Former US vice presidential candidate Eagleton dead at 77

McGovern's former running mate passes on...

05 March 2007 : Former US senator Thomas Eagleton, who was dropped as George McGovern's presidential running mate in 1972 after he admitted having undergone shock treatment for depression, died Sunday at age 77, his family said.

Eagleton, in declining health for several years, died at St. Mary's Health Center in Richmond Heights, Missouri, the state he presented in the US Senate for 18 years until 1986, his family said in a statement through the law firm Thompson Coburn LLP. "The cause of death was a combination of heart, respiratory and other problems that overwhelmed his weakened system," the statement said.

Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern picked him as his running mate for the 1972 election against Richard M. Nixon, with the Democrats campaigning strongly on an anti-Vietnam war platform. But Eagleton was forced to step down after it was disclosed that he had undergone psychiatric shock treatments for depression during the 1960s.

Just days after saying he supported Eagleton "1,000 percent," McGovern replaced him with Sargent Shriver. The shift was thought to show McGovern as weak, and to contribute eventually to the Democrats being routed by Nixon's Republican ticket. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sept. 4, 1929, Eagleton had an early passion for politics. "The way other kids wanted to be farmers or firemen or cowboys, I wanted to be a politician," he once said.

MORE