Clark MacGregor (July 12, 1922 – February 10, 2003) was an American politician and Republican U.S. Representative from

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

's 3rd Congressional District for five terms from 1961 to 1971. After his time in Congress, he worked as a senior assistant to President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

, including as chairman of the president’s successful 1972 re-election campaign.

Life and career

MacGregor was born in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

, and graduated cum laude from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

in 1944 and the University of Minnesota Law School in 1946. In 1949, he married Barbara Spicer; they had three daughters. Clark and Barbara were married until his death.

Congress

He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1960, defeating six-term Democratic incumbent Roy Wier, and served in the 87th, 88th, 89th, 90th, and 91st congresses, January 3, 1961 – January 3, 1971. In 1963, MacGregor appeared in a satirical revue by Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop. He was a delegate to the 1964 and 1968 Republican National Convention from Minnesota. He was an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1970, losing to former Democratic Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Initially expecting to run against the incumbent senator, Eugene McCarthy, MacGregor later said privately that he would not have entered the race had he known he would be running against Humphrey. MacGregor voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964,and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Nixon White House

MacGregor was Assistant to

for congressional relations in 1970, Counsel to the President on congressional relations (1971–1972), Chairman of the

Committee to Re-elect the President A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

(July to November 1972) following John Mitchell's resignation from the position in the Watergate political scandal. In October 1972, as the reporting of

Bob Woodward Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist. He started working for ''The Washington Post'' as a reporter in 1971 and now holds the honorific title of associate editor though the Post no longer employs ...

and Carl Bernstein began to piece together the extent of the spying and sabotage program of the Nixon campaign, MacGregor in a press conference attacked ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' for allegedly "Using innuendo, third-person hearsay, unsubstantiated charges, anonymous sources, and huge scare headlines ... maliciously ... to give the appearance of a direct connection between the White House and the Watergate -- a charge the ''Post'' knows -- and a half dozen investigations have found -- to be false."

Later career and death

After 1973, he left politics. He continued to live in Washington, D.C., worked for

United Technologies Corporation United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational corporation, multinational list of conglomerates, conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous are ...

, and was on the boards of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Wolf Trap Foundation. During a vacation in

Pompano Beach, Florida Pompano Beach ( ) is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. It is located along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, just north of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Fort Lauderdale and 36 miles north of Miami. The nearby Hillsboro Inlet forms part ...

in 2003, MacGregor died from respiratory failure.

References

External links

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Macgregor, Clark 1922 births 2003 deaths Dartmouth College alumni Members of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota University of Minnesota Law School alumni 20th-century members of the United States House of Representatives