(6 of 10)
Javits kept his constituents happy by faithfully representing their views. He voted against Taft-Hartley and the House Un-American Activities Committee, became an eloquent defender of the European Recovery Program. Though he sided with the G.O.P. about 62% of the time during his freshman term, he voted with the Democrats on most key issues. In the next Congress, his record of party regularity dipped to 27% .
First Since Coolidge. After his smashing 1952 victory, Javits decided that it was time to move up. He put himself forward for the 1953 mayoral race, was rudely slapped down by the G.O.P.
powers. But the next year, against F.D.R. Jr., he racked up the biggest overall vote (2,590,631) in the entire U.S. Beating Mayor Wagner for the Senate in 1956, Javits won by 458,774 votes, but lost New York City by 442,278. He never let that happen again.
Up for re-election in 1962, Javits was opposed by James B. Donovan, the Kennedy candidate who had made the headlines as chief negotiator of the deal by which Fidel Castro traded 9,700 Bay of Pigs prisoners for $53 million in drugs and foods. Javits won by 980,000 votes—again, he was the biggest winner anywhere in the U.S.—and became the first Republican since Calvin Coolidge to carry New York City.
Stakhanovite Squirrel. The Manhattan liberal and the Vermont Tory have almost nothing else in common. Nor is Javits exactly a spiritual heir of the late Senator whose office he now occupies. Suite 326 of the Old Senate Office Building used to be Robert A. Taft's lair, but its new appointments scarcely reflect the tastes of the man who was known as "Mr. Republican." Busts of John F. Kennedy and Albert Einstein adorn the current occupant's office. So does a Larry Rivers impressionistic landscape of Manhattan's Second Avenue, a scene so remote from the pastoral America of Taft that it might as well be a moonscape.
As a legislator, Javits resembles a Stakhanovite squirrel. He is a member of five committees and, at latest count, 19 subcommittees, and the chances are that he knows more about what is going on in each of them than any other member, including the chairman. Michigan's Romney refers to him as "the busiest man in the Senate," and the label fits. Much of his time goes into what he calls "our unseen work": the unheralded, rarely acknowledged chore of shepherding a bill through subcommittee, committee, and finally the full chamber.
Though no law bears his name, Javits' legal experience and debating skill have left their imprint on countless bills, including such landmark legislation as Medicare (he offered an amendment covering those without Social Security) and the 1965 Voting Rights Act (he and Bobby Kennedy got through an amendment that emancipated New York's Puerto Rican population by waiving literacy requirements in English for Spanish-speaking Americans who have attended U.S.-flag schools). Javits makes no obeisance to the titular authors of the laws he has helped to shape and enact. "I really pulled that one off," he says, or "I did an excellent thing setting that up."