Henry M. Jackson (1912-1983) came from a working class Scandinavian background and was elected to the House of Representatives for his native Washington State in 1940. He was an ardent New Dealer, trade unionist, supporter of the early civil rights movement and environmentalist. He was centrally involved in such measures as the Land and Conservation Act, the Wilderness Act, the National Seashore Bills and much else. He was the scourge of corporate interests, particularly power and oil companies, who objected to his enthusiasm for nationalisation and price controls.
Jackson started out during the Second World War as something of an isolationist and voted against initial plans to help Great Britain through the Lend-Lease programme. Very soon, however, the course of events caused him to change his mind; and Jackson remained a protagonist of US international engagement and the application of US power until the end of his life. During the war he was an enthusiastic supporter – along with many other liberals, such as the later Chief Justice Warren – of the internment of the Japanese; this was perhaps his greatest misjudgement. By contrast, in the 1950s he was a critic of the red-baiter Senator McCarthy and his methods, which he felt gave the noble cause of anti-Communism a bad name.
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