Mike Gravel, former US senator for Alaska, dies at 91

[brooklynite]

Source: WKYT

SEASIDE, Calif. (AP) — Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska who read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record and confronted Barack Obama about nuclear weapons during a later presidential run, has died. He was 91.

Gravel, who represented Alaska as a Democrat in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, died Saturday, according to his daughter, Lynne Mosier. Gravel had been living in Seaside, California, and was in failing health, said Theodore W. Johnson, a former aide.

Gravel’s two terms came during tumultuous years for Alaska when construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was authorized and when Congress was deciding how to settle Alaska Native land claims and whether to classify enormous amounts of federal land as parks, preserves and monuments.

He had the unenviable position of being an Alaska Democrat when some residents were burning President Jimmy Carter in effigy for his measures to place large sections of public lands in the state under protection from development.

Read more: https://www.wkyt.com/2021/06/27/mike-gravel-former-us-senator-alaska-dies-91/

[Music Man]

1. RIP, Sen. Gravel.

One of the good ones.

[hlthe2b]

2. He was a bit of a weird duck in later life, but forever respected for his reading Pentagon Papers

into the Congressional Record, thereby making them public--the only legal way they could.

RIP, sir.

[blm]

3. 🕯

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Wow

Didn't realize how old he was... and he did attempt a 2020 run for President. R.I.P.

[SarcasticSatyr]

5. Rest in peace Mr. Gravel ...

...

[CanonRay]

6. Imagine Alaska today electing a guy like this

or Idaho electing a Frank Church. Boggles the mind how far down the sitter we've gone.

[peppertree]

10. +1

[jmowreader]

12. "Imagine Idaho electing a Frank Church."

I'll go one better: Imagine Idaho electing a Steve Symms, the senator who unseated Frank Church. The guy was a total wackjob - one of his greatest hits was spreading a rumor he made up that Kitty Dukakis was a flag burner - but compared to the loons currently existing in the Senate Republican Caucus, he was completely sane.

[BradAllison]

16. Symms

According to Salon magazine, during Symms' time in Washington, he "gained something of a sexual legend over his eight years in the House that grew larger once he was in the Senate; it was widely known among reporters that he was a big-time D.C. party animal and could be seen most evenings in the company of a woman other than his wife, Fran. She in fact was a kind, sweet woman who suffered terribly from arthritis and couldn't socialize much. Most of the state's political reporters knew about the situation but figured it was no one's business unless Symms made it an issue. However, when Fran finally had enough and divorced him, the emergent details of his philandering - and the ensuing shelled-out poll numbers - persuaded him to not pursue reelection in 1992."

[jmowreader]

17. You have to admit...

...that plain ol' philandering beats being arrested in Minneapolis for trying to score gay sex in an airport bathroom.

[BradAllison]

18. .....

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. May he rest in peace

[shotten99]

8. RIP, Senator.

He was an all around good guy and he'll be missed.

[Ohio Joe]

9. RIP

[PoliticAverse]

11. RIP Pentagon Papers hero. n/t

[Marthe48]

13. R.I.P. Sen. Gravel

He did good things

[Autumn]

14. He was a grat man. RIP Srnator.

[Kid Berwyn]

15. A brave man, proud to be a Democrat.

Korean War vet publicly opposed the illegal, immoral and disastrous wars on Iraq and for Big Oil.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. Guardian obituary: from spying on French communists to reading out the Pentagon Papers

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, he was the son of French-Canadian immigrants, Alphonse Gravel, a builder, and Marie (nee Bourassa), and spoke French at home in his early years. He struggled at school – Assumption prep, in Worcester – and at 18 he decided to join the Israeli army fighting in Palestine.

In New York, seeking advice on getting to Israel, he met Alexandra Tolstoy, daughter of the novelist, who was involved in helping Russian immigrants. She told him to finish school. He returned to Assumption, where an English teacher helped him cope with dyslexia and coached him to graduation.

After a year at Assumption college, and two at American International college back in Springfield, he faced the Korean war draft, and enlisted in the army. He served in Germany and in France, where his knowledge of French saw him assigned to spy on the French Communist party.
...
In Washington, Gravel established himself as a critic of the war, twice fighting extensions of the military draft, including once by filibuster. He worked against allowing nuclear testing in Alaska, but also opposed legislation to designate massive amounts of Alaskan land as national parks protected from development. As well as joining Republicans to pass the pipeline, he aligned with conservative southern Democrats to preserve the filibuster they cherished to protect “states’ rights”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/06/mike-gravel-obituary

Far more than 4 paragraphs can do justice to. And that's after editing by the paper - you can see comments by the writer, Michael Carson, here:

The piece has a few small, but I think significant cuts...and I was interested as I knew Assumption Prep well, and AIC somewhat, having grown up in that sports area (I played at AP in both football and basketball in high school.) I mentioned Gravel's enlistment in the Army specifically to note that by enlisting he was allowed to choose his area of service, and he chose intelligence. The point is made by his activities in France and Germany, which were, in effect, spying on allies, but the real significance is that he was able to read the Pentagon Papers with the necessary insider grain of salt.

There is also the argument over where exactly he got his copy of the Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg denied giving anything to Gravel; it seems likely it was Washington Post Ben Bagdikian, who like Ellsberg had worked at Rand and with whom he was friendly.

I did try to describe Alaskan politics, which is sui generis. Gravel fell afoul of the major Democrat fund-raisers, by being too much of a loose cannon, and perhaps because of rumours about his personal life. Alaska could, in those days, live with some individuality in attitudes toward government, but not to development within the state. That's where the money comes from. His voting record shows his votes against expanding National Parks in Alaska (protecting them against development) and his voting with the racist Southern Dixiecrats to preserve the filibuster. I also mentioned his first wife, Rita Martin, who worked in the office of the city manager of Anchorage, and had once been named Miss Fur Rendezvous. For some reason that seemed important.

Alaska politics is also hereditary. I mentioned he lost the Democratic Senate primary to Ernest Gruening's grandson, but what was cut was that this divisiveness meant the Senate seat was actually run by the Republican Frank Murkowski, whose daughter Lisa is currently a Senator for Alaska having won her father's seat after he faced corruption charges.

http://irresistibletargets.blogspot.com/2021/07/mike-gravel-my-guardian-obituary.html

(Carlson is a retired US TV sports producer who lives in the UK, and commentates on American Football for British TV - being both funny, and with a good liberal slant to his outlook. He does obituaries for The Guardian on , I suppose, "second rank" Americans - people the average Brit probably hasn't heard of).

[Delphinus]

20. Thank you

for posting these links!