What Scoop Jackson knew...

Missile Defense
33 Minutes

By: James Carafano
Examiner Columnist

There may never be another Scoop. Once upon a time Washington had many leaders who put national security before their politics. Henry “Scoop” Jackson stood at the top of the class.

Serving in the Senate from 1953 to his death 30 years later, no one worked harder than the Democrat from Washington State to provide for the common defense. “His core convictions about foreign policy and national security affairs derived largely from the lessons of World War II,” wrote biographer Robert G. Kaufman, “the folly of isolationism and appeasement, the importance of democracies remaining militarily strong and standing against totalitarianism, and the need for the United States to accept and sustain its pivotal role as a world power.”

These convictions often brought Jackson into conflict with other leaders of his own party. He bucked President Johnson, for example, to become one of the earliest congressional advocates of building missile defenses.

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