AMERICAN OPINION Essay on Character: LAWRENCE PATTON McDONALD (19 35-i983) he following is based on whe n a ll men dou bt yo u ," extensive first -person in­ hauntingly appropriate. T terviews with Congress­ "But the mourners who as­ man Lawrence Patton Me­ sembled at Constitution Hall to Donald's family, friends, and honor McDonald were never congress ional staff, and on first­ among his doubters," Mr. Dart hand interviews by the author wrote. "[His doubtersI were lib­ with the Georgia Democrat dur­ eral s who dismissed his arch­ ing his nin e years in Congress. conservative and anti-Commu­ Origina lly intended as an ap­ nist views as anachro nisms pendix to the book, Day of the from the Cold War . The mour­ Cobra, the essay was omitted ners came as America's conser­ from the Thomas Nelson work vative phalanx, 3,700 strong , because of its length . It is pre­ filling the historic hall on a hot sented here on the occasion of the autumn afternoon to remember second anniversary of the KAL one of their own. To this gath­ 007 mid-air mas sacre and offers ering, Larry McDonald , the an assessment of the forces and Georgia congressman who was influences that -shaped Con ­ ----- killed along with 268 other per­ gressman McDonald's chara cter sons on a Korean jetliner, has and career. already become a martyr." Because La w rence Patt on Mr. Dart did not know that the reading of Kipling's "If' was McDonald was the first elected a commentary on Congress man official in American history to be murdered by a foreign power - one he he came to hold his views can only be McDonald's character and chi ldhood. had sp ent his entire career warning grasped by understanding the elements From the time he was a small boy grow­ against - he now occupies a uniqueplace that comprised his character. For char­ ing up in Atlanta, the framed poem was in American history. While he is remem ­ acter, in the final analysis, is the sum the sole item that hun g on the walls in bered for his uncompromising opposition total ofwhat we are, as opposed to what the bedroom he shared with his older to totalitarian Communism,how and why we may believe ourselves to be. brother, Harold. On September 12, 1983, the Atlanta "No one ever said a thing about it," J effrey St. John is the editor of The New Constitution's Wash ingto n corres pon­ recalled Dr. Harold McDonald, Jr. "We American and the author of Day of the dent Bob Dart chose as the lead para­ just grew up looking at it." Cobra, an examination of the Soviet de­ grap h for his story on the memorial The mother of the boys, Mrs. Harold struction of Korean Ai rlines Fligh t 007. service for Congressman Lawre nce McDonald, Sr., known as "Callie," re­ He is a veteran pri nt and broadcast jou r­ McDonald (D-GA ) t he fact t hat Dr . called that she always loved Kipling's nalistlcomm entator, the author of four McDonald's favorite poem, "If," was read poem and had memorized it. Poor in ma­ other books, and the recipient oftwo Em­ to the nearly 4,000 angry mourners. Dart terial possessions but rich in matters of mys for his work in television. called one line, "If you can trust yourself the mind an d spirit, she cut the Kipling 35 TH ~ ~ NEWAMERICAN / SEPTEMBER 30, 1985 poem out of a volume of English verse nocence with entry into World War I. A About that time, her future husband, because there was not much else the fam­ family cousin, George S. Patton, Jr., was Dr. Harold McDonald, Sr., was just out ily could afford to hang in the boys' bed­ a colonel in that conflict and later, in of a Georgia medical school, and special­ room. World War II, would become one of the izing in urology. He was the son of a "You never know what influences peo­ most famous U.S. gene ral field com­ hard-working and talented Atlanta phy­ ple," she said. "I hung it in a gold frame manders in twentieth-century history. sician, Dr. Paul McDonald. A stern but in the boys' bedroom when th ey were lit­ Lawrence Patton McDonald was only highly respected physician known for his tle and just kept it there. I guess that 10 years old when General Patton was integrity and deep dedication to his call­ was th e beginning of Larry's reading it. killed in a motor vehicle accident in Ger­ ing, Dr. Paul "practiced medicine until But he always loved it. I heard him use many in 1945. Thirty years later, when he was 87 years old," his grandson Har­ part of it during his election campaigns. Larry was elected to Congress, he would old recalled. It always seemed to have meant a great keep a picture of his distant relative in Dr. Paul came from an age when the deal to him." his Washington office, perhaps as a re­ code of personal conduct held that mo­ minder that in his own lifetime real he­ rality was the respect you paid to self, Family Roots roes lived and did great things on the and manners the respect you paid to oth­ Born in 1905 in the rural hills ofGalax, stage of hi story. Patton, lik e Larry's ers. And, as his gra ndson noted, "He Virginia , Callie Patton was one of seven other heroes George Washington, Robert never took off his coat or vest until he children. Her fath er raised apples and E. Lee, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jack­ went to bed." cherries and was a general storekeeper son, was a Christian warrior who rep­ at a time when Henry Ford was still r esented t he em bod ime n t of the Depression of the '30s thinking about the Model-T auto. She authentic American hero : th e man of ac­ Callie Grace Patton married Harold grew up loving the outdoors and nature tion and of mind, possessed of eigh­ McDonald in 1928, a year before the of southwest Virginia, and she would teent h-century va lues t hat placed a great stock market crash that would pass on to her son Larry her love of both premium on loyalty, candor and fidelity plunge the nation into the depth s of the nature and literature. to religious principles that time and cir­ worst economic depression in its history. Her family moved to Atl anta from cumstances did not make unserviceable. In Georgia and Atlanta, an even deeper th eir 30-acre rural farm -general store While attending Georgia State College sta te of economic distress had persisted environment when she was 12; it was a for Women in 1925, Callie Patton ma­ from the time of th e surrender of the time when America was about to lose its jored in home economics. "So I fed the South to the North in 1865. long isolation from the world and its in- boys well," she recalled. "My husband got all of $15 a month at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., during the September 11,1983, memorial service for Rep. Lawrence P. McDonald, a victim of the KAL 007 massacre. Almost 4,000 of his supporters gathered in anger and grief. THE N EW AMERICAN / SEPTEMBER 30,1985 36 Brothers and Boyhood "He liked Fu Manchu novels," Dr. Har­ old McDonald said of his brother Larry. "Fu Manchu has for decades been the symbol for a worldwide evil conspiracy against the forces of good. Sherlock Holmes was my favorite because he used a lot of deductive reasoning. "We didn't have any money. We didn't have a car. My father was a penny­ pincher - we had a nice home, but we cut our own grass and mother did all the cooking. We had no allowance. We planted and harvested our own garden, and even did our own canning. Mother ironed every shirt. We were very middle class." The McDonald boys grew up in the ::J area of Atlanta which would be the be- :; ~ ginning of the city's suburbs later in the ~ postwar years. They were without the :Jj distraction of television, but with the ~ ur benefit of radio that stimulated an entire iO ::J generation of young Americans to use z ~ their minds to paint pictures in the imag- ~ ination. "He was a relatively non-competitive "I would call Larry McDonald a mod­ person," remembered Harold McDonald ern-day Cicero," said Thomas Toles, of his brother. "I liked to play games; he Kathryn McDonald: "I would have his press aide. "There will never be liked to collect things, nature things. We loved to have had my children have another one like him in our lifetime; lived in the country near woods,so it was the benefit of his (Larry's) influence, he was what novelist Taylor Cald­ a trade off;he'd play baseball with me if his fantastic personality and mind." well called in one of her books a 'Pil­ I'd go hunting in the woods with him to lar of Iron.' " collect bugs, snakes and other nature with the little fellow." things. Larry always had a fascination Sensitive to the suffering in God's na­ the hospital;" Mrs. McDonald would re­ with nature, particularly snakes, and be­ ture, and born into a family of physicians call, adding that, "they get quite a dif­ came quite knowledgeable and expert on who made medicine a way of life, Larry ferent sum now." the subject." Callie McDonald added that McDonald as a very small boy made up Harold Jr.