H. Stuart Hughes - Acclaim and Activism

Acclaim and Activism

While in California, Hughes was published at a level sufficient to encourage Harvard to recall him, which it did in 1957. During this second stay at Harvard, Hughes became involved with SANE (then the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, now Peace Action). Early in this period, he also engaged in a series of debates with a young Harvard professor of government, Henry Kissinger. In 1962, Hughes filed as an independent candidate for the final two years of the unexpired U.S. Senate term of President John F. Kennedy. Major-party candidates included Democratic Party members Edward M. Kennedy, the President's youngest brother, and Eddie McCormack, nephew of the Speaker of the House, and Republican George C. Lodge. Hughes collected well over the 72,000 signatures then required under Massachusetts law to be placed on the ballot as an independent candidate; the September Democratic primary eliminated McCormick from further contention.

For most of the campaign, Hughes was taken seriously, even engaging in two televised debates with Lodge. (Kennedy, by now an overwhelming favorite, declined to participate.) Any chance, however slim, that Hughes might have had to win the election or even receive widespread support was destroyed in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, only weeks before the election, in which the President and his other brother, Bobby, took the nation "to the brink" of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. A pro-nuclear disarmament candidate suddenly seemed unrealistic and out of touch; Hughes received less than two per cent of the vote and far fewer votes than he previously had signatures. ("Ted" Kennedy won the election resoundingly and served in the seat until his death in 2009.)