Pat McCarran's once-booming voice came in whistles and wheezes as he pleaded for unity in the Nevada Democratic Party he himself had split and splintered. He finished his speech, stepped down from the stage of the City Hall auditorium in Hawthorne (pop. 1,861), and threaded his way through the miners, gamblers, shopkeepers and housewives who were his faithful followers. As he stopped for a moment to listen to a constituent's problem, he was still a picture-book Senator: generous girth, flashing blue eyes, and silver hair curling down around his collar. Then his knees buckled,...
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