Thirty years ago, I was among a group of young people carrying John McClellan’s coffin down steep steps on a windy, rainy November day. Inside the church, among others were Vice President Mondale and Senator Jacob Javits (who visibly wept that day).
Those honored to be pall bearers were mostly campaign workers from the 1972 campaign, who formed bonds which have endured to this day. Our hair was still a little long and our politics a little to the left of John McClellan, but to a man we were impressed with the Senator’s flexibility. He was reputed to have told his more conservative supporters more than once that so long as an employee worked hard, produced good work and was loyal; he was not too concerned with hair length. He died shortly after the end of the most wrenching political changes seen in America in many years. He surfed through those years by being flexible and bending slightly to the wind and going with it where he thought it correct.
I held five different jobs under the Senator, and remember as clearly today as then the details of significant interactions with him. He was always the ultimate pragmatist, and willing to listen. Since it was my job to advise him on issues, his willingness to listen was crucial to my sense of worth. Yet it was a rare event for me to know how he was going to vote in advance, as he did not tell me. Indeed he regularly kept his powder dry till the vote was imminent. Early on it occurred to me that I was paid to provide him information and advice. I would be well advised not to focus on whether he took the advice. To illustrate, when I became his Legislative Assistant (my third position) he asked me for a memo commenting on a Judiciary Subcommittee report dealing with the communist threat to our country. My memo advised that the rhetoric in the report would not sell, as it was of the Joe McCarthy era and dealt with a threat that was unfamiliar to the present generation. I advised that if the goal was to combat Communist Russia, it would be better to use the then current literature being written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The liberals in the United States were very high on him, and his indictment of Communist Russia was based on his personal experiences in the country. Interestingly the Senator never commented on my memo and we never discussed communism. I always assumed I passed what had been a test.
On another occasion, there was a very significant vote on overriding a Nixon veto. I had uncharacteristically urged him more than once to vote to uphold the veto. He never gave any indication how he would vote. Both the president and Senator Jennings Randolph, who managed the legislation, were encouraging him to support them. On the day of the vote, in an unique incident for him, he approached Senator Herman Talmadge and had a brief conversation. The two of them then split up and began to “work the floor” in an effort to persuade other Senators to vote with them. The veto was easily sustained, which was a significant movement toward fiscal responsibility. I was delighted. Did my efforts make a difference? I never knew or cared. It was a privilege to have the opportunity to have the input.
Our relationship was based on work. John McClellan was truly a working man with a backbreaking load. His personal experiences were such that he sought and found solace in work. Except for campaign years, his focus was never on the media and his treatment therein. He believed that his work product would speak for itself, and it does. But even monumental work is aided by one who analyzes the work and lays it out for others to view. Sherry Laymon has done that admirably for McClellan’s work. Well as I knew him, my understanding of him has been greatly extended by reading the text.
When I determined to leave Washington and return to the Arkansas we both loved, many told me not to give him too much notice, as he would react unfavorably and not give me meaningful assignments. I thought that was bad advice as I knew he would pragmatically follow the course that would be the most productive for both of us. I gave him a year’s notice of leaving, and worked hard on meaningful assignments through my last day. The work ethic, dedication to duty and methods of formulating judgments and acting accordingly I learned from him have greatly enhanced both my productivity and my satisfaction with life. I could ask no more, and indeed never have.
Emon A. Mahony, Jr.
El Dorado, Arkansas
2009
Sherry Laymon, Author 