It was a time of violence and mass protest, political turmoil and social upheaval, fear of enemy nations and widespread distrust in government. It was a time of fear, and a time of change. It was the 1960s.
This climate coincided with the prolific career of Gale McGee, a University of Wyoming professor and United States Senator, the last Democrat elected to the Senate by Wyoming. McGee is the subject of new book “The Man in the Arena: The Life and Times of U.S. Senator Gale McGee,” by Roger McDaniel, who spoke on campus Tuesday to an auditorium packed with students and the snowy-haired alike.
“He was an extraordinary person in Wyoming history and an extraordinary person to this university,” said McDaniel told the crowd.
McDaniel, an attorney and pastor who served in the state government, wanted to write about McGee to place the national and international issues of the ‘60s into a Wyoming context. He also wanted to trace McGee’s career to explain why, in a state that had elected at least one Democrat to the Senate every term since its founding, McGee was the last.
Born and raised a Republican in Nebraska, McGee came to Wyoming in 1946. He taught in UW’s Department of History for 12 years, where he became a “beloved” professor whose classes filled to capacity every semester.
He wasn’t without his critics, however. Several of the university’s Trustees were convinced he was a socialist, or even a communist, teaching students subversive ideas. In the era of the Red Scare, widespread fear of the Soviet Union and communism, it was a dangerous accusation.
“It really was a witch hunt,” McDaniel said, “unlike some investigations.”
When McGee refused to let the Trustees “purge” the library of subversive content, they sent students to spy on his classes and report back on what equally subversive content, they thought, he was filling the heads of students with. The spies returned to report only that they had thoroughly enjoyed his lectures.
In 1956, McGee traveled behind the Iron Curtain and toured the Soviet Union, the first non-politician to do so, seeking to understand its people and its culture. He returned to Wyoming and shared that understanding in talks around the state.
Equipped with this experience and his knowledge of history, McGee ran for a Senate seat in 1958 on a platform of youth and new ideas and was elected by a margin of over 1,900 votes, a victory the Republican Party thought was “a fluke.” He would be reelected twice. He was “a Kennedy kind of liberal,” McDaniel said, liberal on many social issues but staunchly anti-Soviet, and this combined with his expertise in international affairs hardly made his election surprising.
As one of a wave of Democrats elected to the Senate that year, McGee had a hand in seminal legislation in civil rights, environmental protection and foreign policy. And yet his views were often moderate, based on and reshaped by the constant learning.
In one instance, McGee voted not to change filibuster rules to help pass civil rights legislation, a move that earned him ire from the political left, but he later became “a civil rights champion.”
“He was always willing to learn,” McDaniel said. “He took a position but always took in more information.”
A firm isolationist who thought U.S. had no place in the affairs of other countries, he grew to an internationalist after his trip behind the Iron Curtain. Though he thought China was the single greatest threat faced by the U.S. and the world, he was part of the first delegation of politicians to travel to the country after Nixon reopened U.S.-China relations.
He also broke from the left with his continued support of the Vietnam War. And yet, when asked by President Johnson to leak to the press the FBI’s unfounded suspicion that Moscow was involved in American students’ anti-war protests, he refused. A week later he spoke on a university campus defending academic liberty and the free speech of protesters, even if he disagreed with what they were saying.
McGee’s respect for opposing political views was not always returned. He drew particularly vehement backlash from the conservative John Birch Society. While speaking at UW, several members of the group threatened him with physical violence, “treatment not unlike what we see today,” McDaniel said. University football players escorted him out the door in flying wedge formation.
How would McGee react to today’s political climate?
“He would be aghast at the current polarization,” McDaniel told the room. “As much as anybody, he worked across the aisle and spoke out to encourage his colleagues to do the same.”
McGee’s downfall was failing to recognize a fundamental shift in how his constituents viewed government and its role in their lives.
McGee, his biographer said, “genuinely believed government could help people. He believed in the ability of government to solve problems.” Medicare, Medicaid, the Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Air Act and other legislation McGee had supported had benefited Wyomingites, McDaniel said, but they became suspicious of a government of that size and reach. Wyomingites’ support for the Vietnam War was also beginning to erode, and with it their support for the pro-war McGee, as their sons and brothers were drafted.
Failing to recognize these shifts in opinion, McDaniel said, “Gale McGee and his campaign were driving down the highway in the dark in the wrong lane without headlights.” He lost his 1976 bid for a fourth term.
Despite the defeat, McGee left his mark on the University, his state and his country. His legacy is a testament to the power of knowledge, bipartisan cooperation and a well-rounded understanding of the world.
