“Our Father, Who Art in Congress”: The Political Beginnings of Father Robert F. Drinan, S.J.
By
Casey Bohlen
Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts In the Department of History at Brown University Thesis Advisor: Luther Spoehr
April 14, 2008 Contents
Acknowledgments ...... 3 Preface ...... 4 Chapter One: A Chronological Introduction ...... 7 Chapter Two: The Policy Platforms ...... 15 Third District Democrats: The Policy Concerns of 1970 ...... 17 Problematic Peace Campaigns: The National Context ...... 23 Drinan’s Platform: A Dynamic (Peace) Campaign ...... 27 Chapter Three: The Roman Collar ...... 36 Catholic Opposition and Drinan’s Reassurances ...... 39 Non-Catholics, American Legal Theory, and the Issue of Abortion ...... 47 The Roman Collar as a Source of Moral Fortitude ...... 52 One Last Speech, at Unknown Date and Location ...... 57 Chapter Four: The Character ...... 59 The Logistics: What It Took to Be a “New Politician” ...... 61 The Substance: Grassroots Organizing and the Pursuit of Change ...... 65 The General Election: Philbin, McGlennon, and Smear Campaigns...... 70 Drinan’s Integrity: A Couple of Letter Exchanges ...... 78 Chapter Five: The First Term and Beyond ...... 84 What “The Future” Entailed: A Freshman in the House ...... 87 Looking Forward Despite the Past: A Second Campaign for Congress ...... 96 Concluding Thoughts ...... 103 Bibliography ...... 107
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Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Spoehr, who has been an exceptional advisor and intellectual companion throughout this process. He focused my lines of inquiry, pushed me to sharpen my prose, and always had time to talk about the present if I couldn’t take another minute of the past.
I would also like to thank the immensely helpful professors, archivists, and librarians that I met along the way. Holly Snyder, Brown’s wonderfully talented North American History Librarian, was the first to mention Father Drinan’s name to me – and her off-hand comment quite literally became the foundation of this paper, for which I will be forever grateful. The helpful folks at Boston College’s Burns Library helped me navigate the confusion of Drinan’s recently opened Congressional Archive, and pointed me towards a Faculty Archive that became essential to understanding my subject’s early life. Professor Kenneth Sacks provided me with indispensable feedback on my prospectus, and the hours spent discussing historical writing in his seminar were central to my perspective and approach. And Professor Robert Self deserves more thanks than I can give – for schooling me in the ways of library research last summer, of course, but also for getting a directionless college student excited about the field of history just in time to file his concentration forms.
My roommates and fellow thesis-writers, Matthew Cohen and Alan Gabel, deserve my thanks as well, for allowing me to blanket our living room with stacks of newspaper articles and for spending countless hours in their labs, helping to constantly remind me how glad I am to have chosen the humanities.
Finally, I would like to thank the unceasingly supportive Eliza Congdon. Her presence over the last year and a half has helped to keep me sane – she knew precisely when to commiserate, when to make constructive suggestions, and when to lure me away from my work with the latest episode of Lost. She believed in me throughout this entire process, and I can only hope that the final product will make her proud.
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Preface
The collective vision that we commonly refer to as our “American History” is, in many ways, a complex amalgam wrought by expert story-tellers, which informs our present about the contours of our past in the hope that we may better direct our future. As academic trends ebb and flow, the characters in these stories also change, and these days scarcely an historical article can be published without focusing on an underrepresented race, gender, or class. This quest for diversity is an indisputably positive development, and it enriches and strengthens our portrait of the past. But it also limits the brush strokes of that portrait to categorical frameworks, and often assumes that a story is worth the telling simply because of its subject’s ethnic, gendered, or socioeconomic traits. These pages are thus, in one sense, nothing new: they contain the story of
Congressman Robert F. Drinan, S.J., yet another old, white male, and his first campaign for political office. But in another sense, one that prioritizes the appeal of an individual story at the cost of trends and categories, it is quite a bit more –
It is the story of a fiery anti-war crusader, a radical dove who ran for national office instead of taking his protest to the streets; who united an unusually diverse group of constituents by persuading them that American militarism contributed to a vast array of societal ills; who fought back against the rising tide of Nixonian fear-mongering and the thinly-veiled racism of calls for “law and order”; who was victorious in 1970, a year that was notoriously brutal for peace candidates across the nation; who strove to transform the idealistic dreams of the nineteen- sixties into the political realities of the nineteen-seventies; who waged war on war.
It is the story of a Catholic priest, a Jesuit activist whose religious faith compelled him to help stop American military involvement in Southeast Asia; who was opposed by Protestants
4
worried about papist attempts to break down the separation of Church and State; who was
opposed by fellow Catholics concerned about the corruptive and corrosive forces of American politics; who was nevertheless convinced that America desperately needed new public leaders,
representatives who combined strong advocacy for dramatic social change with a robust respect
for the Constitution; who brought both his Roman collar and his Georgetown law degree to bear
on the pressing issues of his time.
It is the story of a New Politician, a fresh face who ran against the encrusted corruption of
a fourteen-term incumbent; who mounted one of the first genuinely grassroots campaigns, a
massive get-out-the-vote effort that was years ahead of its time; who fought for Congressional
reform and the abolition of the seniority system, seeking to open the door for a politics rooted in
hope and change; who laid claim to an authentic public personality, which he believed would
help him guide America to a brighter future, free of the patronage and personal favors that had
damaged the endeavors of past generations; who was genuinely “new” in a diversity of ways.
It is a story of disappointment, of the depressing steam that spat and hissed when the cold
waters of political reality doused Drinan’s fires; of the obstacles and roadblocks that the
Democratic Party hierarchy threw up in the way of reform; of the 92 nd Congress’ failure to stand
up to the war-mongering of the President and the Pentagon; of the transformative effects wrought by political sea-changes in the early 1970s; of a politician’s re-election on a platform that he had
run explicitly against just two years prior; of the often withering effects of American politics.
And it is a story of a politician’s beginnings; of an idealistic priest’s first public fight to
reform American society; of a hard-nosed lawyer’s first foray into the bitter battles of American
politics; of a character forged in the world of academia, tested by the heat of an electoral
5 campaign, and then launched into the complexity of the U.S. Legislature; of the ways in which
Drinan’s early years help to illuminate his later endeavors; of the ways in which those later endeavors can tell readers much about American politics writ large.
It is, in short, a story that ought to be told.
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Chapter One
A Chronological Introduction: Father Drinan, the Third District, and the Citizens Caucus
This story actually begins in 1968, two years prior to Father Drinan’s first campaign.
Although the news cycle was dominated by the Presidential race between political giants Richard
Nixon, Hubert H. Humphrey, and George Wallace at the time, a minor three-way fight for a seat in the House of Representatives was being waged in the backwaters of Massachusetts as well.
Called “the most exciting of the state’s congressional contests” by the Boston Globe , its front- runner was Philip J. Philbin, a 70-year old incumbent of thirteen terms who, also according to the
Globe , “assiduously skirt[ed] definitive statements on campaign issues” and “avoided any debate or confrontation with his opponents.” As the Democratic Party’s candidate in a district where registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans two-to-one, there might have been little reason to suppose that the opposition stood a chance. 1
But the Massachusetts Third had been redistricted in 1967, according to Alvin Levin, a lawyer and political analyst, later explained, and the new demographic dynamic changed the nature of the race dramatically. Prior to the redistricting, the district had been similar to the typical voting base of most New Deal Democrats – a working class constituency that focused on bread-and-butter issues and preferred the security of political seniority to lofty liberal ideals.
The redistricting, however, had tacked on several wealthy, residential, and staunchly anti-war suburbs of Boston. As Levin later pointed out, it had became “obvious to liberals of both parties
1 Carol Liston, “At stake: 8 seats in the Congress,” The Boston Globe , November 3, 1968. that a progressive, peace-oriented candidate could be elected from the new district.” 2 As a consequence, two anti-war platforms soon emerged: that of Republican Laurence Curtis, who echoed the lines of Richard Nixon and demanded an “honorably negotiated peace in Vietnam,” and that of Independent Chandler H. Stevens, who called for the “immediate cessation of bombing in Vietnam.” 3
The anti-war bloc went out to the polls in force, and managed to muster 52% of the vote for peace candidates – but they split those ballots between Curtis and Stevens. 4 Philbin walked
away with a plurality, and local peace activists were bitterly disappointed. It was clear that an
electoral upset required unified opposition to Philbin, and peace groups had soon set their sights
on the next Congressional election. In late 1969, they formed an ad hoc committee called the
Third District Citizens’ Caucus and drafted a questionnaire to be sent out to prospective
Congressional candidates from both parties. The widely ranging questions were designed to help
the Caucus find the most “dedicated and trustworthy anti-war candidate,” as reporter James
Higgins later put it. The most electable respondents were to be invited to a district convention in
February 1970. 5
One of these questionnaires was sent to the main subject of this story, Father Robert F.
Drinan. Born in 1920 and raised in the southern suburbs of Boston, Drinan’s spent his late teens, twenties, and thirties flitting between institutions of higher learning, and he was an exceptionally well-educated man as a result. He attended Boston College as an undergraduate, stayed on to pursue a Masters degree, and chose to join the Jesuit order in the same year that he graduated
2 James Higgins, “How to Run & Win: Drinan’s Bay State Volunteers,” The Nation , December 21, 1970. 3 Carol Liston, “At stake: 8 seats in the Congress,” The Boston Globe , November 3, 1968. 4 Thomas M. Gannon, “Reverend Father Congressman,” America , November 21, 1970. 5 Account of Caucus formation paraphrased from: James Higgins, “How to Run & Win: Drinan’s Bay State Volunteers,” The Nation , December 21, 1970. 8
from the latter program. He then went on to receive both an LL.B. and an LL.M. from
Georgetown Law by 1950, was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1953, and earned a doctorate in
theology from Gregorian University in Rome in 1954. (And as if those degrees were not enough,
he was awarded twenty-one honorary degrees thereafter.) Although the curious reader will
wonder what internal workings motivated Drinan to alternate between the pursuit of a legal
career and a clerical one, almost no documents remain from the early period of Drinan’s life with
which to consider the question. But by 1956, Drinan had accepted a position as Dean of Boston
College Law School, to which he thankfully left many of his papers in a well-preserved faculty
archive.
By all accounts, Drinan was immensely popular among students. After spending a semester as a visiting lecturer at the University of Texas Law School, for example, students had been asked to rank his performance based on three criteria: reading material, knowledge of
subject matter, and teaching method. Over 90% of the respondents gave him the highest possible
score in every single category. Said one student, “I wish we had more like him. He had life , and
he put it into this course.” 6 Passionate and eloquent, he appears to have been an outstanding educator whose magnetic personality made him one of the most popular faculty members on campus. And considering that he had spent the previous two decades of his life on the campuses of various universities, one would think that he would be quite comfortable spending the rest of his life in this academic environment.
But after a decade as Dean, Drinan began to chafe at the narrow influence his position in academia afforded him. In a personal notebook from the late 1960s, he revealed his frustration in choppy fragments of firm pen strokes, which expressed terse complaints and serious self-
6 DFA, Document Box: University of Texas Student Poll. Italics mine. 9
doubt. On April 13, 1968, for example, he filled two pages with a blistering attack on Boston
College, which was a typical entry for this period:
“13 yrs – without a voice!! – no determination re future of B.C.!! – Lies – Mismanagement – Deception – Hypocrisy – Slander behind back – the agonies of the reforms that are needed!! – sweep incompetence out !!! –”7
Although the weaknesses of his institution were not specifically enumerated, the passion with which he confronted them was evident in the deep impressions his pen made on the paper, as well as the words that it left behind. And of equal importance was his outrage with his own impotence, with his inability to successfully pursue reform. By June 13, 1968, these frustrations had begun to take their toll, and it had become increasingly clear to Drinan that he needed another outlet for his zeal. Healthy anger with the Boston College administration had given way to despondency. He no longer called out for change in a righteous, fiery voice; instead, his prose was dampened by depression and thoughts of suicide:
“Loss of buoyancy & nerve – ? – for 1st time desire – hope – to die!! – to do so by driving off br. – attractive – ? – not really – aloneness deepens” 8
Although the notebook ended with that entry, his life did not.
Instead, in the middle of 1968 Drinan began to shift the focus of his pursuits, becoming preoccupied with political events outside Boston College. This new application of his talents
manifested itself with a newfound interest in authorship – in 1969, Seabury Press published a book of his entitled Democracy, Dissent, and Disorder . In it, Drinan examined the so-called
“disorder” and “open rebellions” of the late 1960s, concerning himself especially with antiwar
7 DFA, Document Box: Personal Notebook, entry April 13, 1968. 8 Ibid. , entry June 13, 1968. 10 protests, the “Negro revolution,” and “the general decay and rejection of hitherto accepted moral
standards.” 9 The book was essentially a defense of civil disobedience, an argument that
extralegal protest could be both necessary and just – and it relied on potent examples such as
Nazi Germany, where the disobedience of unjust laws might have saved innocent lives, to make
its case. But it was also a rebuke of the rising “law and order” backlash among average
Americans, which it claimed would only worsen America’s plight. “Law does not necessarily bring order, nor does order in any true sense result from the enforcement of law,” the book
stated, but the blind support of all laws, without considerations of justice, would undoubtedly
result in the riots and disorder that those same laws were designed to prevent. Those who wished
to preserve order needed to acknowledge the injustices of American society, and to then work
within the system in order to address them. Quoting President John F. Kennedy, the book
concluded with an admonition: those who ignore the righteous claims of civil protesters and
“make peaceful revolution impossible” would, in turn, “make violent revolution inevitable.” 10
Although these pages revealed how liberal Drinan was, at least insofar as he defended
then-controversial acts of civil disobedience, they also showcased his rhetorical talent and
excellent persuasive skills. The book received decidedly positive reviews as a result. The
Boston Globe was especially laudatory: it compared Drinan’s “seditious tract” to the work of
Samuel Adams and Theodore Parker; it claimed that the book would be particularly important for “the silent majority, and for those who serve as Summer patriots and sunshine soldiers in the cause of liberalism;” and it declared that “each [chapter] should be serialized in all the
9 Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Democracy, Dissent, and Disorder: The Issues and the Law (New York: The Seabury Press, 1969), 3-4. 10 Ibid. , 4-17. 11
newspapers of the nation.” 11 While other reviews were not quite as enthusiastic, Drinan
nevertheless received a good deal of positive publicity. America called it “a short but amazingly penetrating commentary,” for example, and Provident Book Reviews pronounced that “the world needs more Christian, humane, legal yet just minds like Robert F. Drinan.” 12 Drinan’s reputation as a persuasive writer with a decidedly liberal bent was spreading fast.
Simultaneously, Drinan was becoming increasingly vocal about his opposition to U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. On May 25, 1969, he flew to Saigon as part of an eight- person group whose mission was to investigate political and religious freedom in Vietnam, including reports of repression and torture. Fellow members included a bishop of the United
Methodist Church, Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the executive director of the
American Civil Liberties Union, and a professor of theology from the Jewish Theological
Seminary. 13 Perhaps because of this group’s diversity, or perhaps because their findings were so
damning, the team’s report of widespread human rights violations was soon published in major
newspapers from coast to coast. 14
Drinan himself published a four-part editorial in the Washington Post about the trip, in
which he penned a vivid description of political prisoners in South Vietnam, claiming that they
were frequently detained by the U.S. military without being charged and were often subjected to
torture. He noted that his meetings with members of the State Department revealed that they
knew about these abuses, and he then went on to lambast them for lying to the American
11 DFA, Document Box: Boston Globe Sunday Book Review, Dec 7, 1969. 12 DFA, Document Box: America Book Review, February 28, 1970. DFA, Document Box: Provident Book Reviews , April 1970. 13 “Study Unit Leaves to See Saigon Jails,” New York Times , May 26, 1969. 14 See the following: John L. Hess, “8 From U.S. Find Wide ‘Suppression’ In South Vietnam,” The New York Times , June 7, 1969. “Study Team Says Saigon Uses Torture,” Los Angeles Times , June 11, 1969. “Thieu Rules by Terror, Study Says,” The Washington Post , June 11, 1969. 12 public. 15 Drinan’s name was again popping up on the cutting edge of liberal politics, with
increasing frequency and with fervent opposition to the war.
So when the Third Congressional Caucus convened on February 21, 1970, in search of a persuasive speaker with a national reputation and anti-war credentials, Father Drinan’s name was on the tip of almost everybody’s tongue. More than 2,000 citizens had shown up to consider the six finalists who had agreed to speak at the convention, and Drinan’s turn on the stage soon came. He delivered a fiery speech, lamenting the nation’s obsession with anti-communism and calling for a new approach to foreign policy. It is worth quoting an excerpt of the speech, if only to gain a sense of the radical, pacifist stance that he took during his first political foray:
“I say, boldly and unequivocally, that the policy of containment has failed and that an entirely new foreign policy for America is the first imperative of a society of free men… I advocate, therefore, not merely the cessation of all hostilities in Vietnam, but an imaginative and massive program to bring about disarmament.” 16
This was not the speech of a career politician, tentatively dipping his foot into the
changing waters of public opinion, avoiding extreme language and appealing to the lowest
common denominator. On the contrary, this was a bold call for change from a young and passionate priest; this was an indictment of the anticommunist position that his own Church had taken for the last several decades; this was a radical call to pull all troops out immediately and commence unilateral disarmament; this was incendiary .
By the fourth ballot, his only major challenger had decided to withdraw from the race.
(Interestingly enough, this challenger was John Kerry, who, as the Democratic Party’s
15 See the following: Robert F. Drinan, S.J., “Vietnamese Prison Shocks Study Team,” The Washington Post , June 20, 1969. Robert F. Drinan, S.J., “The U.S. Aid to South Vietnam on ‘Internal Security,’” The Washington Post , June 21, 1969. Robert F. Drinan, S.J., “President Thieu Explains,” The Washington Post , June 24, 1969. Robert F. Drinan, S.J., “Vietnam Justice – and the Pursuit of Truth in Washington,” The Washington Post , June 28, 1969. 16 James Higgins, “How to Run & Win: Drinan’s Bay State Volunteers,” The Nation , December 21, 1970. 13
unsuccessful Presidential nominee in 2004, campaigned largely against American military
involvement in Iraq, echoing many of the anti-war sentiments that he voiced at this Caucus over
three decades earlier.) Drinan received the two-thirds majority necessary for nomination and
declared triumphantly, “If the incumbent in the Third District can be defeated by anyone in 1970,
that person is myself.” 17
The campaign had begun.
17 John H. Fenton, “Massachusetts Politics: A Priestly Hat Is Thrown Into the Ring,” The New York Times , February 23, 1970. 14
Chapter Two
The Policy Platforms: Antiwar Sentiments and the Pursuit of Peace
Drinan’s caucus speech was an excellent foreshadowing of the next chapter in his story, a verbal expression of the ideas and style that would come to characterize his campaign. It focused on specific policy issues and goals, seeking to bring the social concerns of his time to the forefront of public debate, and to make his candidacy largely about his stances on pressing political affairs. In this respect, as one writer to the Washington Post put it, he was part of “a new breed of young, issues-oriented, reform-minded candidates for the House.” And while the two questions of age and reform eventually became central to Drinan’s campaign rhetoric (see
Chapter Four), his quest for public office began and ended with an explicitly issues-oriented approach. Any serious exploration of his victory must consequently examine his policy platforms in depth. 1
Ending the Vietnam War, of course, was the most important issue for the Third District
Citizen’s Caucus, as well as for Drinan himself. Official military involvement in Southeast Asia had begun almost two decades earlier, and the protracted war had escalated significantly under
President Lyndon B. Johnson. Public opposition had increased correspondingly, largely in response to military conscription, the toll in American lives, and news coverage of the devastating bombing and chemical warfare waged by the United States. Although the course of the war had altered under the Nixon administration’s Vietnamization policy and American troop strength had been reduced by 60,000 by December 1969, from a peak of over 500,000 in 1968,
1 Sanford Gottlieb, “Letter to the Editor: The ‘Peace’ Candidates,” The Washington Post , November 13, 1970. anti-war sentiments continued to be strong throughout 1970 – stoked by such events as the trial
of Lieutenant Calley for war crimes in the My Lai Massacre, the widely opposed invasion of
Cambodia in April, and the shootings of four students by National Guardsman at an anti-war protest at Kent State. Events such as these energized Father Drinan and Third District peace
activists, providing much of the impetus for Drinan’s campaign. 2
But there was no guarantee that the rest of the district felt similarly about the issue; the
support of various local peace groups, while certainly inspiring to more liberal observers, would
not win a Congressional election on its own. Drinan needed a plurality of the district to vote for
him in the Democratic primary, he wanted to sway that plurality without compromising his own
values and positions, and he needed a serious strategy in order to for that to happen. This chapter
will attempt to understand that strategy, and to retell the various ways in which it played out over
the course of the campaign season. It will begin with a comprehensive look at the political preferences of the Third District, in an attempt to understand the playing field that Drinan was
competing on. And although this field might have slightly favored Drinan’s dovish disposition, a brief survey of post-election news articles will show that single-issue anti-war candidates had
almost no chance to succeed in 1970. Luckily for his political career, however, Drinan was by
no means a single-issue candidate – and the bulk of this chapter will examine the complexity of
his platform and the dynamic approach to politicking that explains, in large part, Drinan’s
victory.
2 Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), 677-685. 16
Third District Democrats: The Policy Concerns of 1970
As a political novice who was swept into his candidacy rather unexpectedly, Drinan began campaigning with no real idea of how to create his policy platforms. Accordingly, in
April 1970, he commissioned New York pollsters Oliver Quayle & Co. to examine his district
and to provide him with campaign strategy for the Democratic primary. 3 Quayle designed and
executed a comprehensive survey that sought to discover the opinions, political preferences, and past voting patterns of likely Third District voters. The sixty-six page, typewritten document that
he produced is a treasure trove for historians, a proverbial gold mine of insight into the Third
District. Although Drinan did not follow all of Quayle’s recommendations – the fiery Jesuit was
mostly interested in understanding his audience, in order to best persuade them, rather than in the politically expedient suggestions of pollsters – this report informed most of his campaign
decisions and is crucial to understanding his victory. Most relevant to this particular discussion
was Quayle’s attempt to gauge the voters’ positions on major issues, which he spent a substantial
amount of the report discussing.
He used two types of questions to identify the issues that were most important to the
Third District. The first was open-ended: respondents were asked to volunteer pressing political
concerns, and were then asked to rank each concern in order of importance, and to identify their
personal positions on the issues. The second type of question was indirectly multiple-choice.
Respondents were first asked to rate President Nixon’s performance on a variety of issues, which
were provided in a list. They were then asked to identify the three items on the list that were
most important to them; their answers to this question were doubtlessly influenced by their
3 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #1 (Reports, Polls, Surveys): “A Survey of the Political Climate in Massachusetts’ Third Congressional District,” Study #1321, May 1970. Hereafter referred to as Quayle Survey. 17 opinion of Nixon, but Quayle maintained that it was an effective method nonetheless. The results varied slightly between questions, and a comparison of the responses to both question - types is presented in Figure One. 4
Quayle Survey : The Issues
60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Taxes Vietnam Drugs & Ecology Cost of Poverty and Disorder & Living Spending Pollution
Open-Ended Multiple-Choice
Figure 1
Third District voters identified problems at similar rates in the two questions, with the notable exception of taxes and spending, which less than half as many people were likely to select as important when provided with a list of other social ills. Almost 60% of respondents viewed the Vietnam War as important, making it the single most selected issue in both question types. Drugs a nd disorder were identified at slightly higher rates than environmental problems, both of which polled between 30% and 40%, depending on the question type. Cost of living was selected by just over a quarter of respondents, and poverty came in sixth, polli ng at just under
20%. After reporting these numbers, which reveal a range of concerns that was rather typical for
1970, Quayle’s report addressed each issue in turn and discussed the voters’ preferences in greater detail.
4 Open-Ended Results: Quayle Survey, 33 -5. Multiple-Choice Results: Quayle Survey, 36-7. 18
It first took up the Third District’s economic concerns, a category into which Quayle
lumped issues of poverty, cost of living, and taxes and spending. Noting the high rates of
identification, he argued that Third District voters were voicing their frustration with the current
state of affairs. They generally opposed hikes in government spending, which were increasingly
seen as wasteful, and they were also worried about rising prices and the effects of inflation on the
larger economy. Quayle pointed out that this would normally work against incumbent politicians, who are often blamed for the behavior of market forces that they have no direct
control over, but that nearly 60% of voters gave Philbin a vote of confidence on the issue. As a
result, Quayle advised Drinan to avoid the issue while on the stump, arguing that the more people focused on the economy, the better off Philbin would be. 5
Third District voters were also concerned about disorderly conduct, criminal activity and
local drug use; this was to be expected, as these anxieties were commonplace in 1970, a year in
which Republican candidates were often waging campaigns based on the pursuit of “law and
order.” Respondents remained alarmed about the urban riots of the late 1960s, and the suburban
constituency was particularly worried about drug use among their children and within their
communities. Yet despite the fact that these issues generally pushed voters towards more
conservative candidates, Quayle believed that they marked an opportunity for Drinan. His position at Boston College was seen as an advantage in dealing with these problems, which were
frequently associated with local campus life, and Quayle advised him to stress his ability to relate
to a younger generation by making “them feel they are part of the system without giving up
authority.” He also suggested that Philbin’s age made him rather weak on these issues, which
were seen as modern afflictions. Philbin should be portrayed “as a thoroughly amicable chap,”
5 Ibid. , 38-9. 19
he advised, “who did quite well with the problems of yesteryear but who is too out of date to deal
with the future.” (In many ways, Drinan followed this suggestion – but this strategy was more
closely related to his New Politics than his policy platforms, and is discussed in depth in Chapter
Four as a result.) 6
The Third District was also distinctly concerned about ecological issues, although its response rate may have been inflated by the timing of the survey, which was conducted in the wake of the first Earth Day celebration on April 22, 1970. In any case, they named industrial pollution as one of the biggest problems affecting their district, whose suburban communities shared a border with the smokestacks of manufacturing complexes. Quayle recommended that
Drinan use this issue in the hopes of obtaining free publicity; he suggested, among other things, that Drinan designate a day to clean up the city of Newton, find a special campaign vehicle that emitted little or no pollution, and even make a special effort to pick up garbage when being followed by reporters. Although Drinan ignored most of this advice, it suggests the importance of the issue to the Third District, and the positive glow that could surround a candidate who advocated environmental reform. 7
But despite the potential importance of drugs, disorder, and ecology, all three were
“secondary issues” at best, according to Quayle’s final summary. 8 Only one concern mattered to over half of the respondents in both survey questions, and it was also the only issue that Quayle believed counted as a top priority: the Vietnam War. Drinan was a hard-line anti-war liberal, who opposed the Vietnam War on the grounds that it was a morally bankrupt quest, the product of a senselessly hostile form of anti-Communism and the cause of serious domestic unrest.
6 Ibid. , 44-5. 7 Ibid. , 48. 8 Ibid. , 54. 20
Philbin was a pro-war liberal, who believed that Communism had to be contained and rolled back where possible and believed in the fundamental rightness of the American cause . The
Third District’s position was much less clear -cut, however, and spending a bi t more time spent among Quayle’s data will be quite informative and revealing.
Upon realizing how important the Vietnam War was to the Third District, Quayle used a follow-up survey to determine their opinions, while simultaneously gauging their familiarit y with the candidates’ positions. He gave respondents the following three statements:
A = “We should go all out and fight an unlimited war (short of using nuclear weapons).” B = “We should do as we are: stay in Vietnam, continue peace negotiations in Pari s, and keep reducing our military commitments as much as possible.” C = “We should get out of Vietnam now, or at least within 18 months.”
They were then asked to identify three things: (1) the statement that they most closely agreed with, (2) the stateme nt that they thought Philbin most closely agreed with, and (3) the statement that they thought Drinan most closely agreed with. The results are laid out in Figure
Two. 9
Quayle Survey : The Vietnam War
80% 60% 40% 20% 0% A = "We B = "We C = "We Not Sure should go all should do as should get out out." we are." now."
(1) Respondent (2) Philbin (3) Drinan
Figure 2
9 Ibid. , 41-2. 21
Respondents themselves were left-of-center on this issue: over half of Democratic voters
said that they favored complete troop withdrawal by the end of 1971, while a mere 16%
advocated an increase in military commitments. Another 26% favored a moderate course
modeled after Nixon’s so-called “honorable peace,” and only 4% were unsure about where they
stood on the issue. According to Quayle, responses to the open-ended question corroborated and
explained these results; the bulk of the District said that they advocated withdrawal because they
were “either confused and frustrated or dovish.” 10
The most striking part of Figure Two, however, is not that most Democratic voters opposed the war, but that an even greater number of voters were clueless about the candidates’ opinions. Drinan was a newcomer to local politics, so it might be expected that 75% of respondents were unfamiliar with his position. But it is downright shocking that 62% of respondents did not know how Philbin, who had represented them for twenty-eight years and who was Vice-Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, felt about the Third District’s most important issue. Even more startling is the 10% that mistakenly identified him with
Statement C, apparently under the impression that he was a dove despite his consistent support for military expansion in Indochina. The Vietnam War was thus the most important issue in the
Third Congressional District and respondents were more closely aligned with Drinan’s position than Philbin’s, but a whopping 72% of voters were either not familiar with or mistaken about
Philbin’s hawkish disposition.
Quayle’s report according proclaimed Vietnam “the number one issue for Father Drinan.”
Quayle recommended pulling Philbin’s statements about the war from the Congressional record and vociferously accusing Philbin of being the hawk that he was. In addition, Quayle suggested
10 Ibid. , 39. 22
that Drinan publicly and vocally broadcast his pacifism. Even if doing so might alienate a few
moderate voters, the report pointed out, it would also transform the race into a clear-cut choice between a peace and war candidate. And given the choice, Quayle’s survey indicated that the
majority of voters would side with the pacifist. 11 Although Drinan may not have been particularly interested in following the prescriptions of pollsters and seasoned politicians, this recommendation provided him with evidence that passionate anti-war rhetoric like his Caucus speech could actually bring about electoral victory. He read these recommendations on May 29; as early as June 17, the New York Times was describing the Third District race as a contest between an “unthinking rubber stamp… hawk” and a “witty, outspoken dove.” 12 The campaign
had almost immediately begun to center on Drinan’s peace platform.
______
Problematic Peace Campaigns: The National Context
The decision to embrace Quayle’s strategic recommendations, at least on the issue of the
Vietnam War, placed Drinan squarely in the middle of a national trend: young pacifist politicians were challenging older, hawkish incumbents, and they were making the Vietnam War a central component of their campaigns. From Bella Abzug of New York to Romano T. Mazzoli of
Kentucky, newcomer doves were running against hawks for seats in both the Senate and the
House in such unexpected numbers that, if newspaper coverage was any indication, it might even be viewed as a trend.
11 Ibid. , 42. 12 R.W. Apple Jr., “Priest in Massachusetts Is Opposed as Politician,” The New York Times , June 17, 1970. 23
A New York Times article from August 21 noted, however, that 1970 “has not been, and
almost certainly will not be, a banner year for antiwar candidates.” It went on to quote an un-
named anti-war Governor as evidence: “The fact is that in most constituencies the war is just not
salable as an issue this year.” 13 A Washington Post article from November 5 came to the same
conclusion, listing a series of anti-war politicians whose campaigns had failed and slapping the
following headline on top: “Peace… Candidates Fared Badly With Voters.” 14 Historians of the period have since tended to confirm these assertions: Michael Flamm, for example, spends an entire book arguing that the Vietnam War was less politically influential during this period than concerns about law and order, despite the fact that military commitments were consistently identified as the most important issue by voters. 15
This fact raises an important question for this discussion, which focuses on a successful anti-war candidate in 1970: was the Massachusetts Third District somehow exceptional in its worry about and opposition to the Vietnam War? Or, to put the question another way, is
Drinan’s story of success, told against a background of defeat for peace candidates nationwide, best explained by an unusually high number of dovish constituents? A comparison of Quayle’s survey with national data answers this question in the negative; although the District did differ slightly from the rest of America, it was not exceptional enough to guarantee a victory for
Drinan.
A national Gallup poll conducted almost one year before the election, for example, presented respondents with the following question:
13 R.W. Apple Jr., “How to Win as a Dove,” The New York Times , August 21, 1970. 14 Chalmers M. Roberts, “Peace and 3d-Party Candidates Fared Badly With Voters,” The Washington Post , November 5, 1970. 15 Michael Flamm, Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). 24
Here are four different plans the Unite d States could follow in dealing with the war in Vietnam. Which one do you prefer?
Plan A: Withdraw all troops from Vietnam immediately. Plan B: Withdraw all troops by end of 1970. Plan C: Withdraw troops but take as many years to do this as are needed to turn the war over to the South Vietnamese. Plan D: Send more troops to Vietnam and step up the fighting. 16
Attentive readers will notice obvious similarities between the Gallup questions and
Quayle’s survey: Plans A and B are comparable to Quayle’s Statem ent C, while Plans C and D correspond to Statements B and A, respectively. Rearranging the numbers in this way allows us to compare the attitudes of Drinan’s district to the mood of the United States as a whole. Figure
Three graphs the two sets of data a gainst each other.
Figure Three : The Vietnam War
60% 40% 20% 0% A = "We B = "We C = "We Not Sure should go all should do as should get out." we are." out now."
3rd District Nationwide
Figure 3
Although the numbers were not an exact match by any means, neither was the Third
District a world apart from the rest of the country. The general trends of the two polls echo each other, and while 13 % more district residents demanded immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, a not insignificant 5% more district residents called for an increase in troop commitments. In other
16 The Gallup Poll (New York: R andom House, 1972), 2232. Survey #795 -K, Question #5. 25
words, Drinan’s target audience was more dovish than the rest of America, but it was also more
hawkish. As a consequence, although he had more support on this issue than he might have had
elsewhere, he also had almost 1.5 times more opposition. As a result, the most significant
difference between the Third District and the nation lay not in respondents’ opinions of the war per se , but in the breakdown of those who selected Statement B (moderates) and those who
didn’t (either doves or hawks). That is to say, America was, by and large, more moderate than
the Third District – and because neither Drinan nor Philbin was moderate on this issue, the
outcome of their race cannot be said to lie entirely in the attitudes of the district.
Furthermore, and perhaps more convincingly, the Gallup Organization polled Americans
about the Vietnam War throughout 1970 and discovered that there was rapidly increasing
opposition to the Vietnam War, attributable in part to widespread opposition to the spring
invasion of Cambodia. Asking voters across the nation a straightforward question – “Do you
think that the United States should withdraw from Vietnam by the end of 1971?” – revealed that
America was 8% more likely to favor withdrawal in November than the Third District had been just six months earlier. 17 (Quayle’s survey, unfortunately, was not repeated over the course of
the election cycle, so a comparison to the static date from April 1970 is the best analysis
available.) Even if the numbers for the Massachusetts Third had changed by then, which they
quite possibly had, district voters would have needed to alter their opinions at an astronomical
rate in order to significantly outpace the rest of America.
17 Question is drawn from The Gallup Poll , 2271. Special Survey, Nov 8, Question 1. The other two polls used are The Gallup Poll , 2237. Survey #798, Question #3, and The Gallup Poll , 2266. Survey #813-K, Question #16. Their questions read as follows, respectively: “Some United States senators are saying that we should withdraw all our troops from Vietnam immediately. Would you favor or oppose this?” and “A proposal has been made in Congress to require the United States Government to bring home all United States troops from Vietnam before the end of next year. Would you like to have your congressman vote for or against this proposal?” Quayle’s respondents that agreed with Statement C can reasonably be expected to have answered “yes” to the Gallup question. Those that agreed with Statements A & B are assumed to have answered “no.” 26
And lest it be suggested that the Third District placed more importance on the war than
the rest of the nation, and that American opinion on the war was less relevant to election
outcomes as a result, there is one more Gallup poll to consider. On October 15, 1970,
respondents were asked to identify the most important problem facing this country. Although
no percentages were given in the report issued by Gallup, the Vietnam War came in first.
Following behind were, in order, campus violence, civil rights, high cost of living, and crime. 18
This list, of course, is strikingly similar to the Third District’s list of preferences presented earlier
in this chapter – not only did Americans also name Vietnam the number one issue, but both sets
of respondents’ secondary concerns lined up in an almost identical order. At the least, these
comparisons show that the Third District was not different enough from the rest of the nation to
fully explain Drinan’s success against a background of failure for other peace candidates.
______
Drinan’s Platform: A Dynamic (Peace) Campaign
So if the explanation for Drinan’s success does not lie entirely in the make-up of the district, we must begin to look elsewhere. And the same New York Times article that declared peace platforms “not salable as an issue” in August 1970 also provided a clue for this investigation. In describing the successful primary campaign of peace candidate Rev. Joseph D.
Duffey of Connecticut, the article’s author concluded that Duffey’s success stemmed from his diverse coalition of “students, antiwar suburbanites, and union members,” which he forged by drawing connections between secondary concerns, like the failing economy, to American involvement in Indochina. This tactic, the article asserted, was “far more promising to the peace
18 The Gallup Poll , 2268. Survey #814-B, Question #10a. 27
movement than the usual moralistic, one-issue crusades.” By appealing “to pocketbooks as well
as to ideology,” Duffey found “the best answer to President Nixon’s coalition of middle
Americans.” 19
Although the New York Times article did not refer to Drinan, this was his answer as well.
An examination of his campaign advertisements and policy papers, as well as the few remaining transcripts of speeches, reveals a similarly complex approach. He addressed an enormous breadth of policy concerns, including the economic problems that Quayle had urged him to avoid, but he almost always managed to tie the Vietnam War into these various discussions. In doing so, he sold himself as a respectable politician who could handle the myriad problems of a national representative, while still stressing the issue on which he could make the most political gains.
His four-page official position paper on the Vietnam War neatly illustrated this tactic – while readers might expect this document to chronicle the terrible conditions in Vietnam or to speak at length of the dangers inherent in a militarized society, it instead focused mostly on domestic issues. Its opening argument, for example, claimed that “American involvement in the
Indochina War has had deep negative impacts on American politics, the economy, society and global posture.” The political turmoil that characterized the 1960s, it continued, was caused by this self-same war, which “fragmented American political structures and divided its people.”
Only “a dramatic reversal” in American foreign policy could “restore faith in the American political system.” 20
19 R.W. Apple Jr., “How to Win as a Dove,” The New York Times , August 21, 1970. 20 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Indochina War.” 28
This line of argument was typical of how Drinan addressed one of the Third District’s
major concerns: domestic disorder. To some extent, he followed Quayle’s recommendations and
argued that he could curb domestic disorder by virtue of his experience as an educator. He often brought up the fact that he could connect to radical, disillusioned students, the source of much
consternation for the so-called “Silent Majority,” and many of his campaign advertisements
reflected that. Figure 4 is one example of this – its
Beatles reference grounded Drinan’s candidacy in
youth culture, thus helping to attract the younger vote, but the message expressed by that reference also
stressed a politics of hopeful reconciliation, of
transcending petty generational divisions in mutual
support of (as the satellite picture indicated) an agenda
that aspired to be truly global in nature. 21
But Drinan often discussed this issue more
directly, and frequently claimed that the perceived
disorder of 1970 was inextricably linked to engagement Figure 4
in Vietnam. He argued that the so-called lack of law and order stemmed from a lack of faith in
American politics, which could only be restored by the withdrawal of troops from Southeast
Asia. A fact sheet distributed to campaign workers, for example, provided a list of talking points
to use in conversations with prospective supporters and donors. “The war has had a social cost
in the form of increased conflict between young and old, black and white, students and
authorities,” it claimed, and only rapid withdrawal could repair the social ties of trust that the war
21 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Primary Election Advertisement #26 (“We can work it out.”) 29
had torn. 22 As a flyer printed by Students and Faculty for Drinan put it more directly, in
reference to the May shootings at Kent State and the April invasion of Cambodia, “The violence
and death which we have seen… is the natural, inevitable outgrowth of the mood fostered by
President Nixon when he recommitted America to further violence and death in Southeast
Asia.” 23 This accusation was also typical of Drinan’s efforts to discuss domestic disorder – as he put it in one position paper, Nixon “has driven thousands of citizens to noisy protest… By continually doing in Southeast Asia what he told Congress he would not do, he has destroyed the possibility of trust.” 24 Social unrest and generational conflict could be traced back to Nixon and the war, these documents suggested, and Drinan’s plan to end military conflict was depicted as the best way to solve these problems.
Drinan launched similar criticisms when discussing the economy. Despite Quayle’s recommendation that he avoid the topic, the markets of 1970 were shaky at best and there was too much public concern over the issues of taxation, unemployment, and inflation for Drinan to completely ignore it. As with domestic disorder, it was quite easy to link contemporary problems to the military efforts in Southeast Asia. As one position paper put it, the Vietnam
War’s effect on the economy had been “shattering,” directly resulting in the following changes:
-- owners of large and small businesses have seen profits plummet -- wage-earners have seen wage-increases fail to keep up with inflation; or, increasingly, they have been fired and cannot find employment -- for many, the decline in the stock market in the past year has resulted in cruel losses, reminiscent of the Great Depression of the Hoover Administration.
Yet despite this, the same document noted, Nixon continued to pour almost $20 billion annually into the war effort, which – according to a quote attributed to the Chairman of the
22 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisement – Print): “Fact Sheet.” 23 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisement – Print): Unidentified Flyer, “What Can You Do About Cambodia?” 24 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Nixon.” 30
Board of the Bank of America – resulted in “uncontrollable inflation and increasing
unemployment” that could only “be cured by a drastic reversal in Vietnam policy.” Citing
conservative business sources and picking on the almost universally disliked Administration
(rather than Philbin), Drinan thus linked the failing economy to the war effort and indirectly boosted his own economic credentials in the process. 25
His position paper on inflation made a similar point. In it, he noted that consumer prices had risen at a rate of over 6% a year, despite the fact that over 4.8% of working people were unemployed. And how did this happen? “This disastrous inflation began in 1965 when the
Vietnam War was escalated. Under the Nixon Administration inflation has gone from bad to worse.” Drinan spent a few paragraphs discussing his actual economic proposals: he mainly argued for voluntary price and wage restraints, which he hoped would slow inflation without deepening the recession, and which he claimed had worked during the Kennedy years. But that would not be enough, the paper went on to say – defense spending was inflationary spending, and expert investigators agreed “that the Pentagon is spending far more than national security requires. Many billions” could be safely reinvested, and “spent on housing” and “public transportation,” among other things. 26
A plethora of print ads made similar arguments. Some simply pushed the idea that
Nixon’s economic plan had not been working, and that change was needed to turn the economy around. One such ad blew up a monochrome photograph of a faceless crowd, ominous in nature, and slapped the following headline over it: “4,607,000 Americans out of work.” The back proclaimed that “Robert Drinan Challenges Nixon Economics,” and went on to argue that the
25 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Indochina War." 26 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Inflation.” 31
Administration thought of the economy as numbers and percentages, which was unacceptable in
light of the human cost of the recent downturn. Drinan, on the other hand, “thinks about people
and families – trying to make ends meet.” His populist attitude pushed him to put “people first,” by fighting for full employment, support for the poor and elderly, and decreasing unnecessary government expenditures. Without mentioning the war explicitly, ads such as this tied the failing economy to the legacy of an unpopular wartime president, arguing that the only solution was an agenda of humanistic change. 27
Other advertisements linked inflation to the war more explicitly. One flyer sported a picture of disgruntled customers in line at the grocery store, and its headline read, “You’re
fighting the Vietnam war at the check-out counter.” (See Figure Five.) The reverse side began by discussing high prices at “the market,” noted that inflation was “hurting all of us,” and argued
that “the main reason is the Vietnam War.” Putting it more vividly, the ad went on to claim the
following:
Every time the Pentagon over-spends on a project like the preposterous C5-A fiasco, millions of tax dollars are eaten up. Every time the Defense Department over- spends on useless weapons and programs we don’t need, millions of tax dollars are eaten up. Yet some old-time politicians still believe that war is good for business. Some old-time politicians really believe that war is good for the economy. But if war is good business, why is business so bad?
Following the established pattern of linking failed policies and economic downturns to
the war effort, this advertisement was an exemplar of Drinan’s attempt to argue that military
spending was the biggest cause of inflation, and that only a dovish priest with the “courage to
27 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): General Election Advertisement #86 (“Robert Drinan Challenges Nixon Economics.”) 32
investigate military spending” and the moral fortitude to
oppose the war on ethical grounds could turn the
economy around, and bring prices back down to
affordable levels. 28
Even Drinan’s discussion of the environment touched extensively on the war: the government was unable to combat pressing social problems, the argument went, while it was saddled with a budget dominated by military spending for Vietnam. His position paper on Figure 5 ecological reform began by listing ecological policies that Drinan supported – pollution taxes, modernized sewage plants, a DDT ban, higher fuel efficiency standards, wilderness preservation, and a long-term vision for sustainable reform. But at the center of all of these measures, the paper concluded, was Vietnam: “Only when we have returned to a peace-time economy will we as a nation command the resources and the energy to deal with our environmental problems.
Anyone truly concerned with our environment must make ending the war in Vietnam his first priority.” Once again, the war was portrayed as the root of America’s problems, and it needed to be dealt with by a serious dove before other domestic issues could be addressed. 29
Drinan’s speeches made the same connections that were drawn in his position papers and print advertisements. In May 1970, during a speech at the Sheraton Boston, for example, he outlined his motivation for pursuing public office. Speaking of his trip to Vietnam in 1969, he claimed that the discovery of “cruelty and barbarism inflicted by the United States” had
28 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Primary Election Advertisement #18L (“You’re fighting the Vietnam war at the check-out counter.”) 29 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Environment.” 33
fundamentally altered his perspective. He “could not live with [him]self or [his] nation merely by continuing peaceful protests,” and so accepted the invitation of the Citizens Caucus and began
a political campaign. But the “central question of our time,” he said, was not the war per se .
Rather, it was whether “the Congress of the United States [can] wrest away some of the enormous power which the Executive Branch of government has… usurped from Congress.”
Drinan’s candidacy was not just about war and peace, this speech implied, but about maintaining the system of checks and balances envisioned by the Founding Fathers – a more conservative goal designed to attract voters who might otherwise have supported the war effort. 30
In another speech, given in Watertown, MA in June 1970, Drinan brought up his moral opposition to the war by referencing a local radio show: “Their discussion was about the casualties in the war. This is a terrible game that we play; saying that there were only 92 killed last week and that we’re supposed to rejoice because the number is small… I say that the basic element of moral values in this war is to stop the killing.” He argued that Congress could “bring the tragic war in Indochina to an end without endangering the lives of our men now there or our national security,” but the speech did not pass by without a reference to the current state of markets – the need to transition from a military economy to a civilian one was a central theme of this speech as well. 31
Reviewing Drinan’s position papers, print ads, and campaign speeches makes at least one thing is clear: his policy platforms were most elementally about the pursuit of peace in Vietnam, but they were presented in a politically dynamic manner. The war was explicitly connected to
30 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #4 (Campaign Statements): “Excerpts from Address of Reverend Robert F. Drinan, S.J…,” May 27, 1970. 31 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #4: “Father Drinan at opening of Watertown Campaign Headquarters,” June 27, 1970. 34 bread-and-butter concerns, student unrest, the preservation of democracy, and basic morality,
among many other issues. Philbin was a consistent supporter of Nixon, who was perpetuating
the war and was consequently the villain lurking behind these domestic problems. Drinan
opposed the war, and thus represented the possibility for serious reform. In a district that
identified the Vietnam War as its most pressing concern, this strategy spoke to the concerns of both moderates and liberals, while also appealing to economic and social conservatives that
might otherwise have favored hawkish policy. Given the similarities between the Third District
and the rest of the nation, Drinan’s success as a peace candidate must be attributed to these deft political tactics and not the pre-existing dispositions of the voters. He was not an anomalous
candidate who got lucky, but a shrewd politician who anchored a variety of contemporary
concerns to a single, powerful issue. One can’t help but wonder whether other peace candidates
might have fared better if they had taken a page out of Drinan’s playbook.
35
Chapter Three
The Roman Collar: A Catholic Priest in American Politics
It is tempting to consider Drinan’s campaign entirely from the perspective of issues and policy platforms – after all, Drinan himself consciously attempted to make his candidacy about
the issues. But while his masterful discussions of these topics were compelling to hear and
fascinating to examine, elections are not entirely about rational
considerations of political proposals. One needs only to look at
a picture of Drinan on the campaign trail – such as that
reproduced in Figure Six, his black garb relieved only by a
flash of white at the base of his neck, his clerical outfit visually
defining his candidacy – to reach the conclusion that other
1 factors affected the outcome of this election. Figure 6
In a telling exchange, the liberal Catholic periodical America ran an editorial discussing
Drinan’s candidacy on March 21, 1970. The article’s author, Fr. Donald R. Campion, was responding to “a peculiar note of controversy:” namely, “one or two publicists have asked whether priests should be in politics and have answered their own question with a flat no.”
Arguing instead that the answer should instead be an emphatic yes, Fr. Campion noted that
Catholic leaders had been influential in American politics in the past, if not in such a direct fashion, and proposed that a run for public office was not much different. Furthermore, he posited, “we have a right, under our law, to expect that a man will not be elected to office merely
1 Figure Six: R.W. Apple, Jr., “Some Post-Primary Observations,” The New York Times , September 17, 1970. because he is a priest, nor barred from office on the same grounds.” Campion was claiming, in other words, that the so-called “priest-issue” was a non-issue, and that Drinan should be judged on the grounds of his personal qualifications and policy positions, rather than his clerical collar. 2
A letter-to-the-editor written in response, by one Amelia Marbre of Toledo, Ohio, however, suggested that Drinan’s religious vocation could not be so easily dismissed.
Conceding that there should be no legal obstacles to a priest’s candidacy, she argued that
Catholic clerics ought not to engage directly in politics, even if allowed to. Noting the
“desperate shortage of priests today,” she claimed that Drinan’s first obligation was to his laity, and that he could “better fulfill his priestly duties and at the same time his political influence by confining his activities to the guidance of politicians in the proper moral and prudential values.” 3
This attitude was shared by many Catholic voters: they believed that their religious leaders’ primary concern should be spiritual guidance, and often opposed priestly involvement in politics on principle.
Drinan’s verbose tendencies, of course, guaranteed a lengthy response to Mrs. Marbre’s letter, also published in America . Noting that he had spent the past dozen years serving on
“countless public advisory committees, blue ribbon commissions, study groups and other euphemistically named groups,” he argued in his letter that the “influence and impact of all the recommendations made by myself and other members of these groups can be summed up by the word ‘insignificant.’” Discouraged by the ineffectiveness of these attempts to influence policy, yearning to make a difference in the American political scene, and not interested in extralegal activities, Drinan wrote, he was led “to the conclusion, with full authorization of all my academic
2 Donald R. Campion, “Of Many Things,” America , March 21, 1970. 3 Amelia M. Marbre, “Better Way,” America , May 9, 1970. 37
and ecclesiastical superiors, to seek a voice and a vote in the U.S. Congress, where the public
morality of America and to some extent of the world will be formed and fashioned during the
1970’s.” 4
The give-and-take of this correspondence was typical of the problem that religion posed
for Drinan’s campaign. Virtually nobody argued that priests should be legally barred from politics, and several of Drinan’s ecclesiastical superiors had apparently sanctioned his bid for
office. But Catholic laypeople like Mrs. Marbre opposed priest-candidates for different reasons,
grounded in normative ideas about the role that priests should play in public life. This situation presented an unusual challenge for Father Drinan. On the one hand, his religious convictions
had played a major role in his decision to run for office and provided him with the moral high
ground on such issues as the Vietnam War. But on the other hand, he risked alienating voters of
his own religious persuasion by flaunting one of the most central parts of his identity on the
campaign trail.
This chapter will examine how Drinan addressed the issues raised by his priesthood, and
will argue that he engaged in a three-part balancing act. First, he sought to convince Catholic
voters that his political foray did not stand in opposition to his religious duties, that his religion
went hand-in-hand with his direct involvement in politics. At the same time, he strove to ground
his policies in American legal thinking rather than religious doctrine, and gave way to the former
when the two conflicted. In this way, he tried to avoid discussion of a church-state conflict and
hoped to retain the votes of non-Catholics. Yet his religion could not be shuffled completely to
the side: despite his separation of Catholic beliefs and American jurisprudence, he still used his
Roman collar to add a moral weight to his campaign that his opponents lacked. Although these
4 Robert F. Drinan, “To Have a Voice and Vote,” America , June 6, 1970. 38
three strategies were in constant tension, Drinan strove to reconcile them with each other – and,
in the process, to reconcile his priesthood with his campaign for political office and to respond to
the religious concerns of Third District voters.
______
Catholic Opposition and Drinan’s Reassurances
In a telephone interview with the New York Times early in the campaign, Drinan was
asked whether his priesthood would become a controversial issue on the campaign trail. “The
Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” he replied, “which sent the first Catholic to the White House
in John F. Kennedy and the first Negro, Edward W. Brooke, to the Senate, would have no problem in sending the first Jesuit to Congress.” 5
Retrospective demographic analysis suggests just the opposite, however. If Drinan had
run in a different state, or at least in a different district, opposition from Catholic laypeople
would have been largely inconsequential. Surveys from 1970 reveal that Catholics made up only
23% of the nation’s population – and while this is an admittedly significant proportion,
opposition from within this group would not swing the election if Protestant, Jewish, and
religiously unaffiliated voters lined up in support of Drinan. 6 Unfortunately for the campaign,
however, the Third District’s primary voters were remarkably different from the rest of America
in this respect. Nearly 74% of Democrats were Catholic, while Protestants made up only 13% of
voters and Jewish people constituted a mere 9%. 7 If the sort of opposition expressed in Mrs.
5 John H. Fenton, “Massachusetts Politics: A Priestly Hat Is Thrown Into the Ring,” The New York Times , February 23, 1970. 6 The Harris Survey Yearbook of Public Opinion (New York: Louis Harris and Associates, 1971), 512. 7 Quayle Survey, 28. 39
Marbre’s letter was widespread among the Massachusetts laity, Drinan would be facing a serious problem.
Surveys of the district confirmed that this was the case. Pollster Oliver Quayle asked
respondents to identify which candidate they favored, and then broke the results down into
religious groups. As of April 1970, Protestants had no significant difference of opinion; slightly
more of them supported Philbin, but most of them – almost 47% – remained unsure of their political inclinations. Jewish voters, on the other hand, were solidly behind Drinan – 71%
supported him, and a meager 10% remained undecided. Although the reasons for these preferences were undoubtedly as diverse as the voters themselves, it is likely that Protestants knew too little about Drinan to judge him at this point and that Jewish support stemmed from his vociferous support of the state of Israel. But Protestants and Jews made up only a quarter of
Democratic voters, so they could not have been relied upon to counter Catholic opposition. 8
And as Mrs. Marbre’s letter to America implied, Catholic opposition was great indeed:
although 25% of Catholic voters remained undecided, and were theoretically up for grabs, a mere
17% supported Drinan. Quayle summed up this result by concluding that “when only one
Catholic voter in five is behind a Catholic priest, something is wrong.” 9 In order to confirm the reason behind this opposition, Quayle asked respondents whether priests should be allowed to run for public office at all, rather than asking about Drinan specifically. While a sizeable 32% of non-Catholics said yes, 53% of Catholics believed that their religious leaders should stay out of politics. 10 A major slice of opposition to Drinan’s candidacy thus came from his own flock, a majority of which opposed his candidacy on principle. Due to the unique demographics of the
8 Ibid. , 28. 9 Ibid. , 31. 10 Ibid. , 22. 40
district, Quayle correctly concluded that if this issue wasn’t handled properly, “the rest will be of
little importance.” 11
Keeping this fact in mind, no doubt, Drinan set out to gain the approval of his ecclesiastical superiors. Although no personal letters or internal documents remain to prove that it was ever obtained, and some critics have argued that Drinan was actually faced with intense opposition from within the Church, it is almost certain that his candidacy was privately blessed by his immediate superiors within the Jesuit order and the Boston archdiocese. 12 At any rate, when the highest ranking American cardinal challenged Drinan’s political involvement two years later, the Jesuit superior for New England jumped to his defense, calling the criticism
“completely impertinent” and noting that he was “happy to give his complete approval” to
Drinan’s political aspirations. 13 It seems unlikely that this would have occurred if Drinan had been denied permission previously.
Regardless of whether Drinan gained enough private ecclesiastical support to justify running for office, however, his campaign certainly sought to convince Catholic voters that he was running with the blessings of the Church. The issue was officially addressed in a document entitled “A Clergyman in Congress,” which was sent into Catholic homes through a series of targeted mailings. It essentially argued that priests could legitimately be candidates in American politics, and that readers should be focusing on substantive policy issues, rather than Drinan’s religious calling.
11 Ibid. , 18. 12 For a contrary view, see the following: James Hitchcock, “The Strange Political Career of Father Drinan,” The Catholic World Report , July 1996. 13 For more on the Cardinal’s accusations, see the following: William MacKaye, “Krol Thinks Drinan Should Quit,” The Washington Post , January 11, 1972. Quotes from: United Press International, “Priest’s Participation in Politics Approved,” The Hartford Courant , February 5, 1972. 41
The document began with a series of quotations from major Catholic periodicals, all of
which affirmed his right to run for office. “Put in it simplest terms,” it quoted from the Pilot , a publication of the Archdiocese in Boston, for example, “the fact of being a clergyman in today’s political climate is a non-issue.” And quoting Fr. Campion’s endorsement in America : “The
notion that involvement in politics somehow compromises the standing of the priesthood is
simply a contradiction of… the role of all Christians in the modern world.” Not wishing to
discount the readers’ views, Drinan acknowledged “the concern about the propriety of a
clergyman in Congress,” but noted that “the real issues to which we must address ourselves are
those of the war abroad, inflation, poverty, drugs and domestic division and turmoil.” The
religious issue was implicitly unreal, or at least relatively unimportant – Drinan was running with
the approval of unnamed “ecclesiastical superiors,” the document concluded, so there was no
need to continue to dwell on the topic. His qualifications with regard to “real issues” took up the
remainder of the page. 14
Drinan continued to stress these points in interviews with the press, as reporters
invariably raised the issue of his priesthood. The Associated Press published a transcript of one
such exchange, in which the following question was asked: “As a priest, Father Drinan, do you
think your role in Congress will differ any from the roles of other Congressmen?” He first
responded by pointing out that he was more than just a priest – he was also a lawyer and an
educator. In addition, he noted that three Protestant clergymen were currently serving in the
House of Representatives, and that their roles did not seem to be compromised by their religious
calling. But even if that were not so, he continued, Congressmen were essentially “the moral
architects” of America and their job was to “enunciate those moral convictions which [they] feel
14 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Backside of Several Unidentified Flyers, “A Clergyman In Congress.” 42
should be at the heart of American democracy.” According to Drinan, his Catholic background
would simply be another important perspective that could be put to use “for the good of the
country.” Given these assumptions, the publication of this interview implied to readers, how
could Catholics legitimately oppose a priest’s candidacy without giving their faith short shrift in
the American political process? 15
The press reported on similar conversations while covering Drinan’s days on the campaign trail. On June 17, 1970, for example, the New York Times ran a story about the
Massachusetts Democratic Convention. A female Catholic voter apparently approached Drinan there, telling him that “she could not vote for him because he was a priest and belonged in a parish, not in politics.” Drinan responded in his “best pastoral manner,” the reporter claimed, noting that Protestant clergymen had served in Congress for nearly two-hundred years and asking if “she, as a Roman Catholic, wanted to exclude clergymen of her faith from politics while permitting Protestants to take part.” She still needed to think about the issue, but the author of the article declared that Drinan “had clearly scored a debating point.” 16
George Lardner Jr., a staff writer for the Washington Post , wrote a lengthy article that
detailed similar interactions. A nun at the Rosary Academy, he reported, had suggested to
Drinan that his candidacy might force him “into half-truths like other politicians,” and thus
corrupt his moral fortitude. Drinan responded in his typically “rapid-fire style:” too many people
“take a low view of politicians,” he argued, but in truth, “politics is the art of the possible.”
Corruption was a product of the politician, not the process, and his faith would help to keep him
safely above the fray. At a coffee-hour in Waltham, Lardner mentioned later in the article, the
15 Associated Press, “Jesuit Urges Reoriented U.S.,” The Hartford Courant , September 20, 1970. 16 R.W. Apple Jr., “Priest in Massachusetts Is Opposed as Politician,” The New York Times , June 17, 1970. 43
topic of Drinan’s priesthood came up once again. This time a local citizen forcefully informed
the candidate that a priest’s place was in the Church, not the political sphere. “This is a cop-
out,” Drinan fired back. “The Church is in the world… [and] a Christian should be involved in
the secular order to make a more compassionate and just society.” 17
Stories such as these reveal the variety of ways in which Drinan sought to convince
Catholic voters to consider his candidacy despite his priesthood. Sometimes he stressed the need
for their faith to be represented in Congress, and sometimes he argued that his beliefs could help
him transcend the dirty nature of American politics. On other occasions, he linked his
Catholicism to a sense of political responsibility and implied that it was actually his duty to seek public office. All of these arguments were aimed at winning over the Catholic majority of his district, or at least to convince them that he should be judged by his policies, rather than his collar. The direct reporting of his talking points in the press helped Drinan reach voters that he could not speak to directly, bringing his arguments to their doorsteps in rolled-up bundles of newsprint.
The press was helping Drinan’s effort in indirect ways as well. An unprecedented number of clerical candidates were seeking public office during this period, and reporters were not slow to catch on. Headlines such as “More Clerics Delving Into National Politics,” “As
Clergymen Enter Politics – The New Trend,” and “Clergymen Put Feet in Political Torrent” were frequent throughout 1970, and undoubtedly helped to make Drinan’s candidacy seem more normal, or at least less exceptional. By U.S News and World Report’s count in August 1970, sixteen ministers and priests were running for either national or gubernatorial positions, five of whom were Catholic. In addition, seven clerical candidates had “fallen by the wayside” and
17 George Lardner Jr., “Priest-Candidates Upset Catholics,” The Washington Post , September 15, 1970. 44
“scores” of others were running for lower offices. (The same article noted that Drinan
“exemplified” a successful religious candidate.) Although these columns were not necessarily
supportive of these candidacies, they probably made Drinan’s run for office more palatable to
Catholic voters: if so many priests and clergymen were involved in politics, readers might think, perhaps it was not too objectionable of a decision.18
Editorials on the subject frequently made a case similar to Drinan’s, although they usually did so without explicitly mentioning his name. An article about church-state conflict that was published in the Los Angeles Times , for example, quoted James Madison as a definitive authority on the issue: “Does not the exclusion of ministers of the Gospel as such violate a fundamental principle of liberty by punishing a religious profession with the deprivation of a civil right?” Statements such as these appealed to a sense of civic duty, and may have suggested to readers that Catholic notions about the role of priests in public life should not trump
Constitutional concepts of political rights. 19 Other articles were more explicit. An editorial in
Christianity Today , for example, claimed that a priest taking a seat in Congress would be “no
more anomalous than for a physician or actor or farmer to do so.” As long as his legislative
initiatives were based on “grounds of national rather than sectarian interest,” this particular
writer saw no more conflict in priest candidacies than in any others. Ultimately, although “the
Scriptures teach that the Church collectively is to be greatly restricted… the role of the
18 See, for example: “As Clergymen Enter Politics – The New Trend,” U.S. News & World Report , August 10, 1970. “More Clerics Delving Into National Politics,” The Washington Post , March 14, 1970. “Clergymen Put Feet in Political Torrent,” The Hartford Courant , May 30, 1970. George B. Merry, “N.E. clergymen trade pulpits for hustings,” The Christian Science Monitor , August 8, 1970. Douglas Robinson, “Clergymen, Citing War and Poverty as Issues, Seek State and National Offices,” The New York Times , April 26, 1970. “The Clerical Candidates,” Time , June 8, 1970. 19 Robert Mullin, “Debate Over Clergymen in Congress,” Los Angeles Times , October 11, 1970. 45
individual layman or clergyman is much broader, and can include active participation in partisan politics as a legitimate vocation.” 20
Still more articles, such as one in the Hartford Courant , quoted influential figures to
suggest that priest-candidates were not violating their religious calling. Martin Marty, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, was cited in one article as saying that
“many of these clergymen look at political office – seeking a chance to enlarge their ministry…
They are seeking the satisfaction of doing something about the social and political problems that
are directly related to national morality – war, poverty, the youth question and others.” Reverend
Joe Duffey, a fellow clergymen and political candidate, further noted that “clergymen are
concerned about values and human life… [and] today a candidate must not only sound
knowledgeable, but also show he is concerned.” Statements such as these, widely publicized in both local and national publications, advanced the idea that clergymen could become involved in politics without sacrificing their religious commitments – and, in fact, that they were often
fulfilling them. 21
It is important to note just why so many religious leaders were suddenly becoming involved in politics – why, in the words of U.S. News & World Report , more “men of the cloth” were aspiring to high political office that at any other time in America’s history. Although a few candidates were conservative ministers running for local office, usually in Southern states, most were liberals (both Catholic and Protestant) calling for an end to the Vietnam War. The same article noted that “the war seems to be the major cause” of priest-candidacies, that clergymen
“tend to be idealistic” and that most of them hoped to “have a solid impact on the nation’s policy
20 “Is There a Priest in the House?,” Christianity Today , December 4, 1970. 21 “More Clergymen Enter Politics,” The Hartford Courant , August 15, 1970. 46
makers” whether or not they were successful. This trend was, it concluded, partly a result of the
civil-rights movement, which fought against social and racial injustice, was deeply connected to black religious traditions, and was, of course, led by such clergymen as the Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr. White religious leaders were apparently moved by these often spiritual protests, and
were beginning to speak out themselves, albeit in a rather different manner. Drinan’s candidacy
was, at least in the eyes of this particular journalist, part and parcel of this wider trend. 22
Ultimately, it cannot be determined how much of an effect these articles had, ubiquitous as they might have been. Coverage of Catholic opposition to Drinan’s candidacy continued throughout his first term, suggesting that a sizeable group of Catholic voters continued to oppose
Drinan on the grounds that priests should remain out of politics. Nevertheless, the sheer weight of newspaper articles and editorials, of direct mailings and interviews, reveal that the concerns of provincial Catholics were at least being addressed. Those who agreed with his policy platforms, in any case, were probably swayed by Drinan’s argument that a priest could pursue political office without forsaking his religious duties.
______
Non-Catholics, American Legal Theory, and the Issue of Abortion
The plethora of headlines that stressed Drinan’s priesthood may have been helpful in securing Catholic votes, but it must also have been a bit troubling for non-Catholics. After all, if
Drinan saw political office as an extension of his faith, as he occasionally argued, what did that imply for constituents who did not share his religious beliefs? Swaying the Catholic vote was crucial for Drinan’s success, but he could not afford to lose Protestant or Jewish support in the
22 “As Clergymen Enter Politics – The New Trend,” U.S. News & World Report , August 10, 1970. 47 process. In order to prevent this from happening, he frequently grounded his policy platforms in
American legal theory and stressed his background as a lawyer, rather than his religious calling,
when discussing his future in Congress. His faith was central to his personal opinions, he
suggested, but it was not sufficient to justify public legislation. For that, he would also need
legal precedents and a non-religious viewpoint.
Perhaps the most illustrative, controversial, and interesting instance of this sort of
argument came in the form of Drinan’s support for abortion rights. As most people are aware,
the Catholic Church was, and remains, an exceptionally outspoken opponent of abortion.
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune on the issue, published in April 1970, the Church had argued since at least 1869 “that ‘ensoulment’ begins at conception, making abortion homicide.” Pope Paul VI reaffirmed that position in July 1968, two years before Drinan ran for office, stating, “We must once again declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth.” 23 Convoluted as his
syntax may have been, the Pope’s position, at least, was clear: abortion was unacceptable for practicing Catholics.
In keeping with Church doctrine, Drinan frequently expressed personal opposition to
abortion on moral grounds. In a particularly striking encounter, he was approached by a nun
while on the campaign trail. She “had heard some of Father Drinan’s critics condemning him for
having seemed to favor abortions… ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ she said. ‘That’s against the teaching
of the Catholic Church.’” Drinan, of course, rushed to agree with her. “The taking of a fetus
from a healthy mother is always wrong,” he replied, and her relief was palpable. The only
23 Sheila Wolfe, “Even the Clergy Can’t Agree on Abortion Issue,” Chicago Tribune , April 29, 1970. 48
reason that she even approached him, it appears, was to “hear [him] say that.” 24 On this issue, one of major concern for Catholics, Drinan reassured his laity and fellow clergy that his personal beliefs lined up with theirs. A mass mailing on abortion confirmed his views for Catholics who had similar concerns, but had not taken the time to ask him about the issue themselves: “Robert
F. Drinan believes, as do millions of Americans of all faiths, that the abortion of a fetus is not morally justified,” it unequivocally declared. 25
The next sentence in that same mailing, however, revealed the complex stance that
Drinan was choosing to take: “However, a pluralistic society should not necessarily make into law the moral views of a minority or even of a majority.” 26 As he argued elsewhere, although there was a clear Catholic teaching on the morality of abortion, “there is no such thing as a
‘Catholic position’ on the jurisprudence of abortion laws.” Put another way, “The civil law of a pluralistic and morally diverse nation such as America should not perpetuate a law based on moral concepts with which a significant number of persons disagree.” 27 Drinan’s mailing explicitly admitted that there was a deep, and sometimes impassable, divide between his personal faith and his policy proposals. Although the two were frequently in agreement – as in the case of the Vietnam War, which Drinan viewed as both immoral and illegal – the issue of abortion was a
clear-cut case in which they were not. Drinan ultimately implied to non-Catholic voters that he
would not turn his particular and personal values into legislation in such situations; his
appreciation for the American legal system would trump his Catholic beliefs if the two came into
conflict.
24 George Lardner, Jr., “Priest-Candidates Upset Catholics,” The Washington Post , September 15, 1970. 25 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Abortion and the Law.” 26 Ibid. 27 Sheila Wolfe, “Even the Clergy Can’t Agree on Abortion Issue,” Chicago Tribune , April 29, 1970. 49
In order to avoid alienating Catholics, of course, he consistently tried to build bridges between his faith and his policies, even in such difficult cases as the issue of abortion rights. He penned a lengthy article for the liberal Catholic periodical Commonweal , for example, in which he argued that the Church implicitly taught that abortions ought to remain a personal and moral decision, rather than a public and legal one. Citing the Second Ecumenical Council of the
Vatican, he pointed to the Church’s declaration that “in spreading religious faith and in introducing religious practices, everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of coercion which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonorable or unworthy.” Arguing that Catholic opposition to abortion was a “ de facto religious belief,” he pointed out that outlawing abortion would carry more than a hint of coercion. 28 Drinan thus took the position that abortion was morally wrong, but that both
Catholic doctrine and American civil liberties would prevent him from supporting that view in
the halls of Congress.
These arguments may feel a bit slippery to the modern reader, and contemporary critics
had a similar reaction. John P. Roche, a prominent pundit working for the Washington Post at
the time, was quick to criticize Drinan for this stance. In one editorial, Roche quoted Drinan as
having said that he does not “personally approve of abortion but would not let (his) personal
attitude influence (his) voting on the issue,” and noted that Drinan “supports federal aid to birth
control programs.” Rather than viewing this as an acceptable legal-moral compromise, as
Drinan was trying to portray it, Roche claimed that it should be appalling to liberals everywhere
28 Robert F. Drinan, “The State of the Abortion Question,” Commonweal , April 17, 1970. 50
and derisively called him “a candidate who promises to disregard his conscience.” He concluded by comparing Drinan to Machiavelli. 29
Drinan penned a personal response to Roche the next day. In this letter, he politely suggested that Roche was overstating the situation, and attempted to clear up any confusion on the issue. “No person or group in the United States should seek to impose its own particular sectarian view of a moral question upon the entire electorate,” he wrote. The Protestant push for
Prohibition was a good example of the problems that doing so would entail, he suggested, and he went so far as to attach an article that he had written on Catholic jurisprudence in case Roche still failed to understand his position. He requested an immediate response if a “clarification is still in order.” 30 Roche, not surprisingly, never wrote back.
It is not necessary, however, to judge Drinan’s position in order to appreciate its political usefulness. The maxims that arose throughout his discussion of abortion rights – specifically, that a sectarian moral view cannot be imposed through law on a pluralistic society – characterized his response to a variety of issues. His religious beliefs had helped to forge his opposition to the war and his concern for the impoverished, for example, but he would not turn these positions into legislation unless there was good legal precedent for doing so. Through this avenue of argument, he sought to convince non-Catholic voters that his collar would not determine his legislative initiatives, and that they could trust him to avoid imposing sectarian views in Congress. Although this position seems to have conflicted with arguments that he was simultaneously using to woo Catholics – namely, that priests should participate in politics in order to ensure specifically Catholic representation – it was a decidedly successful method of
29 John P. Roche, “A Misfit Liberal,” The Washington Post , October 8, 1970. 30 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #7 (Correspondence – General): Letter from Robert F. Drinan, S.J. to Professor John Roche, Brandeis University, October 9, 1970. 51
dispelling non-Catholic concerns over the conflict between Church and state that his candidacy
might otherwise have raised.
______
The Roman Collar as a Source of Moral Fortitude
Despite the fact that many Catholics believed priests should stay out of politics, and the
concurrent fact that many non-Catholics worried about a church-state conflict, Drinan wore his
clerical garb for the entirety of his campaign. The vast majority of newspaper articles that
covered his candidacy included a picture of him, and not one of these photographs showed him
without his Roman collar. Considering the difficulties that Drinan’s religious calling raised
during his run for office, it might surprise readers to hear that he displayed it so publicly. But
this seemingly puzzling decision is easily explained when one considers the third manner in
which Drinan used his Catholicism: to add a sense of moral righteousness to his campaign. He
said as much when interviewed by U.S. News & World Report in August 1970, stating that he would wear his collar despite anti-clerical sentiment because his “idea is to bring moral convictions into office.” 31
These convictions played a powerful role in his campaign rhetoric, but it is often difficult to identify ways in which his priesthood specifically reinforced his moral arguments. There are very few instances where this connection is explicitly mentioned in the press or in Drinan’s campaign files, and it is virtually impossible to estimate retrospectively how much of an impact the image of his collar had on voters’ sense of Drinan’s moral fortitude. Nevertheless, there are a few examples that reveal a direct connection between Drinan’s ethical rhetoric and his
31 “As Clergymen Enter Politics – The New Trend,” U.S News & World Report , August 10, 1970. Italics mine. 52 priesthood, and they suggest the function that his clerical garb might have implicitly performed
in other areas as well.
Drinan often struck a populist tone when discussing the economy, and it is from this bit
of dialogue that our first example derives. The Third District had a substantial working class population: 34% of voters were classified as “blue-collar,” according to pollster Oliver Quayle,
and a significant 30% were union members. 32 These workers were the core of Philbin’s base; his
New Deal-style liberalism spoke to their bread-and-butter issues, rather than the larger social issues that they often chose to ignore. Drinan formed a Labor Committee to draw away this bloc of voters, and they managed to obtain the endorsements of the United Auto Workers, the
Chemical Workers Union, the Communication Workers of America, and the International Ladies
Garment Workers, among others. 33 But union members did not always cast their votes in the
direction that their leaders wanted them to, and Drinan needed more than endorsements to pull
this crucial constituency into his camp.
It was within this context that Drinan turned towards the rhetoric of economic populism,
in which his status as a Catholic priest played a large part. Only fragments of speeches remain in
which he spoke of the economy without spinning his discussion back to the war, but those few
documents reveal an unabashedly progressive stance. When asked about the shortcomings of
American capitalism in an interview on September 9, 1970, for example, Drinan turned to the
issue of Detroit: “Why should the auto industry be able to make all these glamorous automobiles
without demonstrating responsibility to anyone but the shareholders, so all the fat-cat people can
clip their coupons and get an 8 per cent return on their money plus a growth investment, while
32 Quayle Survey, 28. 33 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #9 (Campaign Endorsements): Unidentified Advertisement, “Labor Supports Drinan.” 53
the poor and the blacks outside the plants in Detroit grow poorer?” Bringing the issue closer to
home, Drinan continued, “Why, for example, should Goodyear Rubber be able to pick up and
leave Watertown, in this district where I’m running, and leave a thousand men unemployed
while it goes off to South Carolina? Is it free to migrate this way and just leave these people
without any benefits? We have to do something about the fact that today the growth and
economic health of the corporations takes precedence over every human value and interest
involved.” (This fiery language, humorously enough, was met with the enthusiastic reporter’s
“right on!”)
The final sentence of this statement, with its references to human values, revealed the backbone of Drinan’s critique of the economy: it was primarily a moral issue, demanding a response from an equally moral representative. His solution called for “a code of ethics” that could force a “moral obligation” onto this “monster in American life,” this “entity that can escape personal liability” in a way that was ethically unacceptable given the human cost of economic dislocation. And if readers accepted the moral implications of this dilemma, their solution was inset into the upper left corner of the interview’s text: a photograph of the thoughtful Father Drinan calmly articulating a point, dressed entirely in a stately black except for the thin strip of white at the base of his neck, practically radiating the moral fortitude necessary to challenge big business. If the editors had wished to put a subtitle under this picture, they could easily have lifted a phrase from one of Drinan’s many advertisements: “A Jesuit priest doesn’t need big business friends.” 34
34 Interview/Photograph: Charles E. Fager, “Priest, Law School Dean, Candidate for Congress,” The Christian Century , September 9, 1970. Big Business Quote: DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Primary Election Advertisement #18L (“You’re fighting the Vietnam war at the check-out counter.”) 54
This example reveals the important role that Drinan’s religious background often played
in his campaign. On issues that were loaded with moral implications, such as the status of
corporations in the American economy, Drinan could speak of ethical reform without a backwards glance, confident that his clerical collar would bring an (often visual) depth of moral
fortitude to his assertions that could not be matched by the back-scratching, favor-driven, good-
ol’-boy networks of his opponents.
This tactic was also employed in the more obvious example of his opposition to the
Vietnam War. His statements on this issue have already been covered extensively (see Chapter
Two), but it is worthwhile to briefly highlight the specifically moral aspects of his position.
Drinan’s most in-depth writing on the subject appeared in his book Vietnam and Armageddon ,
which was largely a criticism of the Catholic response to the Vietnam War and a rousing call for
thoughtful Americans to actively oppose it. Written the year before Drinan ran for office, its
closing pages contained a statement that lends important insight into this campaign. Christians
must “define and refine the wealth of their theological and political traditions, and articulate and
act upon them in sociopolitical ways,” he asserted in reference to Vietnam, in order to persuade
“the nation that it has a moral commitment to mankind which it should observe, not only because
it is useful to America, but – more importantly – because it is right.” 35
There was perhaps no better summation of Drinan’s position, and for those who had similar moral qualms about the war there was perhaps no better candidate to oppose it. On those occasions when Drinan grounded his opposition in moral language – such as when he characterized Vietnam as a set of “inhuman policies and practices” in a speech at the Boston
Sheraton; when he declared that the most basic element of the war was the destruction of “moral
35 Drinan, Vietnam and Armageddon , 167. 55
values” in a speech at the opening of his campaign headquarters; or when he declared that a
“timetable for peace is a timetable for death” in a recruitment poster – the distinction between the priest and his opponent was all too obvious. 36 The former fought for basic human decency, using his collar as a weapon against war itself, while the latter was a corruptible relic of an earlier age, who had “made the Pentagon his most favored constituent.” 37 (And who, it might be mentioned,
issued nary a response to Drinan’s campaign – for more on how little Philbin bestirred himself
during the campaign season, see Chapter Four.)
The moral fortitude that Drinan wielded by virtue of his religious background is evident in this case, as well as in the case of his economic populism. The connections between his
Catholic morals and his political stances were rarely made as explicit in other examples, but it is nevertheless clear why he allowed himself to be photographed in his clerical garb so frequently.
Drinan sought to be more than just another politician; he sought to elevate American politics to a higher moral plane, and he self-consciously used his priesthood and Roman collar as visual evidence that he could do so. This was the third way in which religion affected Drinan’s candidacy – as with the other two, it is quite difficult to measure the impact that his religious tactics ultimately had, but the conclusion that he attempted to use his Catholicism constructively in this fashion is unavoidable.
36 Boston Sheraton: DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #4 (Campaign Statements): “Excerpts from Address of Reverend Robert F. Drinan, S.J…,” May 27, 1970. Campaign Headquarters: DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #4 (Campaign Statements): “Father Drinan at opening of Watertown Campaign Headquarters,” June 27, 1970. Recruitment Poster: DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Unidentified Flyer, “The Timetable for Peace Is a Timetable for Death.” 37 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Defense Spending.” 56
One Last Speech, at Unknown Date and Location
The role that religion played in Drinan’s candidacy was complex and occasionally
contradictory. His priesthood was both a problem and a solution, simultaneously an obstacle to be transcended and the wellspring of his campaign. Catholics had to be convinced that his candidacy was another way to fulfill his clerical duties; non-Catholics had to be convinced that he would not impose personal values on the American public; and members of every denomination had to be convinced of the moral credibility that his priesthood lent to his political efforts. The tensions generated by striking all three positions suffused his endeavor, and it was often difficult for him to synthesize them into a coherent whole. But a handwritten copy of one of Drinan’s speeches, given at an unknown location on an unknown date, speaks eloquently about this dilemma and succinctly summarizes the position that he ultimately took.
There were “depressing moments & days,” it began, “when it appears that the most two precious qualities of my life are a hindrance to the work I now desire to do.” Those two qualities were his priesthood and his membership in the Jesuit order, of course, and the work that he desired to do was political. The criticisms that Drinan faced for attempting to do both, he suggested, revealed both “the profound alienation which so many apparently have for politics and politicians,” and the fact that “some people feel that moral values are not at the heart of policies which the nation formulates and pursues.” But both of these assumptions are false, he continued, his fiery, combative voice doubtlessly rising with the passion of his words, commensurate with the increasingly fervent stroke of his pen:
The role of the politician is one of the noblest known to man. And the policies which our nation as the leader of the free world adopts in the next decade obviously should and will determine the public morality of the entire world for the foreseeable future. I cannot believe that my seven years of training in all of
57
the religious and moral theologies of the world is a disadvantage to the task of reformulating a morality by which America and the family of men can produce a just and a compassionate moral order. 38
We may never be able to recreate the moment in which Drinan delivered these eloquent words, or even to determine the precise context in which they were written. But perhaps we are better off for that. This nameless, dateless oration precisely articulates the role that religion played in Drinan’s life, and in his campaign, in an almost timeless, transcendent manner. The concrete ways in which he publicly addressed the issue were myriad and complex, and often difficult to understand as a coherent whole – but this one statement, at least, is the ideal abstraction of the central role that religion played in Drinan’s campaign, of the intricate and overlapping connections between his religious calling and his political ambitions.
38 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #4 (Campaign Statements): “I want to talk with you…,” n.d. 58
Chapter Four
The Character: The New Politics and the Issue of Authenticity
On September 20, 1970, journalist William V. Shannon declared victory in the
Democratic primaries – not for any particular candidate, but for a larger phenomenon that he referred to as the “New Politics.” This particular type of politicking, he argued, originated in bipartisan opposition to the Vietnam War, and marked a distinct shift away from the traditional campaigning of New Deal liberals. It disdained political favors and patronage, and stressed social issues rather than economic benefits. As Shannon put it, “the appeal is to the voter’s conscience rather than his wallet, to his judgment rather than his self-interest.” And while the
Vietnam War was by and large the major issue for New Politicians, such problems as pollution and education were increasingly important to their campaigns as well.
Old Politicians, by contrast, hailed from an earlier generation of the Democratic Party and relied upon ethnic loyalties and personal favors to win the support of voters. They generally chose to avoid issues and ideals in their stump speeches, recognizing how divisive they could be to their broad coalition of working class interests. Instead, they focused on the bread-and-butter initiatives that put dinner on their constituent’s tables, earning reelection by remaining on the good side of the major economic interest groups in their districts. The only attribute that these two sorts of politicians shared, Shannon contended, was their effective organization – they both believed that the “candidates whose workers pass out more literature, knock on more doors and see to it that their own supporters get to the polls usually win.” 1 The reader will immediately recognize why a photograph of Drinan was inset into Shannon’s article: the primary race in the
Third District was a model clash between the Old and New Politics, with Drinan crusading on social issues and Philbin complacently relying upon his economic record for support.
This chapter will examine the details of Drinan’s New Politics in greater depth; for, as recognition in a national edition of the New York Times might suggest, this aspect of his campaign is of the utmost importance to understanding his victory. It will begin by examining his organizing tactics, which were revolutionary in their own right, and will then discuss his self- perception as a harbinger of change, a reformer of corrupt backroom dealings and a standard- bearer of this new sort of politics. His posture on this issue stemmed in large part from his self- perception as a man of good character, which leads into another point: Drinan often highlighted his integrity as a reason to win votes in and of itself, regardless of his stances on policy or religion. Pointing to the smear campaigns of his opponents and his own forthright, honest conduct, he often argued that he was the sort of authentic politician America was desperately in need of. And the final part of this chapter will briefly consider a related topic of interest – whether he was actually as authentic a person as his campaign claimed. In these inextricably interconnected ways, Drinan constructed the third major aspect of his campaign: an image of himself as the New Politician and a man of good character.
1 William V. Shannon, “‘New Politics’ Score Gains in Primaries,” The New York Times , September 20, 1970. 60
The Logistics: What It Took to Be a “New Politician”
In his survey of the Third District, pollster Oliver Quayle stressed the importance of
organizing tactics to the campaign’s future success. In April 1970, he noted that only 37% of the
electorate even recognized Drinan’s name, and pointed out that this fact was both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, as discussed in Chapter Two, it gave Drinan “room to move” on
issues, allowing him to spin his opposition to the Vietnam War into a statement on the economy,
for example, without fighting against voters’ preconceptions of his views. But on the other hand,
residents of the Third District were not going to pull the electoral lever for a candidate that they
did not know – and so it was of the utmost importance for Drinan to get his name into people’s
homes and onto their minds. 2
In order to do so, Drinan developed what he later called “one hell of a model,” one that the New York Times argued “should change what has been the conventional wisdom” of the
Democratic Party. 3 Of course, the campaign began with, and included, many of the usual political tactics: with money raised by the Citizens Caucus, according to Time Magazine, Drinan
“conducted an expensive television campaign” and managed to get himself “photographed with prominent personalities;” hired John Martilla, a disillusioned former employee of the Republican
National Committee, to raise funds from wealthy supporters in a traditional fashion; and gave stump speeches frequently, according to America , talking “on college campuses, at factory gates, in supermarkets, on radio talk shows,” and virtually any other place that people might listen. 4
2 Quayle Survey, 9-17. 3 Bill Kovach, “Liberal Shift Detected in Massachusetts Vote,” The New York Times , September 17, 1970. 4 “New Politics and Old,” Time , September 20, 1970. Thomas M. Gannon, “Reverend Father Congressman,” America , November 21, 1970. 61
But these traditional forms of politicking were only a small portion of Drinan’s overall plan. As journalist James Higgins later noted, the campaign had “no bumper stickers, no billboards, no buttons, few newspaper ads, not much television, no large meetings, no ‘prominent
Democrat’ or labor union endorsements.” Instead, it relied on a truly ground-breaking set of
methods, which set it apart from the Democratic Party’s more old-fashioned tactics, marking it
off as a part of the New Politics.
This mainstay of this strategy was an army of volunteers, many of which were recruited
from the large college population of the Third District. As campaign manager John Martilla later
recalled, Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the shootings at Kent State had energized local
students, and “volunteers poured into our office… The initial onrush gave us 1,000 volunteers
who did the first necessary thing: a mostly door-to-door but some telephone canvass of 85,000
voters out of about 200,000 registered.” 5 A group of approximately 40 volunteers stayed on permanently, and the door-to-door canvassing that they performed eventually reached the homes
of nearly 75% of Democratic voters. 6
But although the media certainly bought into Martilla’s depiction of the Drinan campaign
as a massive student army, the reality was far more complex than that. These volunteers
contributed their time and efforts to Drinan’s campaign for many reasons, which should not be
collapsed into a single generalization about Kent State and student radicalism. As Anne Marie
Goggin, a student worker, put it, although she certainly became more deeply involved in politics
after the invasion of Cambodia, she did not see herself as “radicalized” by the event. Instead, it
was but one in a series of incidents that pointed her towards Drinan’s campaign. In her own
5 James Higgins, “How to Run & Win: Drinan’s Bay State Volunteers,” The Nation , December 20, 1970. 6 “New Politics and Old,” Time , September 20, 1970. 62
words, working for the campaign “helped me to find myself, to find out what I want to do with
my life. I always wanted to go to law school. Now I know why. Now I can see the law as a tool
for the service of the people. So the campaign is both goal and discovery for me.” Energized by
world events, this particular volunteer turned to political organizing in order to make a
difference, choosing to work within the system in order to effect change. 7
Another volunteer was more directly affected by those world events: Tom Vallely was a
Vietnam veteran, recipient of the Silver Star and member of the India Company, Third Battalion,
Fifth Marine Regiment. He had heard about Drinan while in the field, and had dismissed the
Third Caucus as yet another “phony, white liberal caucus.” But upon returning to the United
States in the summer of 1970, he eventually spurned more typical avenues of employment and
took on a job as a full-time canvasser for the Drinan campaign. When asked why, he mulled
over his experience in the war:
“You just start thinking about these things. You look at the over-all situation… You ask yourself: ‘Why do I have to kill these people? Why do my friends have to die? Why are we here?’ Well, our two governments sent us… Then you read about the statistics – about the political prisoners, the government, the deaths. So I thought I’d do something about it, I suppose. Maybe I owe something to the friends I left there.” 8
Congress, he believed, needed to reassert its authority in the field of foreign policy,
instead of docilely proceeding with the escalation of military efforts advocated by the executive branch and the Pentagon. Candidates like Drinan were necessary to bring about that sort of
change, he believed, and it was this line of thinking that brought him to the campaign. Stories
like these two illustrate the diversity of Drinan’s volunteers – although many of them were
energized by the events of 1970, they were not a stereotypical group of long-haired student
7 Thomas M. Gannon, “Reverend Father Congressman,” America , November 21, 1970. 8 Ibid. 63
radicals hailing from Ivy League campuses or U.C. Berkeley. According to one reporter, in fact,
over half of the volunteers were actually over the age of thirty; Drinan’s campaign was thus
staffed by a complex group of passionate, thoughtful people, who were working to create change
within the system in their electoral district. 9
These canvassers were not initially aiming to persuade voters of the importance of
electing Drinan, however; their opening assignment was to gather information from Third
District households through a series of survey questions, thus beginning a ground-breaking form
of political organization. The respondents’ potential for supporting Father Drinan was
subsequently ranked on a five-point scale, ranging from “very favorable” to “negative,” and all
voters ranked “neutral” or better were subsequently quizzed about their stances on a variety of
important issues. The results were then transferred to coded IBM cards, and computers rented
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were used to process the information and sort
respondents into various batches based on their answers to the questions. 10
This process may not seem particularly impressive to readers looking back from the comfort of our current digital age, but it was an absolutely revolutionary method in 1970. For one of the first times in campaign history, a candidate did not have to rely on generic mass mailings to reach voters. The survey results allowed Drinan to pinpoint specific households with specific messages, each focusing on their particular concerns and preoccupations. Anti-war suburbanites could receive issues-oriented pamphlets that would have turned off blue-collar laborers, who instead received leaflets linking the Vietnam War to job losses in Massachusetts.
This sort of specificity was of the utmost importance in allowing Drinan to spin his various
9 Ibid. 10 “Boston’s Jesuit Nominee – ‘A Model for New Politics,’” The Washington Post , September 17, 1970. 64
messages on various issues, and the campaign relied on it to an astounding extent: according to
The Nation , over half of the $50,000 spent by the campaign for the Democratic primary actually
went towards postage stamps. 11
The benefits of these new methods did not stop there, either. When the primary finally
rolled around, heavy rain came with it. Bad weather notoriously keeps voters away from the polls, but the Drinan campaign had a conveniently categorized list of likely supporters complete
with phone numbers and addresses. Two-hundred-and-fifty volunteers were pulled in at the last
minute and put to work at a phone bank, from which they urged citizens to get out and vote, and
offered free transportation to the polls if needed.12 The primary turnout was uncharacteristically high, even when compared to Election Days that had good weather – a total of 50,744 votes were cast, about 6,000 more than the most recent midterm elections of 1966. More importantly for
Drinan, the results put him ahead of Philbin by a solid twelve percentage points. 13 His new
mobilization methods, coupled with effective messages that stressed policy proposals and
addressed concerns about his priesthood, help to explain why reporters looked to him as a
champion of the New Politics.
______
The Substance: Grassroots Organizing and the Pursuit of Change
It is important to note that Drinan’s grassroots organizing was not the typical ward
“pulling” practiced by the older generation of politicians. It was distinct in its message and tone,
in its call for change and the stress that it placed on the importance of voters playing a more
11 James Higgins, “How to Run & Win: Drinan’s Bay State Volunteers,” The Nation , December 20, 1970. 12 Ibid. 13 “New Politics and Old,” Time , September 20, 1970. 65
active role in the selection of their representatives. As one reporter noted, “it is one of Drinan’s
convictions that it there is a duty to inform, alert and remind the people – but that the
responsibility of democratic action lies with the people themselves.” 14 Or, as Drinan put it himself, “We have the issues, the organization and the manpower. They call it democracy.” 15
Ultimately, Drinan did not ask for the support of voters because he would do them personal
favors, or because his volunteers had placed the most telephone calls to their households; he
asked for their support because he believed that he could tackle the important issues of the time
and bring about genuine change in the halls of Congress.
This argument resonated throughout his campaign advertisements, distributed to the
homes of potential supporters via the system detailed in the previous section. One pamphlet
released for the general election focused almost exclusively on Drinan’s ability to voice the
concerns of his district; it began by claiming that “many people feel the government is leaving
them out. More than ever, we need men in Congress who will speak for all the people; who will
restore their share in democracy. Robert Drinan is that kind of man.” Speaking to a growing
disillusionment with the American government’s ability to bring about change, this ad argued
that the problem lay in representatives who were deaf to their constituent’s concerns. And the
series of quotes that followed suggested that Drinan would be far more responsive than the
incumbent, Philbin, had been. Harry Stevens, an Independent candidate for Congress in 1968,
was cited as saying that “Robert Drinan cares about the people. He is the only candidate
listening to their concerns and responding.” The Weston Town Crier is quoted as arguing that
Drinan “would be the most effective voice for the people of the Third District,” and Senator
Edmund Muskie claimed that “he will be an effective and responsive voice for the Third
14 James Higgins, “How to Run & Win: Drinan’s Bay State Volunteers,” The Nation , December 20, 1970. 15 UPI, “Priest Moves Toward Congress,” The Hartford Courant , September 17, 1970. 66
Congressional District.” Arguing for a form of representation that stressed responsiveness and
relied upon the trope of listening to constituents, this advertisement was tolling the bell of the
New Politics and arguing for change through democratic processes. Its conclusion summed up
the broader argument that it was making: “When men in Congress listen to the people, they will
speak for the people. Robert Drinan listens. In Congress, his vote will be your voice.” 16
Another advertisement made similar claims, focusing extensively on the war at first, but
then relocating the issue within the context of representation. It began by pointing out Philbin’s
consistent support for the war effort, and argued that a vote for Philbin would be a vote for more
of the same. By contrast, it argued, Drinan was willing and able to “turn around our national priorities,” working towards a government that could create “a just and compassionate society.”
And after a series of policy statements that collectively marked Drinan’s plan for a “new
direction,” the advertisement steered the reader towards the larger issue of representation: “On
September 15, you’re not just voting for a Congressman, you’re voting for a chance to see our
way out of Vietnam. And into a government geared to the people. To get that kind of
government, we need Robert Drinan in Congress.” 17 Mailings such as these stressed issues, to be
sure, but they also self-consciously defined Drinan’s campaign as a grassroots upwelling for a
more representative politician that could bring about genuine change, and a democratic eviction
of the complacent Congressman who had been ignoring voters’ views on pressing social issues
for years.
Crucial to this overall argument was that latter claim: that Philbin was unrepresentative
of the district, and that his lengthy time as an incumbent had made him deaf to the demands of
16 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): General Election Advertisement #86. 17 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Primary Election Advertisement #18L (“On September 15 there’s a chance for you to vote on the Vietnam War.”) 67
his constituents. Drinan hammered this argument home in his discussion of the war, and his
repeated claims that Philbin was no more than a rubber-stamp hawk representing a district that
wanted change and opposed further engagement in Vietnam (for more on this, see Chapter Two).
But he also made the point in a less specific context, pointing to Philbin’s rising age and lending
new meaning to the term “Old” Politics.
The beginning of a position paper on Drinan’s opponent pointed this out unabashedly.
“Born in the last century,” the paper began, “Congressman Philip Philbin is now 72 years old.
He formed his ideas of the world before most of his constituents were born.” Philbin’s age,
which was almost a quarter-century greater than Drinan’s, was supposedly dividing him from
most of his district and preventing him from adequately representing their views and interests in
Congress. As a result, Philbin had not “initiated a single major, innovative piece of legislation”
in his twenty-eight years of public service, the position paper went on to state; and the Third
District deserved “better representation.” 18 Private pollster Oliver Quayle noted how effective of a tactic this could be – “Voters already feel that he is behind the times, and lacks the… qualities needed to deal with the problems of today and tomorrow” – and the Drinan campaign did not hesitate to drive the point home. 19 As a result, Philbin’s name was almost invariably followed by his age and the length of his time in office whenever it was mentioned; the fact that he had been born in the previous century was brought up quite frequently as well. 20 Capitalizing on
18 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Philbin.” 19 Quayle Survey, 58. 20 See, for example, DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Defense Spending,” in which Philbin is first referred to as “your present Congressman, 72 year old, 28 year incumbent Philip Philbin.” Or see DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Primary Election Advertisement #18L (“You’re fighting the Vietnam War at the check-out counter”), in which Philbin is first referred to as “your present Congressman, Philip Philbin, 72,… a ‘yes-man’ for military spending.” 68
these sentiments, Drinan ended his position paper on the issue by asking the voters of the Third
District to “retire” old-man Philbin. 21
But Drinan’s campaign was not just about provincial concerns like the defeat of the elderly Philbin; he hoped that his grassroots organizing would take on a sense of national importance, and critiqued the average age of Congress as often as that of his opponent. In a speech at the Sheraton Boston, he highlighted this point, noting the electoral system’s tendency to favor candidates running for re-election:
Under the Constitution the people of this country have the right every two years to vote for their Congressmen. That biennial peaceful revolution contemplated and programmed by the Founding Fathers has not been occurring because Congressmen have fashioned the election laws to protect the status quo of their own incumbent position. If the government of this country is to win the faith of the people and particularly of the young it will have to undergo a drastic alteration. 22
The people could have no faith in a government more concerned with its own survival than its constituent’s views, Drinan thus claimed, and a turnover in leadership was essential if the body politic hoped to accomplish any serious and lasting change. Pointing to the short terms of
Congressmen, he was essentially proposing (as he did explicitly elsewhere) that “representatives
must be frequently replaced. Only this can assure up-to-date, responsive government.” 23 In a position paper focusing on the issue of Congressional seniority, Drinan laid out a more specific policy proposal that stemmed from these views. Noting that the average age of standing
committee chairmen was over 70, and that many older representatives, “because of chronic
illness, cannot even keep up with the work,” he derisively referred to the seniority system as a
“senility system.” His plan to correct this “subversion of democracy” was to “limit the powers
21 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2: “Philbin.” 22 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #4 (Campaign Statements): “Excerpts from Address of Reverend Robert F. Drinan, S.J…,” May 27, 1970. 23 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Philbin.” 69
of chairmen,” to “set a maximum age for chairmanship,” and to “rule out anyone’s being a
chairman for more than a few terms.” 24 While none of these statements may have been the best survival plan for a long political career, they were part-and-parcel of Drinan’s message of change and fit well into the generational themes that were common to New Politicians of the time.
Thus, Drinan’s version of the New Politics was about more than simply getting voters to the polls, although its strategy for accomplishing that goal was certainly new itself. It was also about bringing new faces into Congress, about providing voters with new representatives that could handle current issues, and ultimately about a new sort of representation, that gave voice to constituents’ views on issues instead of using political favors to put extra cash in their pocketbooks.
______
The General Election: Philbin, McGlennon, and Smear Campaigns
After Drinan had won the Democratic primary and beating Philbin by 6,398 votes, or
10.4 percentage points, almost every observer assumed that Drinan was headed straight for
Congress. Major news outlets implied that his general election victory was all but assured; Look magazine, for example, claimed that Democratic “nomination means election” in the Third
District, while the Hartford Courant noted that although he faced a Republican opponent, the voters were “two-to-one Democratic and Drinan will be favored.” 25 Even Drinan himself
asserted this fact, in an advertising pamphlet aimed at independent voters: “Elections are won or
lost in the primaries. For the past 28 years victory in the Democratic primary for Congressman
24 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #2 (Position Papers): “Seniority.” 25 William Kennedy, “Father Runs for Congress,” Look , September 22, 1970. “Priest Moves Toward Congress,” The Hartford Courant , September 17, 1970. 70
in the 3 rd Congressional District has been tantamount to victory in the General Election… Your vote does count, and may be far more meaningful in the September Primary than in the
November General Election.” 26
But the election became significantly more complicated when Philbin refused to back
down after his primary defeat, undoubtedly shocked at the results and determined not to let his
fourteen-term legacy be cut short by a political upstart. Having lost the race too late to file as an
independent nominee, he finally bestirred himself and launched a “sticker” campaign, asking
supporters to ignore the names on the ballot and paste a sticker with his name on it instead. As
an astute observer for the Nation noted, the result of this effort was to “kill the possibility that most labor unions would provide financial support and workers for the Drinan campaign” and to
“reopen the opportunity for ‘anti-priest-candidate’ Democrats to vote for [a different]
Democrat.” In effect, largely thanks to a loyal support base that stretched back for fourteen terms, Philbin’s candidacy in the general election had the potential to split the Democratic majority and give John McGlennon, the Republican nominee, a possible path to victory. 27
The new electoral chemistry did not affect the vast majority of Drinan’s strategy. His position papers were not rewritten, the priest-issue was not addressed in a different manner, and the only major change in his official biographical information was the addition of his primary victory. 28 A slight increase in funding resulted from his official status as the Democratic
nominee, which allowed him to expand the scope of his television and radio advertisements, but
26 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Primary Election Advertisement (“Independent Voters.”) 27 James Higgins, “How to Run & Win: Drinan’s Bay State Volunteers,” The Nation , December 21, 1970. 28 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #5 (Biographical): “Robert F. Drinan – Biography.” 71
he still relied largely on the campaign strategies that had served him well during the primary
season.
What did change, according to the Boston Globe ’s political analyst Carol Liston, was the
transformation of the race into “the most scurrilous, nastiest campaign that’s ever been waged in
America.” Philbin was embittered by his primary defeat, she claimed, and attacked this “man of
noted integrity and passion” with accusations of “being a Communist sympathizer” and
encouraging “violence and unrest.” McGlennon was no better, in her estimation: “He is
spreading rumors and running advertising just as vicious as Philbin’s… With very careful
distortion he has lifted Father Drinan’s statements from context and maliciously made the
candidate look like a two-faced man, an extremist, and even a revolutionary.” These smear
tactics were the main focus of news coverage in the month and a half between the primary and
the general election, and Drinan’s response to them was an extension of his New Politics and his
claim to integrity – unlike his “scurrilous opponents,” he focused on the issues and remained
above the fray, listening to the demands of his constituents instead of intimidating them with
scare tactics, moving towards a politics of hope and reconciliation and away from the divisive
attacks of his opponents. 29
Documenting the exchanges between the various campaigns is somewhat difficult; the files of failed candidacies are usually not as well preserved as those of successful ones. But at least a few heated arguments can be recreated, and they lend valuable insight into the mechanics of the race during the general election. Philbin’s major line of attack, according to one letter-to- the-editor printed in the Boston Globe , was to suggest that “outsiders from New York conceived
29 Carol Liston, “Vile campaign against Drinan,” The Boston Globe , October 22, 1970. 72
of the Drinan candidacy, and that it was promoted by the New Left.” 30 As Philbin himself put it
in one stump speech, Drinan was supposedly part of “radical, extreme organizations patterned on
Marxist schemes,” and his supporters were “part of a broad conspiracy that could be
international in nature against the principals [sic] of our government, that could enslave the people and bring them under a totalitarian system.”31 For Drinan, a candidate arguing that he
was the best possible representative of local concerns and who was sometimes perceived as too
liberal, the idea that out-of-state leftists were funding his campaign was potentially quite
dangerous to his chances of election.
But Drinan’s reply was both measured and dismissive. In a speech to his campaign
workers, with a reporter from the Boston Globe in the audience, he referred to Philbin’s vicious
attacks: “I’m sorry that each of you has to participate in a campaign that has degenerated into
irresponsible name-calling, rather than a rational discussion of the issues.” Such slander and
libel, he claimed, were “a serious threat to the American electoral system.” And later that day,
campaign manager John Martilla argued that Philbin’s line of attack was nothing more than “the
wild charges of a man looking for some sort of explanation for his defeat.” Addressing the
concern of funding directly, he pointed out that “only 14 percent of our money in this campaign
came from outside the state. And 50 percent of our funds came from inside the 3d district.”
Philbin’s campaign, he went on, had refused to disclose its current funding records, but the most
complete past data, from 1968, showed that about 50% of his funds had come from out-of-
state. 32 Not only was Philbin a hypocrite making baseless claims about the Drinan campaign in
order to discredit it, Martilla said, but he was also detracting from rational discussion of the
30 Arthur S. Obermeyer, “Letter to the Editor: How Drinan got started,” The Boston Globe , October 28, 1970. 31 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Unidentified Flyer (“Campaign Comments of Philip Philbin.”) Quoted from Unidentified Article, Worcester Telegram , Suburban North, October 24, 1970. 32 Carol Liston, “Drinan hits attacks as ‘threat to system’,” The Boston Globe , October 22, 1970. 73
issues and endangering the democratic process – a course of action that Drinan opposed, and
sought to rise above.
John McGlennon attacked Drinan from a slightly different angle: a group called
Democrats-for-McGlennon, for example, released a statement that accused him of encouraging
lawless behavior. It quoted a passage from Vietnam & Armageddon that discussed draft card burning in a positive light, with reference to the Berrigan brothers, and also lifted a passage from
an unidentified newspaper article in which Drinan asserted that “if the law is unjust, not only
may we, but we must disobey the law.” The statement concluded with the following: “We, as
Democrats, cannot support a man who shoots off intemperate and often extreme statements. We
want a thinking and reasonable Congressman.” Looking back on this document from the perspective of the 21 st Century, a time when civil disobedience in the face of injustice is
considered honorable, this may seem like a curious accusation. In 1970, however, with fears of
domestic disorder especially on the minds of middle and lower-middle class white voters alike, it
was a potent attack. 33
Drinan delivered a speech in response on October 26, 1970, at an unrecorded location, in which he placed his statements in their original context and simultaneously discredited his opponent. Noting that he had been speaking in reference to aftermath of the Holocaust, he pointed out that “the judges at the [Nuremberg] trials convicted the Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Court held that these war criminals should have disobeyed these immoral laws.” Establishing this as a principle that was “now part of American law,” he turned the accusation back on McGlennon: “My Republican opponent believes in the Nuremberg judgements. [sic] And yet his political advertising claims that my support of this principle means
33 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #4 (Campaign Statements): “Quotes of Father Drinan.” 74
that my candidacy teaches disrespect for the law. This distortion of my remarks is unfortunate.”
McGlennon’s original statement, Drinan implied, was nothing more than base political
maneuvering, a twisting of words that sought to trick voters into casting their ballots for
McGlennon out of fear. 34
The characterization of McGlennon’s campaign as one of fear-mongering and distortion
was analogous to criticisms of the Red Scare politics of the 1950s, and Drinan did not hesitate to
draw that comparison. Three days after he responded to the Democrats-for-McGlennon, he had
Senator Eugene McCarthy give a speech on his behalf at Faneuil Hall in Boston. The
advertisement for the event ran as follows: “Not since the early 1950’s has the nation been so
overwhelmed by abusive political rhetoric… U.S. SENATOR EUGENE MCCARTHY in
support of FATHER ROBERT F. DRINAN will deliver an address at Faneuil Hall.” 35 Another
advertisement, this one a pamphlet for the general election, quoted a newspaper editorialist that
drew the same analogy: “The tactics being used against Fr. Drinan are base. They echo of the
McCarthyism of the ‘50s… trying to destroy a man by false charge and ugly innuendo.” 36
Comparing his opponents’ campaigns to the scare tactics of previous decades was an effective
way of discrediting their claims and instilling distaste for their campaigns in voters’ minds, while
simultaneously stressing how much more forthright and genuine Drinan was.
Another advertisement specifically attacked McGlennon along similar lines, while using
his own words to stress his hypocrisy. It began by taking two McGlennon comments from local papers. In an interview for the Boston Globe on September 20, 1970, the Republican nominee
34 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #4 (Campaign Statements): “Statement of Rev. Robert F. Drinan, S.J.,” October 26, 1970. 35 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Unidentified Flyer (“Not since the early 1950’s…”) 36 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): General Election Advertisement #86 (“Fr. Drinan leads in 3d District race.”) 75
had said, “We have and we are going to continue running a strictly positive campaign, a pro-
McGlennon campaign;” on September 24, 1970, he told the Concord Journal that his “campaign
is based on moderation and reason.” But as Drinan pointed out immediately after presenting
readers with those quotes, “The facts do not substantiate McGlennon’s description of his
campaign.” In fact, “he chose to attack Father Drinan in 34 articles while discussing the
Vietnam War only 10 times, the Middle East 3 times, health care 3 times, the economy twice,
and pollution twice. Name-calling is never a substitute for rational discussion of the campaign
issues. It is the device of a politician who knows he is unable to respond effectively to his
opponent’s positions.” By contrasting the claims to positivity with the actual negative nature of
McGlennon’s campaign, Drinan was pointing out the hypocrisy of his opponent. Furthermore,
he was arguing, McGlennon had not demonstrated the ability to grapple with pressing national
issues – issues that Drinan, by contrast, was continuing to stress in television ads and personalized mailings to potential supporters. 37
This line of argument was apparently convincing to potential endorsers, who often cited the negative nature of McGlennon and Philbin’s campaigns as reasons to support Drinan. A
WCRB editorial aired on November 2, 1970, for example, endorsed Drinan while attacking
McGlennon for “advertising campaign spots against Drinan [that] distort the real, broad viewpoint of a man of intergrety [sic].” 38 Other endorsements were not as direct in their attacks, but implicitly criticized the conduct of Drinan’s opponents while praising his forthrightness and
integrity in contrast. Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General under Presidents John F.
Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, for example, argued that “those who preach the politics of
37 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #3 (Advertisements – Print): Unidentified Flyer (“The Campaign of John McGlennon.”) 38 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #9 (Campaign Endorsements): “WCRB Editorial, Air Time Monday 11/2/70, by Station President Ted Jones.” 76
division and hatred will never solve America’s problems, while [Drinan] manifests the humane
commitment to the real issues that America must face.” 39 Similarly, Indiana Senator Birch Bayh
called the “irresponsible charges” made against Drinan “an extension of the sort of irresponsible
attacks on men of character and conviction… throughout the nation.” He concluded by arguing
that “the American people want and deserve the sort of leadership that is interested in programs
designed for the people, not in devising slogans to mislead them. That is why I urge you… to
support and vote for Father Robert Drinan.” 40 (It should be noted that the interest of national politicians in this particular district may have been caused by anxieties about losing the
Democratic Party’s majority in the House of Representatives – but the particular ways in which
they chose to involve themselves are still important, and their stress on Drinan’s character are
instructive nonetheless.)
Endorsements, advertisements, and speeches like these were manifestations of Drinan’s
New Politicking and his emphasis on personal integrity. The actions of his opponents in the
general election provided him with the perfect fodder, and neither he nor his supporters hesitated
when criticizing his opponents for their scurrilous attacks. More importantly, these attacks were
virtually the only times when Drinan mentioned their conduct or their character, largely preferring to stick to the political issues that he believed that voters should truly focus on during
the election season.
39 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #9 (Campaign Endorsements): Western Union Telegram, Ramsey Clark to Robert F. Drinan. 40 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #9 (Campaign Endorsements): Western Union Telegram, Birch Bayh to John Martilla, Drinan for Congress. 77
Drinan’s Integrity: A Couple of Letter Exchanges
After almost three chapters of campaign history, readers might come away from these pages with an image of Drinan as a political puppeteer, manipulating words and spinning positions to the various factions of the Third District. This is certainly a plausible reading of the documents presented thus far. Cynics might view Drinan’s policy platforms as an attempt to trick voters into thinking that their various concerns – about the economy or the environment, for example – were related to the only qualification that Drinan could genuinely claim: opposition to the war. They might also see his discussion of religion, in which contradictions and tensions abounded, as a self-serving bit of dissembling, designed to hoodwink a coalition of voters that stood on separate sides of the church-state divide. And even his New Politics might be viewed as a mere updating of the Old Politics, little more than cynical ward-pulling disguised in the rhetoric of representation and change.
In a chapter that focuses so extensively on Drinan’s public portrayal of his private character, it is thus worthwhile to spend a moment determining what that character was actually like, and whether the cynical view sketched above approximated the truth. Unfortunately, no personal diaries or letters to close friends survive from this period, and the official documents
that address Drinan’s integrity could all theoretically have ulterior motives. Having spent almost
a year leafing through the documents of the Drinan campaign, it is this author’s opinion that he
was downright genuine when it came to these issues of authenticity – but the faint impressions of
months of research are worth little without hard evidence to back them up.
So interested readers must instead turn to two letter exchanges, both of which have been filed away in the sizeable campaign archives. They both involve false accusations leveled
78 against Drinan by political pundits, to which the campaign promptly responded with personal letters instead of a more vocal airing of their grievances, perhaps indicating that these accusations meant more than their public ramifications. More tellingly, however, the correspondence continued in both cases even after Drinan saw that no advantage would be gained from the dispute – he kept contesting the accusations anyways, suggesting that his concern about his own integrity was a personal issue as much as one of electoral math. And while this is may not be the best basis on which to declare that Drinan was a man of integrity, the exchanges are difficult to explain if one accepts the cynical caricature mentioned above.
The first example began on October 25, 1970, when Boston Herald-Traveler columnist
Thomas Gallagher attacked Drinan’s staff and supporters, accusing them of making McGlennon
“the object of the most vicious smear
campaigns in the history of
Massachusetts politics.” Although the paper was minor at best, and most other
local news outlets had already endorsed
Drinan’s candidacy, he did not simply
let this accusation pass unnoticed –
which is not surprising, considering
that he was being accused of the very
same tactics that he was criticizing his
opponents for using. 41 Figure 7
41 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #7 (Correspondence – General): Letter from Daniel B. Payne, Press Secretary, to Mr. Harold E. Clancy, Publisher, October 28, 1970. 79
Drinan’s press secretary, Daniel Payne, apparently called Gallagher soon after the article
was published, in order to determine what evidence was being used to substantiate the
accusations leveled against the campaign. Gallagher’s response was unsatisfactory at best, and prompted Clancy to write a letter to the newspaper’s publisher, Thomas Clancy, in which he
recounted the conversation. Gallagher had first cited a Boston Globe editorial written by Carol
Liston, which, as Payne promptly pointed out, actually argued that Drinan was the object of a
smear campaign, rather than the perpetrator of one. Gallagher then pointed to a cartoon printed
in the Boston Globe (see Figure Seven), which he believed was libelous and unfair to Drinan’s opponents; be that as it may, Payne replied, the cartoon was not the work of Drinan or his official supporters, and the Drinan campaign should not be criticized as a result. Finally, Gallagher argued that unspecified remarks made by Drinan the night after the column in question was published proved his charges – but as Payne noted in his letter, columnists must express views
“based upon reasonable interpretation of facts or circumstances,” which Gallagher could not possibly have had at his disposal until after his views had been expressed. Rather than demanding a public recanting of the column, however, Payne began by merely requesting a
“response to this letter as soon as possible. 42
Five days later, on the eve of the general election, Clancy penned and mailed a strongly
worded defense of Gallagher’s column. Putting aside the cartoon and the Liston column, he
argued that the claims made by Drinan after the article was published were still indicative of
Drinan’s character, and thus (in some sense, albeit one that did not directly address the point
made by Payne) corroborated Gallagher’s claims. Furthermore, he claimed, the Herald-Traveler
had recently obtained evidence of a telephone campaign launched by Drinan supporters that
42 Ibid. 80
supposedly branded McGlennon an anti-Catholic, which fifteen people supposedly verified.
Whether or not Gallagher was correct, he concluded, his view was certainly reasonable based on
the circumstances and must be defended as such. 43
At this point, Drinan was apparently so incensed by the publisher’s response that he penned a letter to Mr. Clancy himself. Although a copy of the letter he produced no longer
exists, Clancy’s response to it quoted Drinan liberally, providing a smattering of Drinan’s
outraged tone. Drinan had apparently called Gallagher’s article “totally unsubstantiated and
vicious” and accused him of making “irresponsible and reckless remarks.” Furthermore, he
characterized Gallagher as a “consistently unfair” writer, who had resorted to “invective” and
“name-calling” because he was “unable or unwilling” to observe the minimum standards of
“decent journalism.” The anger that Drinan poured into this personal letter, without even asking
for a public recanting from the Herald-Traveler , is striking in and of itself. But something else is even more fascinating about Drinan’s letter – he penned it after he had won the election. With no immediate public gains to be made, the critical writings of a journalistic nobody still irked
Drinan to an outrageous extent, prompting him to write one of the angriest letters that can be found amongst his papers – and all of this despite the fact that he had already secured
Congressional office. If Drinan was no more than a Machiavellian politician, outrage would serve no discernible purpose in this situation – the public damage would already have been dampened, and he would have been content to let sleeping dogs lie. Yet he did not, and quite possibly could not. 44
43 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #7 (Correspondence – General): Letter from Harold E. Clancy to Mr. Daniel Payne, Press Secretary, November 2, 1970. 44 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #7 (Correspondence – General): Letter from Harold E. Clancy to Robert F. Drinan, Congressman-elect, November 23, 1970. 81
Admittedly, this incident could be interpreted in a variety of ways. U.S. Representatives
are up for election every two years, after all, and it is possible that Drinan was simply looking
ahead to 1972 and the damage that Gallagher’s coverage might cause to his next campaign.
Certainly he was a naturally combative soul, always searching for a good fight and finding an
exciting one on the pages of the Boston Herald-Traveler . It seems most plausible, however, that
Drinan genuinely believed in the policies he was proposing and the grassroots organizing that he was involved in, and took such offense at Gallagher’s aspersions on his character that he simply could not let the incident pass without comment.
The second incident traced a similar path. It involved another article by columnist John
P. Roche, published on October 6, 1970, in which a discussion of Drinan’s position on abortion concluded with a comparison of Drinan to Machiavelli, and the assertion that the liberal priest was essentially a candidate who promised to disobey his own conscience. As the discussion of this exchange in Chapter Three revealed, Drinan was outraged at this suggestion, and sent Roche both a long letter and an article that he wrote for Theological Studies in March explaining the
complexities of his position on abortion. No reply was forthcoming. 45
Yet on December 2, 1970, almost a month after Drinan had succeeded in his bid for public office, and with no further prompting by Roche, Drinan wrote another letter resuming the abandoned conversation. This one was quite a bit feistier, noting that Drinan was “simply outraged at the fact that you describe me as a ‘candidate who promises to disregard his conscience.’” It demanded a reply “within forty-eight hours after receiving this comment,” apologizing for being so direct by noting that he had “the right and the duty to have an
45 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #7 (Correspondence – General): Letter from Robert F. Drinan, S.J. to Professor John Roche, Brandeis University, October 9, 1970. 82
explanation and an apology” for the original article. Once again, despite the fact that Roche’s
original statement could no longer have any impact on his candidacy, Drinan felt compelled to
continue to discuss the issue of his character and to actually demand a private apology (rather
than a public recanting). If Drinan was no more than a Machiavellian politician, his thirst for power would already have been slaked. Although this incident could also be interpreted in a number of ways, it is most plausible and most consistent with Drinan’s public message to conclude that his claims to authenticity were genuine. 46
______
Ultimately, Drinan’s New Politics pervaded his campaign and shaped the way that he responded to constituents and opponents alike. His organizing tactics were crucial for disseminating his views on political issues and for getting supporters out to the polls. His call for a new style of representation demanded Congressional change, and criticized the elderly Philbin for failing to listen to the opinions of his district. The forthrightness and honesty that Drinan used to argue for his own responsiveness spilled over into another arena during the general election, during which he combated smear campaigns launched by both opponents, cloaking himself in the rhetoric of hope, reconciliation, and attention to the actual issues. And although the genuineness of his claims to genuineness cannot be conclusively measured, it certainly appears as if Drinan was just as authentic as he claimed to be. These various factors wove through the tapestry of the Drinan campaign, and played a crucial role in his pursuit of
Congressional office.
46 DCA, 1970 Campaign Files, Folder #7 (Correspondence – General): Letter from Robert F. Drinan, Congressman- Elect to Professor John Roche, Brandeis University, December 7, 1970. 83
Chapter Five
The First Term and Beyond: An Epilogue of Sorts
When the voting booths closed on November 3, 1970, Drinan was far from confident of victory. Polls leading up to the election showed that he was maintaining a lead, but that it was a precarious one at best. An article published in the Boston Globe two days before the election found that Drinan was pulling 32% of the vote, which seemed comfortably ahead of Philbin’s
26% and McGlennon’s 24%. But an unnerving 18% of voters remained undecided and Drinan’s support among liberals had dropped recently for unclear reasons, shifting the momentum into
Philbin’s camp. Furthermore, as the Globe pointed out, it was unclear how many of Philbin’s supporters would be able to follow the write-in procedures accurately, which could skew the results in even more unforeseen ways. Between these unpredictable factors and the general closeness of the race, the newspaper declined to make any predictions. 1
Drinan’s campaign volunteers thus spent all of election day mounting last-ditch efforts to get voters out of their homes, even going so far as to phone Drinan supporters who had not made it to the voting booths by the times that they were most likely to cast their votes, apparently in order to remind them of their democratic duties. 2 But despite these efforts, a clear outcome had
not been reached by the time the Globe went to print with its morning edition the next day. Early
returns gave Drinan a marginal lead, but Philbin’s sticker campaign had significantly slowed
down the tallying of votes. Furthermore, members of Drinan’s campaign staff had discovered
minor violations of state election laws and damage to Drinan’s name on several voting machines;
1 Globe Newspaper Co., “Fr. Drinan leads in 3d District,” The Boston Globe , November 1, 1970. 2 Thomas M. Gannon, “Reverend Father Congressman,” America , November 21, 1970. filing charges in court slowed down ballot -counting even further, and preliminary returns could not even be hinted at a whopping three hours after the polls had closed. 3
By the time the Globe ’s evening edition had c ome out, however, a conclusion to this saga had been reached: the front page sported a picture of Drinan among supporters, one of whom was holding up a sign that read “Our Father Who Art In Congress.” The photograph’s caption mentioned the broad smiles on their faces, and triumphantly proclaimed Drinan the “first Roman
Catholic priest ever elected to the US House.” 4 (See Figure Eight.) Drinan’s official results, according to his campaign files, gave him 37.25% of the popular vote – a mere two percentage
points more than McGlennon and only ten
percentage points better than Philbin, who
was not even listed on the ballot. But as
close as the race may have been, it was a
victory nonetheless. 5
During an interview the next day,
Drinan was already anxious to move on to
other topics. “Those people (his Figure 8 opponents) out there had a lot of hatred in their one-minute spots,” he told one reporter over the phone. “Today I am preaching the politics of reconciliation. Let’s not talk about this [the election results] anymore.” Speaking to Carol
Liston, of the Boston Globe , he sounded a similar note: according to her, he “spurned discussion of his narrow victory,” instead choosing to talk about “what he will do when he gets to
3 Carol Liston, “Fr. Drinan Has Narrow Lead in 3d,” The Boston Globe , November 4, 1970. 4 “Sign of the Times,” The Boston Evening Globe , November 4, 1970, front page. 5 DCA, Campaign Box #1, Folder #12: General Election Results. 85
Congress.” In fact, Liston appears to have found only two comments about the results worth
sending to print. The first was quote from a press conference earlier that morning, in which
Drinan had declared that his victory “repudiated” at least two things – “the war policies of
President Nixon” and “the campaign tactics of smear and fear by both losers in this race.” The
second was stated directly to Liston: “Maybe my election means people are looking for moral
leadership. I think it’s an undeniable inference.” Between the two statements, Drinan had
mentioned the three themes that were most central to his campaign, and that most decisively
explained his victory: his peace platform, his priesthood, and his new politics. 6
He no longer wished to discuss them, however. Instead, Drinan was ready to dive into
the complex world of the U.S. Legislature, and talked mostly about the mechanics of running a
Congressional office and how much he still had to learn. He was also eager to discuss specific policy proposals – supporting the removal of troops from Vietnam, backing economic
conversion acts designed to help industry adjust to a peacetime economy, reviving the benefits of
the G.I. bill for workers displaced by that transition, encouraging broader federal housing
support, and demanding comprehensive medical coverage, among others. 7 As another reporter put it, this was typical Drinan: a “direct, to the point and accurate description of events,”
followed immediately by an acknowledgment that those events “were already in the past” and
that it was time “to speak of the future.” 8
6 Carol Liston, “Fr. Drinan won’t make any ‘grandiose promises’,” The Boston Globe , November 5, 1970. 7 Ibid. 8 James Higgins, “How to Run & Win: Drinan’s Bay State Volunteers,” The Nation , December 20, 1970. 86
What “The Future” Entailed: A Freshman in the House
“The most difficult task a new representative or senator has to face,” declared an
unidentified reporter for the Washington Post in January 1971, “is the grueling three-week ordeal which follows his swearing in.” For Father Drinan, that time period was filled with receptions, meet-and-greets, and press conferences, a veritable whirlwind of obligations to be filled and introductions to be made. As the same writer reported, Drinan “seems to be everywhere these days… Tonight is the Press Club of Washington’s banquet for new members of Congress, tomorrow is a reception with ‘ouah leadah,’ said Drinan in his Boston accent, and ‘Sunday I’m going to the moon.’” 9
But the fast-talking priest-politician was at his best in this hectic environment, where his
quick wit could shine and his impassioned oratory could attract the eye of reporters and the
attention that came with national coverage. Major newspapers devoted entire articles to his early
speeches, and Drinan did not hesitate to plug the platforms that he had campaigned on. In his
first press conference, for example, he declared his support for a potential Ted Kennedy presidential bid, criticized the Nixon Administration for a poorly performing economy, called for
the phasing out of defense industries and the retraining of workers for peace-time jobs,
demanded a bill of rights for senior citizens, and noted that he would continue to wear his
clerical garb because, as he drolly put it, “They’re the only clothes I have.” A shining star of
sorts, Drinan appeared to be settling into his new position with the greatest of ease. 10
9 “Congress Welcome,” The Washington Post , January 27, 1971. 10 Coverage of the first press conference paraphrased from: United Press International, “Priest-Legislator Backs Ted for ’72,” The Hartford Courant , January 7, 1971. “Newsmakers – He’ll Wear Clerical Garb on Secular Job,” Los Angeles Times , January 8, 1971. “Jesuit Set to Be Rep. Rev. Drinan,” Chicago Tribune , January 11, 1971. 87
But if his policy platforms had not changed significantly, something in the way that he delivered his speeches most certainly had. Gone was the fiery rhetoric of change that had suffused Drinan’s New Politics; in its place was a more realistic hedging of his bets. Although he told the Chicago Tribune that he would still “vote in favor of any modification of the seniority system,” he was constantly warning reporters (and, as a consequence, his constituents) that change could not happen overnight. As he put it when speaking to a reporter from the Los
Angeles Times : “I’m not so pretentious as to think that I’m going to save the nation… I’m just a freshman.” Sentiments such as these were a far cry from the demands for immediate change that characterized his campaign just several months before.
Was this alteration actually a substantive change in Drinan’s approach to politics, or was it simply the realistic prediction of a freshman politician? Did Drinan betray one of his core campaign stances almost immediately after the election, or did he simply anticipate the difficulties that he would face in the House of Representatives? A comprehensive analysis of two years worth of Congressional Archives would be necessary to answer this question fully, and such an endeavor is clearly outside the scope of this paper. But news coverage of Drinan’s first term is quite illuminating, and paints a picture of a Congressman struggling ineffectually to bring about change, striving to fulfill his campaign promises but finding himself blocked by the very seniority system that he so frequently campaigned against.
Part of the problem stemmed from his committee placement: the Democratic Party assigned him to the House Internal Security Committee, formerly the House Un-American
Activities Committee (HUAC) that had played such a repressive role in the Red Scare of the
1950s. Although the Armed Services Committee would have been a far more preferable stage for the priest’s anti-war activism, HISC would have been an entirely unremarkable choice for a
88
freshman – if not for the fact that Drinan had introduced a bill to abolish it just one week prior to
his appointment. 11 A staunch opponent of HISC, Drinan entered hostile waters with this assignment, made even more difficult by the fact that the committee was dominated by conservatives, both Democratic and Republican. As a political analyst later noted when describing the mechanics of HISC, chairman Richard Ichord (D-Mo.) sought to retain “firm conservative command,” while Drinan voted “against anything the rest of the committee wants.”
This situation was not helping to pave a path towards reform and national prominence for
Drinan; nor was it providing him with many opportunities to fulfill the promises of his campaign. 12
Of course, Drinan still believed that he was performing an important function by remaining part of the committee. As he put it, he served on HISC “not because I see any value whatever in its operations, but because I believe it is desirable for a person of my convictions to observe this phenomenon at close hand… and to attempt to curb at least some of its gross abuses.” 13 And although his success in this endeavor was debatable, he certainly brought the attention of the national press to some of these abuses. In late April 1970, for example, Drinan went on the record as saying that HISC was an “unauthorized secret snooper,” and disclosed the fact that it maintained 754,000 investigative files on suspected subversives, which he believed was an unconstitutional extension of Congressional power and a violation of those citizens’ civil
11 Richard L. Lyons, “Drinan Named to House Security Panel,” The Washington Post , January 29, 1971. 12 Carl C. Craft, “Rep. Davis Fills Gap On HISC,” The Washington Post , April 30, 1972. 13 Ibid. 89
rights. 14 This generated some press coverage, although not enough pressure was brought to bear
on the issue for any changes to occur. 15
Drinan was slightly more successful a year later, however, when he battled Ichord on
another HISC issue. Riled up by actress Jane Fonda’s visit to North Vietnam, where she made
antiwar broadcasts over the radio, Ichord had introduced a bill to outlaw trips to nations in armed
conflict with the United States without the approval of the President. It passed the committee
vote unanimously, in large part because Drinan was not informed of the session on the bill in
advance and was thus blocked out of the vote. (Ichord, of course, denied that this was the case – but it seems quite unlikely that Drinan would have missed a chance to object to any legislation proposed by Ichord.) 16 Moving rapidly to prevent passage, however, Drinan led the floor fight
against the bill, arguing that it would violate freedom of the press and that it was an
unconstitutional expansion of Congressional power. Ultimately, he won the day – the bill came
up 18 votes short of the majority it needed to become law. 17
But the Third District did not elect Drinan for the purpose of serving on HISC, whether
or not that entailed symbolically voting against Congressional snooping or blocking legislation
that reeked of paranoid McCarthyism. And although he may have played an important role in
several other pieces of legislation – opposing special tax bills that were used as political favors,
fighting against anti-busing amendments, and advocating lower age eligibility requirements to
14 Marjorie Hunter, “Member Scores Security Panel,” The New York Times , April 30, 1971. 15 See, for example: United Press International, “House Raises Budget of Security Committee,” The Hartford Courant , April 30, 1971. “Congressional Report: Internal Security Funds Restored,” The Washington Post , April 30, 1971. TRB, “Tax Rates for Giant Oil Firms Run as Low as 1.2%,” Los Angeles Times , November 9, 1971 (To quote from the last article, “They are raw, hearsay dossiers of unverified gossip culled from right wing or Communist periodicals… Almost anybody’s name may be there; YOUR name may be there… Drinan charges contemptuously that only about 130 of the 435 members of the House believe they can vote against HISC without being charged at the next election with being soft on Communism.”) 16 Associated Press, “Bill Barring Trips to Nations at War With U.S. Gets OK,” Los Angeles Times , September 25, 1972. 17 Philip Warden, “Penalty for Hanoi Visits Barred,” Chicago Tribune , October 3, 1972. 90
run for Congress, for example – none of those efforts had been a prominent part of his campaign
rhetoric either. 18 His widely publicized opposition to public school prayer on Constitutional grounds, at least, proved that his discussion of church and state separation was more than mere pandering, but it did not help him to fulfill any of his trumpeted policy goals. 19 The conservative and critical Wall Street Journal even went so far as to argue that while some freshman lawmakers had made “a splash,” Drinan seemed content to “limit himself to a few broadsides against the House Internal Security Committee.” 20
This attack, of course, was not entirely fair. As we have just seen, Drinan was participating in a wide array of legislative activities, and his attacks on the HISC were more than
mere “broadsides.” But what did he do about his central campaign promise, about the one issue
that he cared about more than all others, about the concern that his entire political platform
stemmed from and centered on – the Vietnam War?
In his first year, it turns out, very little of note. When a certain Mrs. Buryn, resident of
the Third District town of Newton, MA, embarked on a 45-day walk to Washington to post five pacifist “theses” on the Capitol door, Drinan promptly put her five proposals in the
Congressional Record and praised her for her courage and commitment – but nothing except
newspaper articles came out of the ordeal. 21 Drinan also gave speeches at anti-war veteran
18 Tax Bills: “Special Tax Bills Fought In House,” The New York Times , February 29, 1972. Anti-Busing: Peter C. Stuart, “Compromise shaping up in Congress: Busing foes doubt amendment action now,” Christian Science Monitor , March 10, 1972. Age Requirements: Warren Weaver, Jr., “Lower Minimum Age for Congress Urged,” The New York Times , November 2, 1971 and Staff Editorial, “Youth and Age on the Hill,” The New York Times , November 6, 1971. 19 For more on this, see the following as examples: “Drinan Against Prayer Law,” Washington Post , July 12, 1971. Richard Philbrick, “Public School Prayers: a Persistent Controversy,” Chicago Tribune , September 19, 1971. Staff Editorial, “Freedom to Worship,” The New York Times , November 5, 1971. 20 “Washington Wire: A Special Weekly Report From The Wall Street Journal’s Capital Bureau,” Wall Street Journal , May 21, 1971. 21 Bruyn Leaves and Requests Meeting with Drinan: “People in the News: Housewife to Walk 45 Days in Protest,” The Hartford Courant , February 18, 1971. Entering Theses in Congressional Record: Monty Hoyt, “Antiwar 91
rallies and memorial services, suggesting that $50 billion in reparations be paid to victims in
Indochina, to be financed through a firearms tax – but the concept gained no political
momentum. 22 He even went on a national tour with twenty other Congressmen to build
constituent pressure for immediate troop withdrawal, spoke at the National Convention of
Lawyers to End the War, and was one of many dovish Representatives to give a speech at the so-
called “Lobby of Americans,” a group of professional, religious, and former government leaders
who opposed the war – but he brought no new legislation to the House floor as a result. 23
It should not be suggested that Drinan’s first year was a failure for lack of trying; if this discussion reveals anything, it is an impression of how much time and effort he spent trying to mobilize anti-war sentiment in and around Congress. But this exertion was largely fruitless – as he noted early in his term, it was exceptionally difficult to bring about serious change in the
House of Representatives, most especially for a freshman. Drinan admitted this frankly in an interview with Patricia Stewart, a reporter for the Hartford Courant : “There are 100 ‘very fine’
congressman,” he told her, “and 100 ‘old men’ who hold the power.” As a result, the 92 nd
Congress was characterized by “lethargy, or apathy,” rather than the passion needed to stand up to the Nixon Administration and alter American foreign policy. It made him, in his own words,
“more than a little depressed sometimes.” 24
‘theses’ for Capitol: Housewife treks to Washington,” Christian Science Monitor , March 10, 1971. Praising Bruyn: Barbara Carlson, “Peace Theses Taped to Capitol Door,” The Hartford Courant , April 3, 1971. 22 Veteran Rally: “Veterans Discard Medals In War Protest at Capitol,” The New York Times , April 24, 1971. Memorial Service: “People in the News: Asks War Fund,” April 25, 1971. 23 National Tour: R.W. Apple, Jr., “Peace Tour Set By Congressman: 20 Plan Trip to Stimulate Sentiment Against the War,” The New York Times , April 30, 1971. Lawyer Convention: Display Ad 44, “Law Can End the War this Year,” The Washington Post , June 7, 1971. Lobby of Americans: Associated Press, “Antiwar Group Gathers at Congress’ Doorstep,” Los Angeles Times , June 8, 1971. 24 Patricia Stewart, “Priest-Legislator Battles the System,” The Hartford Courant , April 27, 1971. 92
But by his second year as a Congressman, Drinan’s luck had begun to change. On March
23, 1972, with the help of Senators Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) and Walter Mondale (D-Minn.),
Drinan introduced legislation that would immediately stop military involvement in Indochina
outside of Vietnam, and require total withdrawal of U.S. troops and the cessation of all bombing
in Vietnam within thirty days of enactment. (In a concession to more moderate Representatives,
it also contained a provision that would extend the date of withdrawal for an additional thirty
days if North Vietnam refused to release American political prisoners.) 25 Although the press gave it short shrift at first – one New York Times subscriber actually wrote a letter to the editor
complaining about the bill’s lack of front-page coverage – it was still the first serious anti-war
legislation that Drinan had managed to bring to the table. 26
And over the course of the ensuing months, the legislation, informally known as the
Gravel-Drinan bill, began to pick up steam. It had been introduced to the House in March by thirty-four co-sponsors; by April 18, that number had almost doubled to sixty co-sponsors, and
Drinan confidently claimed that “more are coming on every day.” Furthermore, Democratic doves had pieced together a strategy to move it through Congress – the majority whip planned to ask the House Democratic caucus to declare (largely symbolic) support for the bill, and also sought agreement from the House Foreign Affairs Committee to hold a hearing on the bill’s provisions. Although the House had been very supportive of the military efforts in Indochina
throughout the previous two administrations, the midterm elections had slightly altered its
makeup and the electorate was becoming increasingly dovish. In addition, the Senate half of the
25 Spencer Rich, “41 on Hill Launch New Drive for U.S. Vietnam Pullout,” The Washington Post , March 24, 1971. 26 Amy Clampitt, “Letter to the Editor 5: No Title,” The New York Times , April 16, 1972. 93 bill was rapidly gaining enough support to pass without any serious opposition. Drinan’s hopes were running high. 27
He experienced a brief setback on April 19, when the Democratic caucus rejected an endorsement of the bill by a narrow vote – according to the Washington Post , the final count was
105 to 97. But he quickly shifted support to a milder substitute sponsored by Representative
Thomas “Tip” O’Neill (D-Mass.), hoping to put the caucus on record as favoring a termination
date without actually proposing one, and to thus gain potential support for the Gravel-Drinan bill
in a floor vote. 28 This second resolution, which condemned the recent increase in the bombing of
North Vietnam and directed the House Foreign Affairs Committee to report to the House with
legislation providing for the termination of hostilities within thirty days, passed by a vote of 135
to 66. In an attempt to increase support and decrease party hostilities, a provision was added that
condemned the “current military invasion” of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese. This
version passed by an even wider 144-to-58 margin. “The hawks couldn’t believe it was
happening,” Drinan exclaimed, in the aftermath of the vote. “It’s a major revolution.” 29
But on August 10, 1972, the House rejected the Gravel-Drinan bill by a vote of 228 to
178. Stunned and dismayed, Drinan penned an editorial for the New York Times in which he
reflected on this outcome, on what he called his “most depressing day as a member of Congress.”
This document sparkles and shines as one of the most poignant, insightful pieces of writing that
Drinan ever committed to paper. It is an eloquent testimony to the herculean efforts that he
27 Robert P. Hey, “Bombing triggers debate: Congress again restive on war,” Christian Science Monitor , April 18, 1972. 28 Spencer Rich and Mary Russell, “Debate Over Bombing Rages on Capitol Hill,” The Washington Post , April 20, 1972. 29 John W. Finney, “House Democrats, 144-58, Uphold End-the-War Move,” The New York Times , April 21, 1970. The provision relating to the House Foreign Affairs Committee could not technically require a report from the committee itself, but it was a binding resolution for House Democrats. Because they formed a majority of the committee, this virtually assured that the resolution would be carried out. 94
expended to stop American involvement in Indochina, and a bitter commentary on the tragic
indifference with which Congress responded. In many ways, it encapsulates and embodies
Drinan’s experience as a freshman, the disappointment and frustration that this optimistic
crusader experienced during his first term.
“On Aug. 10,” Drinan wrote, “old men talked while young men died.” And three old
men in particular were culpable. Representative Richard Bolling, a Democrat who had built his political career on the demand that Congress reassert its power and who could have provided
crucial support for the bill, moved to delete the section that would compel U.S. withdrawal and
refused to yield to Drinan in the floor debate on the issue. He later admitted that he had declined
to do so because he was afraid that he would be asked questions for which he had no answer.
Said Drinan, “He was correct.” Democratic Majority Leader Hale Boggs opposed the bill because of the withdrawal date – he did not believe that a final bill could be worked out soon
enough to justify the date because Congress was preparing to adjourn for the summer. But
American soldiers did not stop dying, Drinan noted bitterly, while “Congressman go to
conventions, have vacations, and enjoy recesses.” And Speaker of the House Carl Albert, at pinnacle of leadership for the Democratic Party in the 92 nd Congress, failed to provide any direction on the legislation, despite the fact that the House Democratic Caucus and Presidential nominee, Senator George McGovern (whom Albert had endorsed), had urged action on the issue.
The “160 Democrats who voted against their Speaker and majority leader,” Drinan declared,
“can hardly be expected to have much confidence in the leadership of the 92 nd Congress which, on the issue above all issues, failed to lead or even to speak.” He continued, concluding his emotionally fraught and devastatingly frustrated reflection:
95
Aug. 10 ended another chapter in my life. The agony of bearing witness to this war became almost a physical pain… I try not to be ashamed to be a member of Congress. I must confront the fact, however, that history will conclude that the House of Representatives in the 92 nd Congress acquiesced in the most brutal war in all of history, abdicated its responsibilities and allowed the Pentagon and the President to perpetuate a war now more cruelly waged from the air than on the land.
My mind cannot yet look forward to the hope which may come with the 93 rd Congress. I am still stunned, numbed and dismayed. 30
______
Looking Forward Despite the Past: A Second Campaign for Congress
As difficult as it must have been for Drinan to anticipate the 93 rd Congress in mid-August of 1970, he fully intended to be a member of it. His campaigning had actually begun in an indirect manner several months earlier, through his participation in the Presidential primaries.
With public sentiment turning rapidly against the war and President Nixon’s rating plummeting in correspondence, many Democrats saw 1972 as a chance to take back the White House. As early as January, the networking of various Presidential hopefuls had garnered national press coverage, and Drinan – although he lacked such high aspirations himself – found his name floating around the columns of political reporters.
At first, he was simply providing comic relief. At one wine and cheese gathering in
Maine, for example, he told a reporter that he was considering the Vice Presidential nomination under African-American Representative Shirley Chisholm: “That way, she could call anybody who didn’t vote for us a religious bigot, and I could call ’em a white racist.” 31 But before long, he had settled on a candidate – Senator McGovern – and begun canvassing and campaigning in his home state. As he told a reporter from the New York Times , McGovern had opposed the war
30 Robert F. Drinan, “The Longest Day,” The New York Times , August 17, 1972. 31 Jeannette Smyth, “Wine and Cheese Party: For Maine or Muskie?,” The Washington Post , January 20, 1972. 96
“without deviation and without faltering,” and had run a campaign “of candor and reason on behalf of the moral principles on which American democracy is founded.” 32 Perhaps seeing much of his own style in this Presidential hopeful, Drinan committed to McGovern over Edmund
Muskie (a fellow Catholic) and Massachusetts politician Ted Kennedy (for whom, attentive readers may recall, he had actually issued a potential endorsement one year prior – which, he claimed, he would “not disavow” should Kennedy decide to run). 33
Heading into the Massachusetts primary in late April, the Democratic Party had yet to select a candidate – and the 102 Bay State delegates up for grabs were thus of the utmost importance for McGovern, who was then trailing in the polls. But Massachusetts’s Presidential primary system was an extraordinarily complicated one, and voters were confronted by a selection process that actually required them to vote three times: once in a binding preference poll that would secure delegates from Congressional districts, once to select an additional at- large slate of 20 delegates hand-picked by the respective nominees, and once directly for district delegates, most of whom had pledged support for a candidate but all of whom would be free to vote as they wished. 34 The two leading candidates, according to the polls, were Muskie and
McGovern. Muskie did very little stumping in the state, relying instead on a slate of delegates that included many of the state’s most prominent Democrats, including Boston Mayor Kevin H.
White and House Democratic Whip Tip O’Neil. By contrast, McGovern’s slate was headed by
32 Richard D. Lyons, “Dole Urges Panel to Fix War Blame: Calls Democratic Aspirants 2-Faced on Nixon Stand,” The New York Times , January 22, 1972. 33 United Press International, “Photo Standalone – For McGovern,” The Hartford Courant , January 22, 1972. 34 David S. Broder, “McGovern Favored in Mass.,” The Washington Post , April 25, 1972. 97
Father Drinan and had almost no other well-known names on it, consisting almost entirely of
social activists rather than entrenched politicians. 35
Yet the Bay State broke with the local Democratic hierarchy on April 26, and McGovern pulled away with all 102 delegates and a majority of the popular vote, despite being faced by
eleven opponents. Rather unexpectedly, as two reporters put it, McGovern found himself
“vaulted into the front-runner’s position” nationally, buoyed by support from both blue-collar
laborers and suburban idealists. Even more unexpectedly, the organization Democrats who had backed Muskie found themselves without seats at the Democratic convention – and Drinan, by
contrast, found himself with a state delegation chairmanship just a year-and-a-half into his political career. 36
A history of the 1972 Presidential election would take readers well beyond the topic of this paper, but Drinan’s role in the process had an important impact on his own candidacy several months later. After an agonizingly divisive convention, the liberal McGovern won the nomination, leaving the Democratic Party’s more conservative candidates worried about their chances for re-election. As Indiana governor Matthew Welsh put it, when discussing his strategy for re-election, McGovern’s “far-out” ideas alienated some moderate voters and were not a welcome addition to his candidacy: “I don’t see why Sen. McGovern should want to come into
Indiana… Certainly we’re not going to insist that he come more often.” But in Drinan’s district, moderately altered from 1970 and renamed the Massachusetts Fourth, rather than the Third, the large youth vote and the heavy anti-war sentiment made his prominent support for McGovern an
35 Frank Starr, “Bay State Primary One of Underdogs,” Chicago Tribune , April 15, 1972. David S. Broder, “Warming Up to McGovern: Lead Climbs to 2-1 in Massachusetts Poll,” The Washington Post , April 23, 1972. 36 Stephen Isaacs and David S. Broder, “Article 1 – No Title,” The Washington Post , April 27, 1972. United Press International, “Priest to Head Delegation,” The New York Times , May 23, 1972. 98
enormous asset. As Drinan understated the situation, when talking to a Wall Street Journal reporter about the impact of McGovern’s nomination on local contests, “He’ll sure help me.” 37
And relying on this help was, in large part, Drinan’s strategy in 1972. His second campaign leaned heavily on his visibility as the incumbent, his support of the Democratic Party’s
Presidential nominee, and the endorsements of such prominent politicians as Ted Kennedy, rather than the fiery rhetoric and active campaigning that he had employed in 1970. He did not even bother to officially announce his candidacy until mid-July, almost seven months after he had begun campaigning the last time, and he faced no opposition in the Democratic primary. 38
In some ways, his strategies during this election cycle bore an eerie resemblance to the tactics
and confidence exhibited by Philbin just two years earlier.
Of course, although the style of Drinan’s 1972 bid may not have been as heated as his previous campaign, it would be decidedly unjust to overemphasize the comparison to Philbin.
Drinan’s policy platforms remained staunchly dovish, and oftentimes radical, remaining true to
the vision that he had previously espoused. His priesthood was still a contentious issue – only
about one-half of Roman Catholic voters supported Drinan during his second run for Congress,
according to one poll in the Boston Globe .39 And the contest heated up somewhat unexpectedly with the Republican Party’s nomination of Martin Linsky and the independent bid of conservative John Collins, forcing Drinan to adopt a more active approach to re-election.
37 Fred Zimmerman and Byron Calames, “George Who?: Many Local Democrats Who Seek Reelection Plan to Shun McGovern,” The Wall Street Journal , July 14, 1972. United Press International, “4 th District Candidate,” The Hartford Courant , May 11, 1972. 38 United Press International, “Drinan to Seek 2d Term,” The New York Times , July 18, 1972. Associated Press, “Bay State Democrats Pick Brooke Rival,” The New York Times , September 20, 1972. 39 “4 th District poll: Drinan leads by 10%, McGovern by 3%,” The Boston Globe , October 1, 1972. 99
Martin Linsky was a Jewish lawyer and former assistant minority leader in the
Massachusetts House. Despite his affiliation with the Republican Party, he was by all accounts an outspoken liberal whose policy platforms overlapped with Drinan’s quite frequently. 40 When asked what the most important priorities for the next Congress would be, his laundry list of proposals could just as easily have been written by Drinan himself: “To restore confidence in government; end war in Vietnam; curtail influence of money in politics…; providing adequate health care to all Americans…; preserve environment by adopting strict pollution regulations, planning for resource use and population growth.” 41 Concerns such as these may actually have placed the Republican nominee to the left of many Democratic Congressmen, but they resonated amongst the increasing liberal population of the Fourth District. And by aligning many of his policies with Drinan’s, Linsky effectively stole the priest’s advantage on the issues and made the race about something else: “effectiveness,” which Linsky portrayed as the ability to achieve
“gradual change” through moderate compromise, rather than “hold[ing] out for ultimate goals” as Drinan had in the case of the Gravel-Drinan bill. 42
John T. Collins, on the other hand, was running the campaign of a self-styled
“independent conservative,” hoping to attract Republicans who were dissatisfied with Linsky’s
nomination. Drawing distinct policy differences between himself and the other candidates,
Collins declared that the economy was the chief issue at stake, but noted that he supported the bombing of North Vietnam wholeheartedly. (Drinan, by contrast, called it “totally indefensible by any standards,” and Linsky said that he would have voted for the Brooke Amendment, which
40 See, for example: “State by State: Massachusetts,” The Washington Post , November 5, 1972. 41 The League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, “Election 72: Voters’ Guide for November 7, 1972,” Special Sunday Insert in The Boston Globe , October 24, 1972. 42 Warren Weaver, Jr., “Drinan’s Foe Uses TV Despite ‘Waste:’ Legislator to Spend $25,000 in Massachusetts Race,” The New York Times , October 23, 1972. 100 set the return of American prisoners of war as the benchmark for withdrawal.) 43 Although he stood little chance of winning, Collins campaigned largely for the sake of having an impact on the election: after a poll was released that showed him with 10% of the vote, he admitted that he would have to move quickly to stand a chance, but that “in any event, a very serious and important message is going to be put forth to the people of this district.” 44
As late as mid-October, Drinan was still active in Washington and was leaving the bulk of the campaign to his staff on the ground, although he did fly back to Massachusetts on weekends to deliver speeches and participate in fund-raising events. A poll released on October
30 showed him with a widening 21-point lead over Linsky, indicating that Drinan’s comparatively lackadaisical approach to the contest was not hurting his chances. It noted that
Collins was drawing votes that would otherwise have gone to Linsky (which was notably similar to the manner in which Philbin took votes from Drinan in the 1970 general election), and that
Drinan’s visibility played a large role in his high levels of support. Whereas nine in ten voters claimed that they had a distinct impression of Drinan, a mere three in ten said the same of
Collins. The pollsters determined that this was the central issue of the campaign, that Linsky’s biggest problem was “still one of visibility” and that Drinan’s hefty lead reflected “his advantage as the incumbent.” 45
These were odd developments for a politician who had fought vociferously against the advantages given to incumbents just two years prior, readers might note, and it would have been strange indeed if the story stopped there. But the political dynamic shifted in the last few weeks
43 Jonathan Fuerbringer, “4 th District hopefuls discuss war, campaign spending limitations,” The Boston Globe , October 2, 1972. 44 Richard M. Weintraub, “3-way race intensifies in 4th District,” The Boston Globe , October 9, 1972. 45 “Drinan widens margin in 4 th District survey,” The Boston Globe , October 30, 1972. 101 of the race, as Linsky poured large amounts of money into a television advertising campaign and a tentative cease-fire agreement in Vietnam led Henry Kissinger to declare that peace was at hand. A new Boston Globe poll released four days before the race contained promising statistics for Drinan’s challengers – over the space of six days, Drinan’s lead had dropped by ten points and Linsky’s support had climbed by five. Linsky had always held a significant lead among voters who believed the war was reaching an end, which had increased of late thanks to
Kissinger’s announcement, and his favorability rating was rapidly approaching Drinan’s. And when voters were asked both if they were sure that they were going to vote and whether they believed that their vote would matter, the latter of which was considered a good indication of turnout, Drinan’s lead dropped to 42-36. 46
The intensity of the race appears to have been stepped up as a consequence, according to reporter Richard M. Weintraub. Sound trucks now trawled the streets, “proclaiming the virtues of candidates;” students stood on street corners in torrential downpours, holding up soggy signs in support of their nominees; supermarkets became recruiting zones, as volunteers confidently stalked shoppers with clipboards and bumper stickers; and Drinan and Linsky stumped throughout the district, trudging from town meetings to block parties, “wearily” mounting their
“last attempts to gain the favor of voters.” (Collins, on the other hand, had a law practice that he still attended to during daylight hours.) The final days of the campaign, in other words, revived a bit of the grassroots pizzazz that had characterized Drinan’s first run for Congress, albeit more
46 “Massachusetts Poll: Drinan, 46%; Linsky, 35%; Collins, 8%, in 4 th District,” The Boston Globe , November 3, 1972. 102 because of the competition than because he was continuing to express a staunch belief in the power of the New Politics. 47
The lack of automated voting machines in many of the western Fourth District counties prevented a rapid return of vote tallies, and the Boston Globe could not name a winner until two days after the election. But when it did, Drinan was on top with 50.6% of the vote, over five percentage points more than his nearest opponent, Linsky. Soon after the results were reported, he confidently declared that “come hell or high water, we will obtain our objective, that supreme objective of everyone here and everyone in this country: peace in this world.” 48 These were
inspiring sentiments, no doubt, but supporters who had been present at his victory speech in 1970
must have been experiencing a little déjà vu. And on December 19, roughly one month later,
Nixon had resumed full-scale bombing of North Vietnam and Drinan offered up a resolution to
set a date for withdrawal, subject to the release of prisoners. 49
If not for the dates stamped at the top of the country’s newspapers, readers might have had difficulty telling whether they were reading the current edition or a copy from two years prior – it was back to business as usual on Capitol Hill.
______
Concluding Thoughts
Father Drinan’s 1970 campaign for Congress was a complex confluence of events, and
even the three detailed interpretative frameworks presented here are by no means exhaustive.
47 Richard M. Weintraub, “Sound trucks, handshakes – It’s pre-election weekend in the 4 th District,” The Boston Globe , November 5, 1972. 48 Richard M. Weintraub, “Linsky nibbled for votes; Drinan bit chunks and won,” The Boston Globe , November 9, 1972. 49 “Resumption of Bombing Arouses Hill Criticism,” The Washington Post , December 20, 1972. 103
Self-consciously styling his efforts as an issue-oriented campaign, Drinan emphasized his opposition to the Vietnam War first and foremost on the trail, and strove to tie his peace rhetoric into the economic and social concerns of a broad array of voters. And because his success cannot be entirely explained by the views of his constituents, who were not overwhelmingly opposed to the war, his story suggests that more is needed to our understand 1970 election trends than a national shift in political priorities, that the variations among the individuals who stumped through their districts were quite influential, perhaps in ways that transcend Gallup polls and the number crunching of quantitative analysis.
It also suggests that religious liberals had – and perhaps now have – the potential to influence American politics despite the fact that conservative pastors seem to dominate the airwaves. By simultaneously dismissing his priesthood as a distraction from the real issues, making clear his respect for the church-state divide, and relying on his clerical collar for moral righteousness on the campaign trail, Drinan overcame religious prejudices within his district and utilized a profoundly ethical rhetoric to advocate a liberal agenda. His story suggests that religion should not be quite as anathema to politics as the modern Democratic Party often makes it out to be, that it is possible to merge moral convictions with respect for the Constitution, and that a spiritual vision is not necessarily incompatible with a secular one.
Drinan’s story was as much about a vision of the New Politics as it was about religion, however, and this aspect of his campaign is startlingly similar to many political candidacies today. He employed revolutionary organization methods, using grassroots campaigns to mobilize support on the ground, and tried to use this groundswell to effect serious, lasting change, to make the American government far more responsive to the will of the people that it represented. Fighting against age with youth, against corruption with integrity, Drinan espoused
104 a rhetoric of change, hope, and democracy that resonates in today’s political climate as much as it did in his.
And yet, as powerful as all three of these campaign techniques were, and as effective as they may have been in securing Drinan a seat in the House of Representatives, they did not translate into legislative prowess. The grandiose goals evident in Drinan’s campaign advertisements and stump speeches were not achieved in his first term; the Vietnam War continued to escalate, while the seniority system confined the hot-headed priest to the House’s sidelines. By the time November 1972 rolled around, Drinan’s campaign leaned on his incumbency, endorsements, and connection to Presidential candidate George McGovern, at least until Linsky forced him to engage more vigorously. This about-face is more than a mere curiosity; it is a sad commentary on the withering effect that American politics can have on even the most brilliant campaigner, the most passionate peace advocate, the most motivating orator to be found.
The story of Congressman Robert F. Drinan, S.J. does not end with these disheartening sentiments, however. The narrative thread that winds through these pages is only a first chapter in the much larger tale of Drinan’s political career. An entire book could be written about
Drinan’s crucial role in the Watergate investigations, with at least a chapter devoted to his attempts to impeach President Nixon for war crimes in Southeast Asia; another two tomes could be spent chronicling the waves of controversy that he generated among the Catholic Church hierarchy with his vocal support of abortion rights. And when Pope John Paul II declared that all priests needed to withdraw from electoral politics in 1980, the inner struggle that Drinan engaged in must have been fascinating, and an exploration of his decision to comply would touch upon and expand the themes of Chapter Three in a variety of enlightening ways. Even his post-
105 political life was out of the ordinary – he returned to academia, where he taught courses on human rights and legal ethics at Georgetown Law School, but he also became President of the liberal organization Americans for Democratic Action, served on the board of Bread for the
World, an organization dedicated to eradicating global hunger, and sponsored human rights trips to third world countries. 50
These grand narratives are out of the scope of this paper – a year’s worth of intensive research could investigate only a small sliver of that larger tale, and Drinan’s Congressional
Archive alone has another four-hundred-and-seventy linear feet of papers waiting to be explored.
But this small sliver is still worth examining for its own sake: for the insight that it provides into
Drinan’s character, for the manifold ways in which that knowledge can illuminate his later career, for the way in which campaign promises can reveal connections between a politician and his constituents, and for the parallels and contrasts that this story raises between Drinan’s success and American politics writ large. In short, for the many ways in which one small story can shed light on the many others that make up our complex portrait of American History.
50 Mark Feeney, “Rev. Drinan, first priest elected as voting member of Congress, dies,” Boston Globe , January 28, 2007. 106
Bibliography
Archives
DCA: Boston College, Robert F. Drinan Congressional Papers, Burns Library.
DFA: Boston College, Robert F. Drinan Faculty Papers, Burns Library.
Books and Articles
Au, The Cross, the Flag, and the Bomb: American Catholics Debate War and Peace, 1960-1983 . Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.
Curran, Charles E. American Catholic Social Ethics: Twentieth-Century Approaches . Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982.
Drinan, Robert F. Beyond the Nuclear Freeze . New York: The Seabury Press, 1983.
---. Democracy, Dissent, and Disorder: The Issues and the Law . New York: The Seabury Press, 1969.
---. Religion, the Courts, and Public Policy . New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1963.
---. Vietnam and Armageddon: Peace, War, and the Christian Conscience . New York: Sheed and Ward, 1970.
Fisher, James Terrence. “The Vietnam War and American Catholics.” In The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History . Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997, 1435-8.
Flamm, Michael W. Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s . New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
The Gallup Poll . New York: Random House, 1972.
The Harris Survey Yearbook of Public Opinion . New York: Louis Harris and Associates, 1971.
Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History . New York: Penguin Books, 1983.
Krause, Patricia A., ed. Anatomy of an Undeclared War: Congressional Conference on the Pentagon Papers . New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1972.
Meconis, Charles A. With Clumsy Grace: The American Catholic Left, 1961-1975 . New York: The Seabury Press, 1979.
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McNeal, Patricia. Harder Than War: Catholic Peacemaking in Twentieth-Century America . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Perlstein, Rick. “Who Owns the Sixties?: The Opening of a Scholarly Generation Gap.” LinguaFranca 6, no. 4 (May 1996), 234-46.
Quigley, Thomas E., ed. American Catholics and Vietnam . Grand Rapids, MI: Willian B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968.
Rossinow, Doug. “Mario Savio and the Politics of Authenticity.” In The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s , edited by Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnick. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
---. The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America . New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
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The Nation
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Time
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U.S. News & World Report
The Wall Street Journal
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