Adlai Ewing Stevenson III (born October 10, 1930, in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
) is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He represented the state of
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
in the
United States SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
from 1970 until 1981.
Education, military service, and early career
Adlai Stevenson III attended the Milton Academy in Massachusetts, Harrow School in England, and Harvard College.
He received a law degree in 1957 from Harvard.
Stevenson was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1952, served in Korea and was discharged from active duty in 1954. He continued to serve in the Marine Reserves and was discharged in 1961 as a captain.
In 1957, Stevenson went to work as a clerk for a Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and worked there until 1958 when he joined the law firm of Brown and Platt.
Illinois political career
In 1964, Stevenson was elected to the
Illinois House of RepresentativesThe Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The state House of Representatives is made of 118 representatives elected from...
as an at-large representative due to reapportionment problems, serving from 1965 to 1967. He then served as Illinois Treasurer (1967–1970).
United States Senate
After U.S. Senator
Everett DirksenEverett McKinley Dirksen was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate...
(R-
Ill.Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
) died in office in 1969 and
Ralph Tyler SmithRalph Tyler Smith was born in Granite City, Illinois. Smith was a Republican politician from Illinois and served in the Illinois state house from 1955 through 1969, including two years as the Speaker of the House from 1967 to 1969. Upon the death of Everett Dirksen, Governor Richard B...
was appointed to the seat, Stevenson defeated Smith in a 1970 special election by a 58% to 42% margin to fill Dirksen's unexpired term. Stevenson introduced legislation requiring an end to all foreign aid to South Vietnam by June 30, 1975. He authored the International Banking Act, the Stevenson Wydler-Technology Innovation Act and its companion, the Bayh Dole Act, to foster cooperative research, organize national laboratories for technology utilization and commercialization, permit private sector interests in government funded research. He was the first Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee charged with implementing a code of ethics he helped draft. Stevenson was also chairman of a Special Senate Committee which reorganized the Senate and served on the Democratic Policy Committee. Inter alia, he also conducted the first in depth Congressional study of terrorism as Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Collection and Production of Intelligence, leading to introduction of the Comprehensive Counter Terrorism Act of 1971 with warnings of "spectacular acts of disruption and destruction" and an amendment which proposed a reduction of assistance for Israel by $200 million until such time as the President could certify that the settlements polices of the newly elected Likud Government of Israel were consistent with U.S. policy. His amendment received 7 votes - making his point, that given a choice between supporting the U.S. and the "Israeli Lobby", Congress would support the latter.
Stevenson was re-elected to the seat in 1974, and in 1980 declined to stand for re-election, thus serving in the U.S. Senate from 1970 to 1981.
Stevenson was encouraged to run for President in
1976The United States presidential election of 1976 followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It pitted incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate, against the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic...
by Mayor
Richard J. DaleyRichard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F...
of Chicago, declined and was one of the finalists for Vice-President at the
Democratic ConventionThe 1976 Democratic National Convention met at Madison Square Garden in New York City, from July 12 to July 15, 1976. The assembled United States Democratic Party delegates at the convention nominated Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia for President and Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota for Vice...
that year. Senator
Walter MondaleWalter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
of Minnesota was nominated for vice president.
Post-Senate political career
Stevenson ran for
Governor of IllinoisThe Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
in 1982 and 1986, losing both elections to
James R. ThompsonJames Robert Thompson, Jr. , also known as Big Jim Thompson, was the 37th and longest serving Governor of the US state of Illinois...
. In 1982 the initial vote count showed Stevenson winning; however, the final official count showed him losing by 1/7 of one percent. Stevenson promptly petitioned the Illinois Supreme Court for a recount and presented evidence of widespread election irregularities, including evidence of a failed punch card system for tabulation of votes (later to become infamous in the presidential election of 2000). Three days before the gubernatorial inauguration, the Court, by a one vote margin, denied the recount, asserting that the Illinois recount statute was unconstitutional.
However, the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit, and did so in a curious way. Instead of following the normal standard that decides a motion to dismiss, the court did not assume, for purposes of the motion, that the facts stated in the complaint were true. Instead, the court went "behind the pleadings" to look at the conduct of the original partial recount and then dismissed the case because it said that Adlai Stevenson had no reasonable cause to complain about the conduct of the counting and recounting activities. A grand jury later determined that Adlai Stevenson had unwittingly benefited from some 100,000 illegal ballots that had been cast in Chicago in the 1982 gubernatorial election. U.S. to probe primary vote fraud, Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1987. The Illinois legislature later changed election contest procedures based on the court's ruling.
In the 1986 campaign for Governor, in a fluke, two followers of
Lyndon LaRoucheLyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. is an American political activist and founder of a network of political committees, parties, and publications known collectively as the LaRouche movement...
won the Democratic Party primary nominations for Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State. Stevenson objected to their platform and refused to appear on the same ticket. Instead, he organized the
Solidarity PartyThe Solidarity Party was an American political party in the state of Illinois. It was named after Lech Wałęsa's Solidarity movement in Poland, which was widely-admired in Illinois at the time .The party was founded in 1986 by Senator Adlai Stevenson III in reaction to the Democratic Party's...
to provide an alternate slate for Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State, which was duly endorsed by the regular Democratic organization. Persuading Democrats to vote a regular Democratic ticket and then cross over to also vote for the Solidarity candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor and Secretary of State was doomed to fail; however, Stevenson and the candidate for Lieutenant Governor position, Mike Howlett, won 40% of the vote.
Post-political career
Since leaving the Senate, Stevenson has been active in business and cultural relations with east Asia. He is chairman of SC&M Investment Management Corporation, and co-chairman of
HuaMei Capital Company (the first Chinese-American investment bank).
He has also held many positions with non-profit organizations in this area. He has served as
chairman of the Japan-America Society of Chicago, the Midwest U.S.-Japan Association, and the Midwest U.S.-China Association, and as President of the U.S. Committee of the
Pacific Economic Cooperation CouncilThe Pacific Economic Cooperation Council is a network of member committees composed of individuals and institutions dedicated to promoting cooperation across the Asia Pacific region...
(PECC). He is also co-chairman of the PECC's Financial Market Development Project, a member of the U.S.-Korea Wisemen Council, and sits on the Board of Directors of the
Korea Economic Institute.
Stevenson has been honored by the government of Japan with the
Order of the Sacred TreasureThe is a Japanese Order, established on January 4, 1888 by Emperor Meiji of Japan as the Order of Meiji. It is awarded in eight classes . It is generally awarded for long and/or meritorious service and considered to be the lowest of the Japanese orders of merit...
, and is an Honorary Professor of Renmin University in China.
He is Chairman of the international
Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy housed at the family home near
Libertyville, IllinoisLibertyville is an affluent northern suburb of Chicago in Lake County, Illinois, United States. It is located west of Lake Michigan on the Des Plaines River. The 2000 census population was 20,742; the 2005 estimate was 21,760...
.
The Center brings practitioners from the real world of politics together with scholars and experts from many parts of the world to address systemic challenges to democratic systems of government.
Political family history
Stevenson's great-grandfather Adlai E. Stevenson I was vice president of the United States (1893–1897). His grandfather Lewis G. Stevenson was Illinois secretary of state (1914–1917). His father, Adlai Stevenson, was governor of Illinois,
Ambassador to the United NationsThe United States Ambassador to the United Nations is the leader of the U.S. delegation, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The position is more formally known as the "Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, with the rank and status of Ambassador...
, and two time Democratic presidential nominee. Actor
McLean StevensonEdgar McLean Stevenson, Jr. , better known as McLean Stevenson, was an American actor most recognized for his role as Lt. Colonel Henry Blake on the TV series M*A*S*H...
was his second cousin once removed.
Adlai Stevenson IVAdlai Ewing Stevenson IV is a business executive and a former television and print journalist.Stevenson was a television reporter at WTNH, New Haven, WMBD, Peoria, and WMAQ, Chicago and media analyst for a newspaper chain....
, Stevenson III's son, became a television reporter in Chicago in the 1980s. It is reported that when asked if he liked his name, he said he intended to become "Adlai the Last" . However, in the summer of 1994, Adlai Ewing Stevenson V was born.
External links