Pete McCloskey, the Republican who tried to oust Nixon, has died at the age of 96
As an anti-war congressman from California, he defeated Shirley Temple Black in a special election and then became a contender for the 1972 G.O.P. nomination.
Pete McCloskey, the California congressman who raised the flag of rebellion against President Richard M. Nixon's Vietnam War policy during a spirited but futile race for the Republican presidential nomination in 1972, died Wednesday at his home in Winters, California, west of Sacramento. He was 96 years old.
His death was announced Wednesday by family spokesman Lee Houskeeper.
Mr. McCloskey, who represented a district south of San Francisco for 15 years, from late 1967 to early 1983, was a liberal Republican, admired President John F. Kennedy, voted for environmental projects with Democrats and believed the Republican Party had veered too far to the right.
In July 1971, when the nation was divided over the war and Nixon had every chance of re-election, the 43-year-old Korean War hero and two-term congressman known for defeating Shirley Temple Black in a special election began his quixotic search for the Republican Party nominee.
He had no money, no party support, and no real prospects. But he had been to Vietnam three times, and during campaign speeches he vividly portrayed the "cruelty and futility" of the war, as he put it, talking about cluster bombs that killed or maimed everyone within a 25-acre radius and napalm strikes that incinerated everyone within 150 feet at 2,000 degrees. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese and Americans were dying in a war that could not be won, he argued.
"To talk, as the president is doing, about winding down the war while he expands the use of air power is deliberate deception", Mr. McCloskey said. "I'll probably be licked, but I can't stay silent".
It has been compared to the 1968 anti-war campaign of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, whose success in the New Hampshire primary contributed to President Lyndon B. Johnson's withdrawal from the race. Johnson out of the race. But Mr. McCloskey scored only 20 percent in New Hampshire and surrendered, although his name appeared on ballots in other states. Nixon won the presidency by defeating Senator George McGovern, then resigned in disgrace in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal.