part of America's great and mistaken adventure. And that was fairly easily overcome. And that would overcome feelings of historic and philosophical camaraderie with Vice President Humphrey.

PAULA SCHROEDER: When the Democratic National Convention convened in Chicago in August of 1968, Humphrey was assured of the nomination. He'd collected more than enough delegates from the non-primary states, ducking head-to-head confrontations with his opponents.

By the time the Democrats gathered, Kennedy was dead, assassinated in California, and McCarthy was leading more a movement than a political campaign. The anti-war forces descended on Chicago in force, determined to bring the issue before the American public.

WALTER MONDALE: You see one of the real problems of '68 was Humphrey wasn't controlling that convention. It was Johnson's crew from Texas and friends like Mayor Daley. I remember I called Mayor Daley a couple of days before the convention, and I said, I'm afraid we're going to have some violence here. I said, can't we-- I said, these are all college kids. How about hiring a bunch of bands and just having some music and some dancing? And he said, we'll show them every courtesy.

PAULA SCHROEDER: But there were to be no rock bands for the young people in Chicago that August. Mayor Daley had other plans.

SPEAKER: Keep the bayonets high with the order about face. And now they've got the [INAUDIBLE]

[CROWD BOOS]

[SHOUTING]

The crowd will move ahead, pushing-- pushing ahead. The demonstrators move back. Among the demonstrators, some people who were not--

REPORTER: The policemen with motorcycles are riding up on the sidewalk trying to run people over to clear them out.

JOSEPH ALIOTO: I came here to talk to you about the man who has been for 20 years, right up to the present time, the articulate exponent of the aspirations of the human heart for the young, for the old, and for those of us in between.

REPORTER: They're charging into us. They're charging into us. The people in the back are being beaten. Three policemen approached them, hollering and waving their sticks. The crowd wavered and fell apart. They were retreating. And this is what I was filming when, from behind me somewhere came a herd of policemen running.

And I had my camera up. And one policeman gave me a shove. And I don't even think he said anything. He gave me a shove, and I said CBS News, and he said whack.

RICHARD DALEY: The confrontation was not created by the police. The confrontation was created by the people who charged the police. Gentlemen get the thing straight once and for all the policeman isn't there to create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder.

MILES LORD: The young people were milling around out across from the Hilton Hotel in the park and hooting and hollering. I went over and walked among those kids.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Former federal Judge Miles Lord.

MILES LORD: I then went up to Humphrey's penthouse, way up on top with a balcony overlooking the park. I said Hubert, let's go down to the park and talk to the kids.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: The Secret Service immediately grabbed me. No, no, no, no, no, no.

MILES LORD: I said Hubert, the election is down there. He said, Miles, the nomination is down in the Cow Palace or whatever it was. So he never went down there with me.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Former Minnesota Governor Orville Freeman, like many in the Humphrey camp, was simply offended by the events in the streets of Chicago.

ORVILLE FREEMAN: It was frightful. It was just frightful. And that's all you could say. I mean, everybody knows what went on. I don't think anyone was ever received the nomination under more adverse circumstances. The street battles and the nastiness and people throwing excrement at each other and the clubs. I still think that if a force hadn't taken place that convention, the plan of those in the street was to prevent the convention from being carried out and the nomination from being made.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Mr. Chairman, my fellow Americans, my fellow Democrats, I proudly accept the nomination of our party.

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

PAULA SCHROEDER: Humphrey addressing the 1968 convention.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: This moment-- this moment is one of personal pride and gratification, yet one cannot help but reflect the deep sadness that we feel over the troubles and the violence which have erupted regrettably and tragically in the streets of this great city.

And may we just share for a moment a few of those immortal words of the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi. Listen to this immortal saint. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light.

WALTER MONDALE: It was, what I thought, was a very gifted let me get out of town speech. That got the applause. It was full of some very clever phrases. One of them said-- let us say that this will never happen again, but he didn't say why.

Because the poor guy, he was between about the devil and the deep blue sea there. He had Johnson, those guys, on his back. And he had-- and he had to get out of town because there was no-- there was no victory left. There was rubble.

PAULA SCHROEDER: D.J. Leary was Humphrey's media advance man in 1968.

D.J. LEARY: I think it probably took some time to sink in with the idea of-- that he had at best-- gotten a tarnished cup. So there was a kind of an attitude it seems in the public that if this is what politics is about, and these Democrats can't even run their own house, how the hell can they run the country?

WALTER MONDALE: I asked to be relieved of the campaign. I want to go back now to the Senate, leave me alone. And I'll help you, but I mean, I want to just do it in Minnesota. He said, OK. So that's what we did. I was also very dispirited. A lot of us were.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Humphrey's 1968 running mate, Edmund Muskie.

EDMUND MUSKIE: Well, I had to look at the polls day after-- or the week after the convention. He was an obvious loser. It looked like the Grand Canyon.

[LAUGHTER]

WALTER MONDALE: You can't recreate it, but-- and he loved his country. Did you see the thing just falling apart the way it did, the hatred, the absence-- almost anarchy in some ways. Humphrey knew he'd be a good president and would be best for these issues, including Vietnam. And yet the kids wouldn't let him talk.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Muriel Humphrey Brown.

MURIEL HUMPHREY BROWN: That was a terrible time-- terrible time. And going out and campaigning at those times was so difficult. I remember being at Yale, where-- now, there were some of the-- well, Berkeley and Yale, I think, were the two campuses that were the worst. And he just plowed right into it.

MAX KAMPELMAN: I did not want him to break with Johnson.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Max Kampelman.

MAX KAMPELMAN: I was opposed to that. But I wanted him-- or at least raise the question with him at the convention in a very private one on one as to whether he shouldn't resign from the vice presidency in order to give full time to the campaign, and in order to not disassociate himself from Vietnam but set forth the kinds of things he wanted Johnson to say about Vietnam.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Other subadvisors had made similar proposals. Humphrey took none of them seriously.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I mean Hubert was a man who believed in loyalty. And particularly for the vice president, if you accept that responsibility, you had to be loyal to your president. And people who are not vice president find it hard to understand that. But Hubert's sense of loyalty just didn't permit him to cut himself totally away or loose from the Johnson Vietnam policy.

WALTER MONDALE: I will always believe that he would have been far better to take a far lower silhouette on that, and make his statements if he had to but make them in a far less enthusiastic way. But Humphrey was incapable of modulation. You're going this direction, you go all out.

Being close with Hubert, as I was, I was absolutely convinced that if he had been elected president, we'd have gotten that war over with. But you can't ask someone who did not know him to be able to draw such conclusions. He had to live with the record that he heard. And that was not all that good.

PAULA SCHROEDER: As Vice President Humphrey had been a strong supporter of the war, both publicly and privately. As a presidential candidate in 1968, he was having some doubts. Max Kampelman.

MAX KAMPELMAN: He came to feel that Johnson had lost support of the American people by not bringing them along enough. No calling up of reserves. No tax increases. No real debate in Congress.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Former Minnesota Senator, Eugene McCarthy.

MAX KAMPELMAN: He was in a bad fix because Johnson was not giving him any free play. And he wanted the nomination. Of course, he wasn't going to get it anyway. But I just think he was not in a position to do anything very different from what he did, unless he wanted to really confront Johnson and kind of call him, which is probably what he should have done.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Then in September, little more than a month from election day, Humphrey made a TV broadcast from Salt Lake City. In it, for the first time, he staked out a Vietnam policy separate from Lyndon Johnson.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: As president, I would stop the bombing of the North as an acceptable risk for peace. Because I believe it could lead to success in the negotiations and thereby shorten the war. This would be the best protection for our troops. In weighing that risk, and before taking action, I would place key importance on evidence, direct or indirect, by deed or word, of Communist willingness to restore the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam.

Now secondly, I would take the risk that the South Vietnamese would meet the responsibilities they say they are now ready to assume in their own self-defense. I would move, in other words, towards de-Americanization of the war.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Former Humphrey aide Ted Van Dyk, remembering that speech in 1976.

TED VAN DYK: We had, in effect, a new Peace Plank, which we were ready to introduce to the Democratic convention in Chicago, which would have, in effect, have removed Vietnam from the Democratic campaign. Humphrey took the draft to the White House and showed it to Johnson, who denounced him and told him he would destroy him politically, and beyond that, would go to the American people and say that he was cynically tampering with negotiations on a political basis. So we withheld the paper. This was, oh, I'd say, three weeks before the Chicago Convention.

Then came the platform and other fights in Chicago, which crippled the campaign. Then when it was determined that there was another effort, we were going to issue the paper much earlier than September. Humphrey visited Johnson at the ranch. And Johnson gave him exactly the same story, including statements that his son in law's blood would be on his hands, and that he would have to go to the American people and denounce him for harming the negotiations.

Finally, the September 30th speech was delivered. But even there, on at the request of Averell Harriman and others, conditioning paragraph was put in about the cessation of the bombing, which had not been included in our original draft.

PAULA SCHROEDER: D.J. Leary was Humphrey's media advance man in 1968.

D.J. LEARY: A change started to take place in the crowds, where there had been this months of the chanting and hell, no, we won't go and kinds of things mostly tied to the war. And that signs started to appear, if you mean it, we're with you, things like this.

So the tide of that thing really started to turn at that point. And I must say the month of October was a much more pleasant campaigning experience than the rest of the year.

WALTER MONDALE: We thought we had a shot. And we had the polls indicating we were now ahead. The momentum was heavily with Hubert. Nixon's campaign was collapsing. There was a scene of Nixon downtown Los Angeles shaking hands, and no one had shake hands with him. It was an empty street. And another scene with Humphrey in the same street, the place was thousands and thousands of people hanging out the windows and everything.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: That was one of those crowds that one expects to read about and see on the news-- on the newsreels in those days or the newscast today of a presidential campaign. And I remember that as Hubert and I drove through Los Angeles in that campaign, we began to talk about who should be in the cabinet. So optimism reigned.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Humphrey's vice presidential Press Secretary, Norman Sherman.

NORMAN SHERMAN: There is one act, one fact, one situation, which I think might have made a-- clearly might have made the difference. Toward the end of the campaign-- literally, I think the weekend before the election. We got word that Anna Chennault had been in contact with the South Vietnamese and was screwing up the thing saying you'll get a much better deal if you wait till Nixon gets elected. And don't go to the peace talks and don't agree to anything.

And I went to Humphrey and said, we have the fact of this. Let me charge as your Press Secretary that Nixon knew about it because Anna Chennault was the chairman of the volunteers for Nixon-- or whatever it was called. And he said, well, we don't have proof that Nixon knew what she was doing.

And I said who cares? The chances are he did. In any case, let me charge that he did. And he wouldn't let me do it. He said absolutely not. You may not do it. I had the choice of doing it leaking it or just shutting up and following his advice. I think had I leaked it in any fashion, or if he had permitted me to do this officially, I think we could have changed the result of the election.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: I'm sure you know that I have already called Mr. Nixon, expressed to him our congratulations. I have done my best. I have lost. Mr. Nixon has won. The Democratic process has worked its will. So now, let's get on with the urgent task of uniting our country. Thank you.

[CHEERS & APPLAUSE]

EUGENE MCCARTHY: And I think that Humphrey-- he had undergone a series of very difficult psychological shocks that left him a crippled man for a while. He-- I'm talking about emotionally. But there was a time there when I worried about him.

SKIP HUBERT H. HUMPHREY III: I can remember my father on a plane about a week after the election.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey, the third.

SKIP HUBERT H. HUMPHREY III: We were flying. He took the whole family and we were headed South. We were going to go and recuperate, kind of lick our wounds. And I can distinctly remember my father asking my wife just to hold Pamela, my second daughter. She was just a little babe at that-- in that she had just been born that summer. And he just held her for an hour, just put him on her-- on his lap, and just held her.

PAULA SCHROEDER: One year later, reflecting on 1968, Humphrey wrote, after four years as Vice President, I had lost some of my identity. It would have been better that I stood my ground. I ought not have let a man who was going to be a former president dictate my future.

All true, wrote Humphrey's biographer, but to have conducted his campaign differently to, as he saw it, show disloyalty to his president, to go for the jugular as others saw it, would have been, according to Walter Mondale, foreign to Hubert Humphrey.

WALTER MONDALE: That was one of his great strengths, and I think one of his weaknesses. He could never be mean to people. And if someone had been unkind to him, had shorted him, and said bad things about him, had taken advantage of him, he would always go out of his way to try to heal that relationship rather than show anger or retribution.

And that was a great strength, but it was also a great weakness. Because when he ran for president, people figured they could safely disregard Hubert's desires. And he'd still be their friend. There was no cost to offending him. And so in this tough game of politics, many times, Hubert's best friends had let him down or compromised or duck, because they knew Hubert wouldn't be vindictive.

PAULA SCHROEDER: In 1970, Minnesota returned Hubert Humphrey to the US Senate in a landslide election, but this time as the junior Senator from Minnesota.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, we used to have a lot of fun with that. It's nice to have Humphrey now as my junior Senator. I don't think he ever really liked that joke that much. He laughed at it, but I don't think he liked the predicament that much.

When Humphrey came back to the Senate in '70, he's a much tamer figure than that brash young kid that hit the Senate in '49. He'd been around the world. He'd been Vice President. He'd been through that grueling presidential race. He was now approaching his 60s. He was a different person. Not as brash, I would say.

He still had some vestigial interest in the presidency too. He fooled around with it in '72. He was getting ready to do it again in '76.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Edmund Muskie.

EDMUND MUSKIE: That is a sad thing about his life. He should have been President. But for that one issue, he would have been. It had to be fought out. I mean, the country was divided by that issue. There was no way of running a campaign without being involved in it. That's the tragic part of it.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: You know what I sort of reject is to try to make his life out to be a tragedy, which it wasn't. It was a good political life. He did good work.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Eugene McCarthy.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: And for the presidential thing evades a lot of people, isn't-- it isn't as unless you make it, that's not-- a failure to get it isn't a sign of total failure. I don't think the presidential campaign of '68-- this is not one you could say, well, we lost or we did some good. That would be a disappointment. Because you can lose elections and say they had a positive effect. I don't think the '68 one did.

PAULA SCHROEDER: In the fall of 1976, Hubert Humphrey was diagnosed with cancer. And for the next year and a half, the man they called the Happy Warrior waged his final campaign in full view of the American public. At the time, it was called the public death of Hubert Humphrey.

WALTER MONDALE: People saw him wither. And they saw that remarkable spirit where he kept fighting, kept talking, kept leading. One of the doctors, [? Najarian ?] told me, at the university that he'd never seen a person continue to function for so long after-- usually, they are incapable of anything except suffering pain. And he was in pain, all right, but he just kept rolling.

EDMUND MUSKIE: God, I think he walked into the next world talking. I really do. His energy was boundless. And he would just would not let that throw him. I remember I had a-- well, I was in the hospital for something across the street from the NIH. And he heard I was there. Well, God, he had to call me in order to cheer me up.

Before I knew it, he was on the other end of the phone. And now, now, Ed, don't let this get you down. It's all going to turn out all right. And there he was over there getting one of his treatments, chemotherapy treatments, and his last thought was himself.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Norman Sherman.

NORMAN SHERMAN: Toward the end, I got a call one Sunday night. And my wife listened as I talked. And when I hung up, I said he called to say goodbye. He never used those words obviously, but he had called. And I wasn't the first one on the list. I wasn't the only one on the list. He was going through a list of people. And he made that effort. And I think he called Richard Nixon, as I understand. He called all kinds of people.

WALTER MONDALE: He was on the phone all the time, right up-- he was almost late for his funeral, I think, the way it went. He was lobbying for the Humphrey Metrodome. I know the day before he died, it must have been the best month in the history of AT&T.

NORMAN SHERMAN: He just felt that you were obligated as a Senator to embrace, to gather in, to touch people.

WALTER MONDALE: I feel sorry for people who didn't know him because you can see what it takes and what can happen, the magic of leadership when it really exists.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: I have been known through my life to be an optimist, some people say a foolish optimist. And I suppose at times, I've ignored reality and lived in the dream world of optimism. But I've said to the critics that I'm optimistic about America, and that I rebuke their cynicism. And the reason I do is because history is on my side.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: There is so much disillusionment about politics and politicians in government today. Hubert would be most distressed to learn about that today. I'm sure. And it's men like Hubert whose life challenged that current public perception.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Too many people in politics today are afraid. They're afraid. They say, oh, they won't go for this. Well, I knew they wouldn't go for Civil Rights in 1948. I knew they wouldn't go for Medicare in 1949. I knew that they wouldn't go for the Peace Corps in 1958. And I knew they wouldn't go, if you please, for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1959. But ultimately, they did.

If you're going to be a man in politics, you have to be like a soldier on the battlefield. You know there are risks. There's no guarantee of your life. But as somebody once said, I'd rather live 50 years like a tiger than 100 years like a chicken. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

WALTER MONDALE: I've met a lot of public leaders in my life here and abroad, but I have rarely met anybody with the kind of electric energy that he had. And he moved a nation as a result. Poor kid from Huron, South Dakota ended up one of the most respected men in the world. He did it all on his own. No one gave him a thing. And he did it because of that drive.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

CROWD: (CHANTING) We want Humphrey. We want Humphrey. We want Humphrey.

HUBERT HUMPHREY: Like it or not, you have him.

[LAUGHTER]

EUGENE MCCARTHY: In the period immediately following his death, I was convinced that history would never forget him. I still think that's the case, but I'm a little less certain of it. I think the maturity of America and the accuracy of American history will somehow be judged by whether Humphrey continues to have a role as actually one of the most dedicated public servants of the 20th century.

NORMAN SHERMAN: As long as there are survivors of his era, he will be remembered by all kinds of individuals, not historians, but individuals. As someone who touched them, who reached out, who cared. I remember one year there was a bumper sticker that said Humphrey cares.

And the reason it was successful is that everybody who saw it believed it. Whether they agreed with him politically, whether they hated him politically, they knew that there was meaning in two words, Humphrey cares. And I suspect if Humphrey typed his own epitaph, that would be it.

WALTER MONDALE: He cried in public and without embarrassment. In his last major speech in his beloved Minnesota, he wiped tears from his eyes and said, a man without tears is a man without a heart. If he cried often, it was not for himself but for others. Above all, Hubert was a man with a good heart. He taught us all how to hope and how to love, how to win and how to lose. He taught us how to live. And finally, he taught us how to die.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

RICH DIETMAN: The Politics of Joy was written and produced by Mark Heistad. Executive producer, Rich Dietman. Assistant producer, Elisa Verning. Technical director, Jeff Walker. Principal field recording, Alan Strickland. Publicity, Joanne Wagner. Our thanks to the National Archives, the University of Minnesota Labor Education Center, and the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

Our special thanks to the Minnesota Historical Society and the Humphrey family advisory committee for their assistance. The producer wishes also to recognize Joe Genereux, Scott [? Yankis, ?] and all of the people, whether or not heard in this program, who told us their stories about Hubert Humphrey.