Humphrey, Hubert H

Humphrey, Hubert H(oratio)

(born May 27, 1911, Wallace, S.D., U.S.—died Jan. 13, 1978, Waverly, Minn.) U.S. politician. He worked as a pharmacist and a teacher before becoming Minnesota campaign manager for Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. During this period he was instrumental in merging the state's Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties. His public career began when he was elected mayor of Minneapolis (1945–48). In the U.S. Senate (1949–64), he proved to be a skilled parliamentary leader who helped forge bipartisan support for the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (1963) and the Civil Rights Act (1964). As vice president under Lyndon B. Johnson (1965–69), he was vilified by left-wing opponents for his defense of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. He won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 but narrowly lost the election to Richard Nixon. He served again in the Senate from 1971 to 1978.