It was a humid midsummer night in Washington. The city slept as best it could. On Capitol Hill, the great dome glowed above an empty plaza. But in its nearly empty chamber, the U.S. Senate was still in session—of a sort. Rhode Island's Democratic Senator Claiborne Pell, acting as presiding officer, nodded in the chair; Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey and Republican Whip Tom Kuchel slumped at their desks, staring trancelike at nothing. And from his back-row desk, Wisconsin's Democratic Senator William Proxmire talked and talked and talked, pausing only to sip butterscotch-flavored Metrecal.
Bill Proxmire talked all night long and until lunchtime...
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