Thomas J. McIntyre

Thomas James McIntyre (February 20, 1915 – August 8, 1992) was a U.S. senator from New Hampshire, and a member of the Democratic Party.

Born in Laconia, New Hampshire, he attended the public and parochial schools of Laconia; he graduated from Manlius Military School in Manlius, New York, in 1933, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1937, and Boston University Law School in 1940; admitted to practice law before the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 1940.

McIntyre served in the United States Army 1942–1946 and was discharged as a major.

He was Mayor of Laconia, New Hampshire from 1949 to 1951 and city solicitor in 1953.

Unsuccessful candidate for 84th Congress in 1954; he was elected in a special election on November 6, 1962, as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the unexpired term of Henry Styles Bridges ending January 3, 1967; reelected in 1966 for the full six-year term, and again in 1972 and served from November 7, 1962, until January 3, 1979. He is the only Democrat to represent New Hampshire in the Senate for more than one term since the people gained the right to elect Senators in 1916.

McIntyre ran for reelection in 1978, but narrowly lost to Republican Gordon Humphrey, who took advantage of a nationwide conservative movement and McIntyre's tendency to spend more time in Florida than in the state he represented in the Senate. Recognizing in his defeat the rising power of the New Right, he published The Fear Brokers, in 1979, co-authored with John C. Obert. In his book, McIntyre described the forces and personalities of the New Right across the nation, focusing particularly on the struggle in his home state.^[1]

He was a resident of Laconia, New Hampshire and Tequesta, Florida, until his death in Palm Beach, Florida on August 8, 1992; interment in St. Lambert Cemetery in Laconia.

References

• Thomas J. McIntyre at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress