Thomas Eagleton has become a figure in history, the martyr of election "72, and while publicly he is wearing such a title with dignity and strength, it was obvious that the events of the last two months had had a profound effect on the character the junior Senator from Missouri. When he was asked how his recent vacation had been, he repiled, "Fine, Now let's get going."

Eagleton propped his feet up on his desk and took a sip of ice coffee. An imposing picture of his father, the late Mark D. Eagleton, cast an imposing eye upon the Senator as he spoke of his youth and ventual career in politics.

"My father was largely responsible for my intereal on politics, although he did not have a preconceived design to thrust me into a political career. I suppose you could say that I was written by the bug at a very early age Between my father's activities' as a member of the St. Louis Board of Education and his position in Republican politics, I had an early introduction to politics. He took me to board meetings from the time I was eight and to the Republican convention when I was 11. Although I was young and didn't always know what was going on the flavor was tantalizing. I liked the challenge--the combatancy and the competitiveness exited me."

Eagleton graduate from Amherst College in 1950 and entered Harvard Law School later that year. He recalled that though he was a strong supporter of Stevenson in 1952. Stevenson's supporters were unstructured and disorganized, yet loyal and enthusiastic. There was no organized activity per se, so I can't say that I took any active political role at Harvard."

Eagleton noted that in 1956, when he ran for circuit attorney of St. Louis at the age of 27, his father's initial reaction was negative.

"As a matter of fact my father tried to discourage me from running and he felt that I should try and establish myself as an attorney first and save politics for later. Anyway I entered the race and was the youngest man ever elected to that office.

He went on to become the youngest Attorney General in Missoun's history in 1960 and the youngest lieu tenant governor in 1964, a race he won by more than half a million votes.

Missouri politics is know for its tenacious and often dirty political campaigns and Eagleton admitted that he had to downplay his Amherst Harvard background during his early campaign. Most of Missuri's politicians are educated in state and I can recall several me occasions where opponents tried to criticize me for my Eastern Establishment academic credentials. While Amherst and Harvard are excellent academic institutions within their own spheres, my schooling was used as ammunition against me, and although I can't say it hurt me, I can't say my New England education helped me with the voters of Missouri.

Eagleton won the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in 1968, running against the incumbent. Edward B. Long, and True Daeis, ambassador to Switzerland in the Kennedy Administration. He won the November election by a 30,000 vote margin while the national Democratic ticket lost the state by 30,000 votes.

Since entering the Senate in 1969, Eagleton has generally taken traditional liberal Democratic positions on issues, voting for end the war legislation and extension of civil rights laws.

In Many of 1969 Eagleton introduced controversial measure designed to permit college and university officials to see injunctive relief in Federal court "whenever force or the threat of force" is used to disrupt "only a spokesman for the Administration," he expressed his belief that his creativity and power to affect change, which had brought about far-reaching social legislation throughout his years in the Senate, were stifled in the Vice-Presidency.

"Obviously, my campaign suffered from all this too. Also, I truly believe that I was hurt by the press." "Humphrey seemed disdainful of newsmen, and calls them "newsies", "In September, when I drew 20,000 in Seattle and then 50,000 in Philadelphia, in both cases, the cameras weren't on me or the crowd; they were on the 50 or so demonstrators trying to break up the meeting."

While generally known as a spokesman for the "old guard" of the Democratic Party, Humphrey acknowledged that the party was in a "distorted form" throughout the sixties. The Minnesota Senator, who became a strong advocate of party reform following his loss to Richard Nixon, and who helped found the McGovern Commission in 1969, stated his qualified support for the Commission's guidelines.

He recognized that there were practices in effect over the past years sometimes prevented" large numbers of young people inorities, and women from taking and active role in the Party.

"The changes that we made from '69 to '72 were based on the theory that you must go on out and bring people into the Party, and the only way to do this was to set quotas. Now I generally don't like quotas; I think they're undemocratic. I think they tend to build more friction than harmony over the long period of time. But, even though I don't think we should have quotas next time, I think the price we paid was worth it, and, in the long run, we'll have a better political party."