The Indomitable Senator Returns

The damask-hung walls of the Senate chamber reverberated with the longest, most heartfelt outpouring of affection and admiration that anyone could remember. Hubert Humphrey had returned to the place he loves "with blind devotion." Eleven weeks after doctors discovered that his pelvic cancer had spread and was beyond surgery, the "Happy Warrior" of the Democratic Party was back at the desk he has occupied for 21 years. TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angela reports:

The standing ovation from his colleagues and from the overflowing galleries continued while Hubert Humphrey moved vigorously around the chamber, greeting friends, among them a number of onetime adversaries, with handshakes and bear hugs. There were warm reunions with Bob Byrd, who beat him out for the post of majority leader only last January; Ted Kennedy, who fought him on behalf of his brothers; Strom Thurmond, who led segregationists in a protest at the 1948 Democratic Convention after upstart Humphrey, a mere 37 and mayor of Minneapolis, issued a clarion call for civil rights. "The greatest gift of life is friendship," Humphrey declared, "and I have received it."

Byrd spoke for all when he said, "Nothing that life has dealt him has ever dimmed his optimism or quenched his unquenchable spirit." Even in his present struggle, Humphrey seemed buoyant; his cheeks were sunken, but his famous smile was bigger than ever; gaunt shoulders, even though they failed to fill his tweed jacket, were defiantly straight.

"I am old enough and sufficiently wise to know that all you have said is not exactly according to facts," he said as he rose and responded to the tributes, "but I am sufficiently fragile and weak as to want to believe every single word you have said." His voice at times wavering with emotion, he launched into the new agenda he has set for himself--to restore harmony in the Senate, to rebuild trust in Government. At the end of his 15-minute speech, he apologized facetiously. "Well, I got wound up. I did not intend to be that long--but that has been the story of my life."

His jokes did little to dry the eyes in his audience. CBS's Roger Mudd, who has covered Humphrey through many of his ups and downs, had to start over three times before he could deliver his report for the evening news without choking up; New York Times Photographer George Tames, who has focused on Humphrey for 20 years, found the image blurred by tears.

Some had said Humphrey would never return to Washington, but he came back in style. Walter Mondale, who was Humphrey's protege long before he ever heard of Jimmy Carter, suggested that the President stop off on his way back to Washington from a fund-raising dinner in California to pick up Humphrey and his wife Muriel in Minneapolis. Joshed Humphrey: "I waited, because I am a frugal man, until I could get a free ride. For at least 20 years I have been trying to get on Air Force One. Just the thought of it, the vibrations, gave me new hope and new strength."

Aboard the plane that is a symbol of the presidency he yearned for, Humphrey watched as the man who had foreclosed his last chance for the White House paid him a signal honor. In an unusual airborne ceremony, Carter signed a bill naming the new Health, Education and Welfare headquarters on Constitution Avenue the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, and gave Humphrey the pen, another to add to a collection of more than 200 such legislative mementos from six Presidents. Humphrey has forgiven--if not forgotten --Carter's cruel reference to him as "a has-been" during last year's campaign. This year Jimmy Carter, the newcomer and outsider, has his troubles with Congress and needs Hubert Humphrey, the ultimate oldtimer and insider, and the senior Senator from Minnesota is there, as he was for Jack Kennedy after their bruising battle in 1960. "I want to help [Carter]. I like him; I have confidence in him," Humphrey says. "I'd like to be his antenna up here. I want nothing--I'd like to give a lot." He started by defending Carter's record and reminding critics that big programs take a long time: "I waited 15 years for a civil rights bill."

The President, for his part, has learned that this singular Senator who has been at the heart of politics for 30 years is a sage counselor. "He has been our best friend in the Congress," says Presidential Assistant Hamilton Jordan.

Another round of chemotherapy is scheduled for this week, but Humphrey hopes just being in Washington will be part of his treatment. "The therapy of the excitement of being back on my job --there's no substitute for it," he exulted, as he settled into the big leather chair in his Senate office. "I've got to have absolute faith that I can win my own battle. Doctors can't do it for me. I've got to believe in my own heart that I can win it." Erstwhile Pharmacist Humphrey's prescription for himself: "The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love."

Washington will give it to him. In his Potomac condominium, neighbors unfurled a banner proclaiming HAPPINESS IS HAVING THE HUMPHREYS HOME. On Capitol Hill, he stepped into a horde of photographers. "Where were you guys in 1968?" he groused good-naturedly. "I could have used you then." Outside his office, a bystander pushed forward: young, long-haired, wearing blue jeans, the kind of kid who used to hurl antiwar insults at Humphrey in the bitter 1968 campaign. But Clinton Sterling, 19, had come from Baldwin, N.Y., to say one thing to Hubert Humphrey: "Senator, you are a good man." Those close to Humphrey are determined not to be long-faced--that would be unfair in view of his courage. When someone praised Muriel for her cheerful smile, she said, "We've been through our tears."

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