Eugene McCarthy
who served his nation long and well, an honorable man who contributed greatly to ending the war in Vietnam, died yesterday at the age of 89. The Times explains thusly:

Mr. McCarthy, a man of needling wit, triggered one of the most tumultuous years in American political history. With the war taking scores of thousands of American and Vietnamese lives, he rallied throngs against this "costly exercise in futility" and stoked a fiery national debate over the World War II model of an all-powerful presidency. He challenged Johnson in a primary, and the president, facing almost certain defeat, ended up withdrawing from the race.