"Missouri Senator" Thomas Eagleton Signed TLS Dated 1978

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Up for auction "Missouri Senator" Thomas Eagleton Signed TLS Dated 1978.
ES-3873D
Thomas Francis Eagleton
(September 4, 1929 – March 4, 2007) was a
United States senator
from
Missouri
, serving from 1968 to 1987. He is best remembered for briefly being the
Democratic
vice presidential
nominee under
George McGovern
in
1972
. He suffered from bouts of
depression
throughout his life, resulting in several hospitalizations, which were kept secret from the public. When they were revealed, it humiliated the McGovern campaign and Eagleton was forced to quit the race. He later became adjunct professor of
public affairs
at
Washington University in St. Louis
. In 1972,
Richard Nixon
appeared unbeatable. When McGovern won the Democratic nomination for President, virtually all of the high-profile Democrats, including
Ted Kennedy
,
Walter Mondale
,
Hubert Humphrey
,
Edmund Muskie
,
[12]
and
Birch Bayh
, turned down offers to run on the ticket. McGovern had been convinced that Kennedy would join the ticket. Kennedy ended up refusing. McGovern campaign manager
Gary Hart
suggested
Boston
Mayor
Kevin White
. McGovern called White, and received "an emphatic yes", but the leader of the Massachusetts delegation,
Ken Galbraith
, said the Massachusetts delegation would walk out if the announcement was made to the Convention that McGovern had chosen White as his vice-presidential candidate, as White had backed Muskie during the Massachusetts primary. Massachusetts ended up being the only state (along with the District of Columbia) that McGovern would carry in the
Electoral College
on election day. McGovern then asked
Abe Ribicoff
, who declined, and Senator
Gaylord Nelson
to be his running mate. Nelson also declined, but suggested Tom Eagleton, whom McGovern ultimately chose, with only a minimal background check. Eagleton made no mention of his earlier hospitalizations, and in fact decided with his wife to keep them secret from McGovern while he was flying to his first meeting with the presidential nominee.