Warren G. Magnuson and the shaping of twentieth-century America

Warren G. Magnuson served as U.S. senator from the state of Washington for six terms. The sheer sweep of his accomplishments is astonishing: authoring the 1964 Civil Rights Act, protecting Puget Sound, saving Boeing for Seattle, championing consumer protection legislation, reorganizing the railroads, and godfathering the electrification of the Pacific Northwest by pressing for Columbia and Snake River dams. He pushed for federal aid to education, kept Pentagon budgets down, and established the National Institutes of Health while arguing throughout the McCarthy era against U.S. isolation from China. He was also a whiskey-and-poker companion to Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.