Joseph Maxwell Cleland (born August 24, 1942) is an American politician from
GeorgiaGeorgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. Cleland, a Democrat, is a disabled US Army veteran of the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, a recipient of the
Silver StarThe Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....
and the Bronze Star for valorous action in combat, and a former
U.S. SenatorThe 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 2003 to 2007, he served on the Board of Directors of the
Export-Import Bank of the United StatesThe Export-Import Bank of the United States is the official export credit agency of the United States federal government. It was established in 1934 by an executive order, and made an independent agency in the Executive branch by Congress in 1945, for the purposes of financing and insuring...
, a presidentially appointed position. He is currently the secretary of the
American Battle Monuments CommissionThe American Battle Monuments Commission is a small independent agency of the United States government. Established by Congress in 1923, it is responsible for:...
.
Cleland is the last Democrat from Georgia to serve a full term in the United States Senate.
Early life and military service
Cleland was born in Atlanta, Georgia on August 24, 1942. He grew up in
LithoniaLithonia is a suburban town in eastern DeKalb County, Georgia, incorporated as a city. Lithonia's population was 1,924 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...
and graduated from
Stetson UniversityStetson University is a private university with four colleges and schools located across the I-4 corridor in Central Florida. The primary undergraduate campus is located in DeLand, Florida, USA. In the 2012 U.S...
, class of 1964, where he was a member of the
Lambda Chi AlphaLambda Chi Alpha is one of the largest men's secret general fraternities in North America, having initiated more than 280,000 members and held chapters at more than 300 universities. It is a member of the North-American Interfraternity Conference and was founded by Warren A. Cole, while he was a...
Fraternity. He went on to receive a Master's degree from
Emory UniversityEmory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
.
Cleland then served in the
United States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during the
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, attaining the rank of Captain. He was awarded the
Silver StarThe Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....
and the
Bronze StarThe Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the "V" for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the...
for valorous action in combat, including during the
Battle of Khe SanhThe Battle of Khe Sanh was conducted in northwestern Quang Tri Province, Republic of Vietnam , between 21 January and 9 July 1968 during the Vietnam War...
on April 4, 1968.
On April 8, 1968, Captain Cleland was the Battalion Signal Officer for the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division during the
Battle of Khe SanhThe Battle of Khe Sanh was conducted in northwestern Quang Tri Province, Republic of Vietnam , between 21 January and 9 July 1968 during the Vietnam War...
.
On April 8, with a month left in his tour, Cleland was ordered to set up a radio relay station on a nearby hill. A
helicopterA helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
flew him and two soldiers to the treeless top of Hill 471, east of
Khe SanhKhe Sanh is the district capital of Hướng Hoá District, Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam, located 63 km west of Đông Hà.Khe Sanh Combat Base was a United States Marine Corps outpost in South Vietnam used during the Vietnam War. The airstrip was built in September 1962...
. Cleland knew some of the soldiers camped there from Operation Pegasus. He told the pilot he was going to stay a while with friends.
When the helicopter landed, Cleland jumped out, followed by the two soldiers. They ducked beneath the rotors and turned to watch the liftoff. Cleland reached down to pick up a
grenadeA grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
he believed had popped off his
flak jacketthumb|300px|The two components of an obsolete British military flak vest. On the left, the nylon vest. On the right, the several layers of [[ballistic nylon]] that provide the actual protection...
. It exploded, and the blast slammed him backward, shredding both his legs and one arm.
David Lloyd, a marine in a nearby mortar bunker, rushed to the scene, took off his web belt and tied it around one of Cleland's shredded legs. When the medics arrived, Lloyd left to help another injured soldier – one of the two who had gotten off the helicopter with Cleland.
Lloyd claims that the unnamed soldier was crying. 'It was mine,' he said, 'it was my grenade.'
According to Lloyd, the private had failed to take the extra precaution that experienced soldiers did when they grabbed M-26 grenades from the ammo box: bend the pins, or tape them in place, so they couldn't accidentally dislodge. This soldier had a flak jacket full of grenades with treacherously straight pins, Lloyd says. "He was a walking death trap."
Due to the severity of his injuries, doctors amputated both of Cleland's legs above the knee and his right forearm. He was 25 years old.
Georgia state politics
Cleland served from 1971 to 1975 in the
Georgia SenateThe Georgia State Senate is the upper house of the Georgia General Assembly .-Composition:According to the state constitution of 1983, this body is to be composed of no more than 56 members elected for two-year terms. Current state law provides for 56 members...
, and became an advocate for affairs relating to veterans. He was the administrator of the
United States Veterans AdministrationThe United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
under President
Jimmy CarterJames Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, a fellow Georgian, from 1977 to 1981. He then served 14 years as
Secretary of State of GeorgiaThe secretary of state of the U.S. state of Georgia is an elected official with a wide variety of responsibilities, including supervising elections and maintaining public records....
from 1982 to 1996, working closely with his future Senate colleague,
Zell MillerZell Bryan Miller is an American politician from the US state of Georgia. A Democrat, Miller served as Lieutenant Governor from 1975 to 1991, 79th Governor of Georgia from 1991 to 1999, and as United States Senator from 2000 to 2005....
.
According to an interview featurette with
Jon VoightJonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....
on the DVD of
Coming Home (1978), Cleland also served during this time as a consultant on the Academy Award-winning drama set in a VA hospital in 1968.
Tenure
Following the retirement of
Sam NunnSamuel Augustus Nunn, Jr. is an American lawyer and politician. Currently the co-chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative , a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, Nunn served for 24 years as a...
, Cleland ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996 and won by just 30,000 votes over Republican
Guy MillnerGuy W. Millner is an American multi-millionaire businessman who ran as a Republican for governor of Georgia in 1994, United States Senator from Georgia in 1996 and Governor of Georgia in 1998, losing all three races....
. A third-party candidate, Libertarian John Cashin, garnered over 80,000 votes.
Cleland was viewed as a moderate in the Senate. Though he supported some Republican budgetary measures, and voted in favor of
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's 2001 tax-cut package, he was staunchly
pro-choiceSupport for the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-choice movement, a sociopolitical movement supporting the ethical view that a woman should have the legal right to elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy....
and pro-environment. He voted against drilling in ANWR, and opposed
Gale NortonGale Ann Norton served as the 48th United States Secretary of the Interior from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush...
's nomination as
Secretary of the InteriorThe United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...
in 2001. His record on national defense and homeland security was more centrist. He voted to federalize airport security after 9/11, and supported the war on terror. Cleland was strongly pro-
free tradeUnder a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
, voting to normalize trade relations with
VietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, to make China's
NTRThe status of permanent normal trade relations is a legal designation in the United States for free trade with a foreign nation. In the U.S. the name was changed from most favored nation to PNTR in 1998....
status permanent, and to extend free trade to
AndeanThe Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
nations.
Cleland was one of the 29 Senate Democrats who backed the authorization to go to war in
IraqIraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. He later stated he had misgivings about the Bush administration's stance, but said he felt pressure in his tight Senate race to go along with it. In 2005, he said "it was obvious that if I voted against the resolution that I would be dead meat in the race, just handing them in a victory." He characterized his vote for war as "the worst vote I cast."
2002 election
In 2002 Cleland faced
Saxby ChamblissClarence Saxby Chambliss, Jr. is the senior United States Senator from Georgia. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a U.S. Representative ....
for the Georgia Senate seat. Cleland enjoyed a comfortable lead in the polls early in the race but lost much ground in the weeks running up to it. A week before the voting an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed Cleland ahead by five points, 49-44. By Saturday before the race a poll by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the lead had shrunk to 48–45 which was within the poll's margin of error. On election day Cleland lost to Chambliss 53-46. Some supporters blamed a Chambliss TV ad featuring the likenesses of
Osama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
and
Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, while criticizing Cleland's votes against homeland security measures. Cleland supporters claimed the ad questioned the senator's patriotism, while Chambliss supporters claimed it simply questioned his judgment. The ad was removed after protests from prominent politicians including Republicans such as
John McCainJohn Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
and
Chuck HagelCharles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel is a former United States Senator from Nebraska. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 1996 and was reelected in 2002...
, both of whom are also veterans of the war in Vietnam.
Post-Senate career
Cleland was originally appointed to serve on the 9/11 Commission but resigned shortly after, having been appointed to the Board of directors of the
Export-Import Bank of the United StatesThe Export-Import Bank of the United States is the official export credit agency of the United States federal government. It was established in 1934 by an executive order, and made an independent agency in the Executive branch by Congress in 1945, for the purposes of financing and insuring...
. Prior to his resignation, he claimed that the
BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
administration was "stonewalling" and blocking the committee's access to key documents and witnesses. A key figure in the widespread criticism of governmental opacity regarding 9/11, he was quoted as saying in November 2003: "I... cannot look any American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the commission had full access. This investigation is now compromised."
During his time away from politics, Cleland taught at
American UniversityAmerican University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
.
In 2003, Cleland began working for the
2004 presidential campaign of Massachusetts senator John KerryThe Presidential Campaign of John Kerry, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and the nominee of the Democratic Party challenged Republican incumbent President George W. Bush in the U.S. presidential election on November 2, 2004. Ultimately, Kerry conceded defeat in the race in a telephone call to Bush...
, also a Vietnam veteran; Kerry went on to win the Democratic nomination. Cleland often appeared at campaign events with Kerry, and was considered by many to be one of his most important surrogates, partly as a symbol of the sacrifices made by soldiers for wars. He went to Bush's Texas ranch to deliver a
swift boatThe word swiftboating is an American neologism used pejoratively to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term emanates from the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth and its widely publicized, then discredited, campaign against 2004 US Presidential candidate John Kerry.Since the political...
ad complaint, but the event failed to have much impact. On July 29, 2004, Cleland introduced Kerry with a speech at the
Democratic National ConventionThe 2004 Democratic National Convention convened from July 26 to July 29, 2004 at the FleetCenter in Boston, Massachusetts, and nominated John Kerry and John Edwards as the official candidates of the Democratic Party for President and Vice President of the United States, respectively, in the 2004...
.
Cleland's official Senatorial papers are held by the
University of GeorgiaThe University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
's
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and StudiesThe Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies is a department within the University of Georgia Libraries that reports to the University Librarian and serves as a center for research and study of the modern American political system. Established in 1974 through the efforts of the...
. His
Veterans AdministrationThe United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
papers are held in the
Carter CenterThe Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...
. In 2007, Max Cleland donated a large collection of Vietnam and personal political memorabilia to the library of his alma mater
Stetson UniversityStetson University is a private university with four colleges and schools located across the I-4 corridor in Central Florida. The primary undergraduate campus is located in DeLand, Florida, USA. In the 2012 U.S...
. The Cleland Collection includes more than 500 memorabilia items, more than 4,500 photos, and hundreds of CDs, DVDs, videos, and films.
On May 21, 2009,
President Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
nominated Cleland to serve as the next Secretary of the
American Battle Monuments CommissionThe American Battle Monuments Commission is a small independent agency of the United States government. Established by Congress in 1923, it is responsible for:...
.
Works
- "Heart of a Patriot – How I Found The Courage To Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed, and Karl Rove," by Max Cleland, with Ben Raines (Simon and Schuster, 2009) ISBN 978-1-4391-2605-9
- Odysseus in America by Jonathan Shay, Max Cleland, John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
(Scribner, November 2002) ISBN 0-7432-1156-1
- Strong at the Broken Places by Max Cleland (Longstreet Press, updated edition, October 2000) ISBN 1-56352-633-6
- Going for the Max!: 12 Principles for Living Life to the Fullest by Max Cleland (Broadman & Holman, September 2000) ISBN 0-8054-2021-5
- Controlled Substances Laws of Georgia: Code Title 16-13 by Max Cleland (State Examining Boards, Georgia State Board of Pharmacy. 1992) ISBN B0006QLGOM
Electoral history
{|class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em ; font-size:95%"
|+
Georgia Senator (Class II): Results 1996–2002
!|Year
!
!|Democrat
!|Votes
!|Pct
!
!|Republican
!|Votes
!|Pct
!
!|3rd Party
!|Party
!|Votes
!|Pct
!
|-
|1996
|
| |
| align="right" |1,103,993
| |49%
|
| |
| align="right" |1,073,969
| |48%
|
| |John Gregory Cashin
| |
LibertarianThe Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
| align="right" |81,262
| align="right" |4%
|
|-
|2002
|
| |Max Cleland
| align="right" |932,422
| |46%
|
| |
| align="right" |1,071,352
| |53%
|
| |Claude Sandy Thomas
| |
LibertarianThe Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
| align="right" |27,830
| align="right" |1%
|
External links