McCarthy Peace

Opposition to the policies of President Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973) in Vietnam sparked an opposition run by for his party's presidential nomination by Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy (1916- ) based on a peace platform. The McCarthy campaign's successes in early primaries quickly forced Johnson to withdraw from the primary campaigns and announce that he would not seek re-election. Shahn's poster draws upon the dove as an international symbol of peace while at the same time the dove is not staid but active in Shahn's drawing.