Mike Gravel
Encyclopedia
Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (icon; born May 13, 1930) is a former Democratic
United States Senator
from Alaska
, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and a former candidate in the 2008 presidential election
.
Born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts
to French-Canadian
immigrant parents, Gravel served in the United States Army
in West Germany
and graduated from Columbia University
. He moved to Alaska in the late 1950s, becoming a real estate
developer and entering politics. He served in the Alaska House of Representatives
from 1963 to 1966 and became its Speaker of the House
. Gravel was elected to the United States Senate in 1968.
As Senator, Gravel became nationally known for his forceful but unsuccessful attempts to end the draft
during the Vietnam War
and for putting the Pentagon Papers
into the public record in 1971 at risk to himself. He conducted an unusual campaign for the Democratic nomination
for Vice President of the United States
in 1972, and then played a crucial role in getting Congressional approval for the Trans-Alaska pipeline in 1973. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1974, but gradually alienated most of his Alaskan constituencies and his bid for a third term was defeated in a primary election
in 1980.
Gravel returned to business ventures and went through difficult times, suffering corporate and personal bankruptcies
amid poor health. He is a passionate advocate of direct democracy
and the National Initiative
. In 2006, Gravel began a run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States
to promote those ideas. His campaign
gained an Internet
following and national attention due to forceful, humorous and politically unorthodox debate appearances during 2007, but showed very little support in national polls or in 2008 caucuses and primaries. In March 2008, he announced he was switching to the Libertarian Party
to compete for its presidential nomination and the inclusion of the National Initiative into the Libertarian Platform. At the May 2008 Libertarian National Convention
he failed on both counts and announced his political electoral career had ended.
, one of five children to French-Canadian immigrant parents, Alphonse Gravel (born 1896/1897/1898, Sorel, Quebec — died 19??) and Marie (née Bourassa) Gravel (born January 26, 1901, Saint-Ours, Quebec
— died December 28, 1989).His parents were part of the Quebec diaspora
, and he was raised in a working class
neighborhood during the Great Depression
, speaking only French until he was seven years old. Calling him "Mike" from an early age, his father valued work above all else, while his mother stressed to him the importance of education.
Gravel was educated in parochial school
s as a Roman Catholic. There he struggled – due to what he later said was undiagnosed dyslexia
– and was left back
in third grade. He completed elementary school in 1945 and his class voted him "most charming personality". A summer job as a soda jerk
led to Gravel handing out campaign fliers for local candidates on behalf of his boss; Gravel was immediately impressed with "the awesomeness of political office."
Gravel then boarded at Assumption Preparatory School
in Worcester, Massachusetts
, where his performance was initially mediocre. Then an English teacher, the Assumptionist Edgar Bourque, gave him personal attention, improving Gravel's language skills and instructing him in public speaking. Gravel's grades improved measurably in his final year, and he graduated in 1949. He has a sister, Marguerite, who became a Holy Cross nun
, but Gravel himself struggled with the Catholic faith. He studied for one year at Assumption College
in Worcester, then transferred for his sophomore year to American International College
in Springfield. Journalist I. F. Stone
and philosopher Bertrand Russell
strongly influenced Gravel in their willingness to challenge assumptions and oppose social convention and political authority.
Around May 1951, Gravel saw that he was about to be drafted, and instead enlisted in the United States Army
for a three-year stint so that he could get into the counterintelligence corps. After basic training and counterintelligence school at Fort Holabird in Maryland and in South Carolina, he went to Officer Candidate School
at Fort Benning
in Georgia. While he expected to be sent off to the Korean War
when he graduated as a second lieutenant in early 1952, he instead was assigned to Stuttgart
, West Germany
, as a Special Adjutant in the Army's Communications Intelligence Service. There he had an adventurous time moving around the country, conducting surveillance operations on civilians, and paying off spies. After about a year he transferred to Orléans
, France
, where his French language abilities (if not his Quebec-American accent) allowed him to infiltrate French communist
rallies. He worked
as a Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps
until 1954, eventually becoming a First Lieutenant
.
Following his discharge, Gravel attended Columbia University
's School of General Studies
in New York City
, where he studied economics
and received a B.S. in 1956. He had come to New York "flat broke", and supported himself by working as a bar boy in a hotel, driving a taxicab
, and working in the investment bond department at Bankers Trust
. During this time he left the Catholic faith.
in August 1956, without funds or a job, looking for a place where someone without social or political connections could be a viable candidate for public office
. Alaska's voting age of 19, less than most other states' 21, played a role in his decision, as did its newness and cooler climate. Broke when he arrived, he immediately found work in real estate
sales until winter arrived. Gravel then was employed as a brakeman
for the Alaska Railroad
, working the snow-clearing train on the Anchorage-Fairbanks run. Subsequently he opened a small real estate brokerage in Anchorage (the Territory of Alaska not requiring a license) and saved enough so as not to have to work the railroad again. Gravel joined the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist
fellowship, and would continue a sporadic relationship with the movement throughout his life.
Gravel married Rita Jeannette Martin, who had been Anchorage's "Miss Fur Rendezvous" of 1958, on April 29, 1959. They had two children, Martin Anthony Gravel and Lynne Denise Gravel, born circa 1960 and 1962 respectively.
Meanwhile, he went to Washington, D.C.
in 1957 to campaign for Alaskan statehood via the "Tennessee Plan": dressed as Paul Revere
, he rode with a petition to the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Seeing Alaska as a wide-open place with no political establishment or entrenched interests, and using the slogan "Gravel, the Roadbed to Prosperity", he ran for the territorial legislature in 1958 but lost. He went on a national speaking tour concerning tax reform
in 1959, sponsored by the Jaycees. He ran unsuccessfully for the Anchorage
City Council in 1960. During this time, he had become a successful real estate agent; after the 1960 election, he became a property developer in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Anchorage. A partner ran into financial difficulty, however, and the project went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Gravel was forced out in 1962.
representing Anchorage in 1962 and won.
Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives
from 1963 to 1966, winning re-election in 1964. He coauthored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. Gravel was the chief architect of the law that created a regional high school system for rural Alaska; this allowed Alaska Natives
to attend schools near where they lived, instead of having to go to schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
in the lower 48 states.
During the half-years that the legislature was not in session, Gravel resumed his real estate work. With Gottstein and Carr's backing, he became quite successful as a property developer on the Kenai Peninsula
.
During 1965 and 1966, he served as the Speaker of the House, surprising observers by winning that post. Gravel convinced former Speaker Warren A. Taylor
to not try for the position against him by promising Taylor chairmanship of the Rules Committee, then reneged on the promise. (Gravel denied later press charges that he had promised but not delivered on other committee chairmanships.) As Speaker he antagonized fellow lawmakers by imposing his will on the legislature's committees and feuded with Alaska State Senate president Robert J. McNealy.
Gravel did not run for re-election in 1966, instead choosing to run for Alaska's seat
in the U.S. House of Representatives
, losing to four-term incumbent Democrat Ralph Rivers by 1,300 votes and splitting the Democratic party in the process. Rivers lost the general election that year to Republican state Senator Howard Wallace Pollock
.
Following his defeat, Gravel returned to the real estate business in Anchorage.
, a popular former governor of the Alaska Territory
who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood, for his party's nomination to the U.S. Senate
. Gravel's campaign was primarily based on his youth rather than issue differences. He hired Joseph Napolitan
, the first self-described political consultant, in late 1966. They spent over a year and a half planning a short, nine-day primary election campaign that featured the slogans "Alaska first" and "Let's do something about the state we're in", the distribution of a collection of essays entitled Jobs and More Jobs, and the creation a half-hour, well-produced, glamorized biographical film of Gravel, Man for Alaska. The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds of Eskimo
villages. The heavy showings quickly reversed a 2–to–1 Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead. Gravel visited many remote villages by seaplane and showed a thorough understanding of the needs of the bush country and the fishing and oil industries. Gravel also benefited by being deliberately ambiguous about his Vietnam policy. Gruening had been one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
and his opposition to President Lyndon B. Johnson
's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate; according to Gravel, "...all I had to do was stand up and not deal with the subject, and people would assume that I was to the right of Ernest Gruening, when in point of fact I was to the left of him."
Gravel beat Gruening in the primary in a tight result with a margin of about 2,000 votes. Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers. In the general election, Gravel faced Republican Elmer E. Rasmuson
, a banker and former mayor of Anchorage. College students in the state implored Gruening to run a write-in campaign as an Independent, but legal battles prevented the senator from getting approval for it until only two weeks were left. A late appearance by anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy
could not offset Gruening's lack of funds and endorsements; meanwhile, Gravel and Rasmuson both saturated local media with their filmed biographies. On November 5, 1968, Gravel won the general election, gaining 45 percent of the vote against 37 percent for Rasmuson and 18 percent for Gruening.
When Gravel joined the Senate in January 1969, he requested and received a seat on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, which had direct relevance to Alaskan issues. He also got a spot on the Public Works Committee
, which he held throughout his time in the Senate. Finally, he was a member of the Select Committee on Small Business. In 1971 he became chair of the Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, then by 1973 he was chair of its Subcommittee on Water Resources, then by some date its Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution. Gravel was also initially named to the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations. By 1973 Gravel was off the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and the Select Small Business Committee and instead a member of the Finance Committee
, and by 1977 was chair of that body's Subcommittee on Energy and Foundations. By 1973 he had also been on the ad hoc Special Committee to Study Secret and Confidential Government Documents.
By his own admission, Gravel was too new and "too abrasive" to be effective in the Senate by the usual means of seniority-based committee assignments or negotiating deals with other senators, and was sometimes seen as arrogant by the more senior members. Gravel instead relied upon attention-getting gestures to achieve what he wanted, hoping national exposure would force other senators to listen to him. As part of this he voted with Southern Democrats to keep the Senate filibuster
rule in place, and accordingly supported Russell Long and Robert Byrd
and opposed Ted Kennedy
in Senate leadership battles. In retrospective assessment, University of Alaska Anchorage
history professor Stephen Haycox would say, "Loose cannon is a good description of Gravel's Senate career. He was an off-the-wall guy, and you weren't really ever sure what he would do."
was in the process of performing tests for the nuclear warhead
for the Spartan
anti-ballistic missile
interceptor. Two tests, the Milrow and Cannikin tests, were planned, involving the detonation of nuclear bombs
under Amchitka Island
in Alaska. The Milrow test would be a one megaton calibration exercise for the second, and larger five megaton, Cannikin test, which would measure the effectiveness of the warhead. Gravel opposed the tests in Congress. Before the October 1969 Milrow test took place, he wrote that there were significant risks of earthquakes and other adverse consequences, and called for an independent national commission on nuclear and seismic safety to be created; he then made a personal appeal to President Nixon to stop the test.
After Milrow was conducted, there was continued pressure on the part of environmental groups against going forward with the larger Cannikin test, while the Federation of American Scientists
claimed the warhead being tested was already obsolete. In May 1971 Gravel sent a letter to Atomic Energy Commission
hearings held in Anchorage, in which he said the risk of the test was not worth taking. Eventually a group not involving Gravel took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an injunction against it, and the Cannikin test took place as scheduled in November 1971. Gravel had failed to stop the tests (notwithstanding his later claims during his 2008 presidential campaign).Gravel claimed during his 2008 presidential campaign that "the Pentagon was performing five calibration tests ... [Gravel] succeeded in halting the program after the second test, limiting the expansion of this threat to the marine environment of the North Pacific." See In actuality, the Milrow and Cannikin tests were the only ones planned and both took place. See
Nuclear power
was considered an environmentally clean alternative for the commercial generation of electricity and was part of a popular national policy for the peaceful use of atomic energy
in the 1950s and 1960s. Gravel publicly opposed this policy; besides the dangers of nuclear testing, he was a vocal critic of the Atomic Energy Commission
, which oversaw American nuclear efforts, and of the powerful United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
, which had a stranglehold on nuclear policy and which Gravel tried to circumvent. In 1971, Gravel sponsored a bill to impose a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction and to make power utilities liable for any nuclear accidents; in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums. By 1974, Gravel was allied with Ralph Nader
's organization in opposing nuclear power.
Six months before United States Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger
's secret mission to the People's Republic of China
in July 1971, Gravel introduced legislation to recognize
and normalize relations with China, including a proposal for unity talks between China and Republic of China
(Taiwan) regarding the China seat at the United Nations
. Gravel reiterated his position in favor of recognition, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971.
had campaigned in 1968
on a promise to end the U.S. military draft
, a decision endorsed by the February 1970 report of the Gates Commission.
The existing draft law was scheduled to conclude at the end of June 1971, and the Senate faced a contentious debate about whether to extend it as the Vietnam War
continued. The Nixon administration announced in February 1971 that it wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, after which the draft would end; Army planners had already been operating under the assumption of a two-year extension, after which an all-volunteer force would be in place. Skeptics such as Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Stennis thought this unrealistic and wanted a four-year extension, but the two-year proposal is what went forward in Congress. By early May 1971, Gravel had indicated his intention to filibuster
the draft renewal legislation, halting conscription and thereby bringing U.S. involvement in the war to a rapid end.
By June 1971, some Democratic senators opposed to the war wanted to limit the renewal to a one-year extension, while others wanted to end it immediately; Gravel reiterated that he was one of the latter, saying, "It's a senseless war, and one way to do away with it is to do away with the draft." A Senate vote on June 4 indicated majority support for the two-year extension. On June 18 Gravel announced again his intention to counteract that by filibustering the renewal legislation, defending the practice against those who associated it only with blocking civil rights legislation. The first filibuster attempt failed on June 23 when, by three votes, the Senate voted cloture for only the fifth time since 1927.
Protracted negotiations took place over House conference negotiations on the bill, revolving in large part around Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield
's eventually unsuccessful amendment to tie renewal to a troop withdrawal timetable from Vietnam; during this time the draft law expired and no more were conscripted. On August 5, the Nixon administration pleaded for a renewal before the Senate went on recess, but Gravel successfully blocked Stennis's attempt to limit debate, and no vote was held. Finally on September 21, 1971, the Senate invoked cloture over Gravel's second filibuster attempt by one vote, and then passed the two-year draft extension. Gravel's attempts to stop the draft had failed (notwithstanding Gravel's later claims that he had stopped or shortened the draft, taken at face value in some media reports, during his 2008 presidential campaign).During Gravel's 2008 presidential campaign, he would claim that, "In 1971, Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), by waging a lone five month filibuster, singlehandedly ended the draft in The United States thereby saving thousands of lives." See A 2006 article in The Nation
stated that "It was Gravel who in 1971, against the advice of Democratic leaders in the Senate, launched a one-man filibuster to end the peacetime military draft, forcing the administration to cut a deal that allowed the draft to expire in 1973." See Neither of these assessments is correct. From the beginning of the draft review process in February 1971, the Nixon administration wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, followed by a shift to an all-volunteer force — see ; for confirmation, see — and this is what is what the September 1971 Senate vote gave them. Gravel's goal had been to block the renewal of the draft completely, thereby ending conscription past June 1971. See In Gravel's 2008 memoir, he conceded that he failed to bring about the immediate end of the war that he wanted, and that Nixon had gotten the two-year extension he had originally asked for. However, Gravel wrote that he had never trusted Nixon's pledge to only extend the draft for two years, and that when Nixon let the draft expire in 1973 it was the threat of a renewed filibuster that caused him to stick to the pledge. See Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, p. 180. No other accounts support this interpretation; in fact, Nixon had first become interested in the idea of an all-volunteer army during his time out of office, and he saw ending the draft as an effective way to undermine the anti-Vietnam war movement, since he believed affluent youths would stop protesting the war once their own possibility of having to fight in it was gone. See pp. 396–397 and Ambrose, Nixon, Volume Two: The Triumph of a Politician, pp. 264–266.
Meanwhile, on June 13, 1971, The New York Times
began printing large portions of the Pentagon Papers
. The papers were a large collection of secret government documents and studies pertaining to the Vietnam War
, of which former Defense Department
analyst Daniel Ellsberg
had made unauthorized copies and was determined to make public. Ellsberg had for a year and a half approached members of Congress — such as William Fulbright, George McGovern
, Charles Mathias, and Pete McCloskey
— about publishing the documents, on the grounds that the Speech or Debate Clause
of the Constitution would give congressional members immunity from prosecution
, but all had refused. Instead, Ellsberg gave the documents to the Times.
The U.S. Justice Department immediately tried to halt publication, on the grounds that the information revealed within the papers harmed the national interest. Within the next two weeks, a federal court injunction halted publication in The Times; The Washington Post
and several other newspapers began publishing parts of the documents, with some of them also being halted by injunctions; and the whole matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court for arguments. Looking for an alternate publication mechanism, Ellsberg returned to his idea of having a member of Congress read them, and chose Gravel based on the latter's efforts against the draft; Gravel agreed where previously others had not. Ellsberg arranged for the papers to be given to Gravel on June 26 via an intermediary, Washington Post editor Ben Bagdikian
. Gravel used his counter-intelligence experience to choose a midnight transfer in front of the Mayflower Hotel
in the center of Washington.
On the night of June 29, 1971, Gravel attempted to read the papers on the floor of the Senate as part of his filibuster against the draft, but was thwarted when no quorum could be formed. Gravel instead convened a session of the Buildings and Grounds subcommittee that he chaired. He got New York Congressman John Dow to testify that the war had soaked up funding for public buildings, thus making discussion of the war relevant to the committee. He began reading from the papers with the press in attendance, omitting supporting documents that he felt might compromise national security, and declaring, "It is my constitutional obligation to protect the security of the people by fostering the free flow of information absolutely essential to their democratic decision-making."
He read until 1 a.m., until with tears and sobs he said that he could no longer physically continue, the previous three nights of sleeplessness and fear about the future having taken their toll. Gravel ended the session by, with no other senators present, establishing unanimous consent
towards inserting 4,100 pages of the Papers into the Congressional Record
of his subcommittee. The following day, the Supreme Court's New York Times Co. v. United States
decision ruled in favor of the newspapers and publication in The Times and others resumed. In July 1971, Bantam Books
published an inexpensive paperback edition of the papers containing the material The Times had published.
Gravel, too, wanted to privately publish the portion of the papers he had read into the record, believing that "immediate disclosure of the contents of these papers will change the policy that supports the war." After being turned down by many commercial publishers, on August 4 he reached agreement with Beacon Press
, the publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association
, of which Gravel was a member. Announced on August 17 and published on October 22, 1971, this four-volume, relatively expensive set became the "Senator Gravel Edition", which studies from Cornell University
and the Annenberg Center for Communication
have labeled as the most complete edition of the Pentagon Papers to be published. The "Gravel Edition" was edited and annotated by Noam Chomsky
and Howard Zinn
, and included an additional volume of analytical articles on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn. Beacon Press then was subjected to a FBI investigation; an outgrowth of this was the Gravel v. United States
court case, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled upon in June 1972; it held that the Speech or Debate Clause
did grant immunity to Gravel for his reading the papers in his subcommittee, did grant some immunity to Gravel's congressional aide, but granted no immunity to Beacon Press in relation to their publishing the same papers.
The events of 1971 changed Gravel in the months following from an obscure freshman senator in a far corner of the country to a nationally-visible political figure. He became a sought-after speaker on the college circuit as well as at political fundraisers, opportunities he welcomed as lectures were "the one honest way a Senator has to supplement his income." The Democratic candidates for the 1972 presidential election
sought out his endorsement. In January 1972 Gravel did endorse Maine
Senator Ed Muskie, hoping his endorsement would help Muskie with the party's left wing and in the ethnic French-Canadian areas in first primary state New Hampshire
(which Muskie won, but not strongly, and his campaign faltered soon thereafter). In April 1972, Gravel appeared on all three network nightly newscasts to decry the Nixon administration's reliance on Vietnamization
by making reference to the secret National Security Study Memorandum 1 document, which stated it would take 8–13 years before the Army of the Republic of Vietnam
could defend South Vietnam
. Gravel made excerpts from the study public, but his attempt to read NSSM 1 into the Congressional Record was blocked by Senators Robert P. Griffin
and William B. Saxbe
.
during the 1972 presidential election
, announcing on June 2, 1972, over a month before the 1972 Democratic National Convention
began, that he was interested in running for the nomination should the choice be opened up to convention delegates. Towards this end he began soliciting delegates for their support in advance of the convention. He was not alone in this effort, as former Governor of Massachusetts
Endicott Peabody
had been running a quixotic campaign for the same post since the prior year. Likely presidential nominee George McGovern
was in fact considering the unusual move of naming three or four acceptable vice-presidential candidates and letting the delegates choose.
At the convention's final day on July 14, 1972, presidential nominee McGovern selected and announced Senator Thomas Eagleton
of Missouri
as his vice-presidential choice. Eagleton was unknown to many delegates and the choice seemed to smack of traditional ticket balancing considerations. Thus, there were delegates willing to look elsewhere. Gravel was nominated by Bettye Fahrenkamp, the national committeewoman of Alaska; He then seconded his own nomination, breaking down in tears at his own words and maybe trying to withdraw his nomination. In any case he won 226 delegate votes, coming in third behind Eagleton and Frances "Sissy" Farenthold
of Texas, in chaotic balloting that included several other candidates as well.
For his efforts, Gravel attracted some attention: famed writer Norman Mailer
would say he "provided considerable excitement" and was "good-looking enough to have played leads in B-films", while Rolling Stone
correspondent Hunter S. Thompson
said Gravel "probably said a few things that might have been worth hearing, under different circumstances ..." Yet, the whole process had been doubly disastrous for the Democrats. The time consumed with the nominating and seconding and other speeches of all the vice-presidential candidates had lost the attention of the delegates on the floor and pushed McGovern's speech until 3:30 a.m. The haste with which Eagleton had been selected led to surprise when his past mental health treatments were revealed; he withdrew from the ticket soon after the convention, to be replaced by Sargent Shriver
.
Nonetheless, in 1974 Gravel was re-elected to the Senate, winning 58 percent of the vote against 42 percent for Republican State Senator C. R. Lewis, who was a national officer of the John Birch Society
.
(who was already the subject of a sex scandal that led to the downfall of Representative Wayne Hays
) stated that in August 1972, she had sex with Gravel aboard a houseboat on the Potomac River
, under the instruction of Representative Kenneth J. Gray
, her boss at the time. Gray allegedly wanted to secure Gravel's support for further funding for construction of the National Visitor Center
in Washington, a troubled project that was under the jurisdiction of subcommittees that both members chaired. Another Congressional staffer said she witnessed the boat encounter, but Gravel said at the time that he had never met either of the women. Both Gravel and Gray strongly denied that they had made any arrangement regarding legislation, and neither was ever charged with any wrongdoing. Decades later, Gravel wrote that he had indeed had sex with Ray, but had not changed any votes because of it.
concerns by saying that the pipeline's builders and operators should have "total and absolute" responsibility for any consequent environmental damage. Two years later, the debate over the pipeline came to a crux, with The New York Times
describing it as "environmentalists [in] a holy war with the major oil companies." In February 1973 the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the issuance of permits for construction; Gravel and fellow Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens
reacted by urging Congress to pass legislation overturning the court's decision. Environmentalists opposed to the pipeline, such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club
then sought to use the recently-passed National Environmental Policy Act
to their advantage; Gravel designed an amendment to the pipeline bill that would immunize the pipeline from any further court challenges under that law, and thus speed its construction. Passage of the amendment became the key battle regarding the pipeline. On July 17, 1973, in a dramatic roll call vote, the Gravel amendment was approved as a 49–49 tie was broken in favor by Vice President Spiro Agnew
. The actual bill enabling the pipeline then passed easily; Gravel had triumphed.
In opposition to the Alaskan fishing industry
, Gravel advocated American participation in the formation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
. For two years he opposed legislation that established a 200 miles (321.9 km) Exclusive Economic Zone
for marine resources. He was one of only 19 senators to vote against Senate approval for the expanded zone in 1976, saying it would undermine the U.S. position in Law of the Sea negotiations and that nations arbitrarily extending their fishing rights limits would "produce anarchy of the seas." The legislation was passed, and the United States has signed but never ratified
the Law of the Sea treaty.
During his first year in the Senate Gravel urged abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
. In the early 1970s Gravel supported a demonstration project that established links between Alaskan villages and the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland
, for medical diagnostic communications. Gravel helped secure a private grant to facilitate the first Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1977, attended by Inuit
representatives from Alaska, Canada
, and Greenland
. These conferences now also include representatives from Russia
. In 1977, Gravel helped lead an effort to have the U.S. Interior Department rename Mount McKinley
to Denali; this eventually led to Denali National Park being so named. Subsequently Gravel proposed a never-built "Denali City" development above the Tokositna River near the mountain, to consist of a giant Teflon dome enclosing hotels, golf courses, condominiums, and commercial buildings.
A key, emotional issue in the state at the time was "locking up Alaska", making reference to allocation of its vast, mostly uninhabited land.
In 1978 Gravel blocked passage, via procedural delays such as walking out of House-Senate conference committee
meetings, of a complex bill which represented a compromise on land use policy. The bill would have put some of Alaska's vast federal land holdings under state control while preserving other portions for federal parks and refuges; the action would earn Gravel the enmity of fellow Alaska Senator Ted Stevens
. In 1980, a new lands bill came up for consideration, that was less favorable to Alaskan interests and more liked by environmentalists; it set aside 127000000 acres (513,951.2 km²) of Alaska's 375000000 acres (1,517,572.5 km²) for national parks, conservation areas, and other restricted federal uses. Gravel blocked it, as not ensuring enough future development in the state. A new compromise version of the bill came forward, which reduced the land set aside to 104000000 acres (420,873.4 km²). Gravel, in representation of Alaskan interests, tried to stop the bill, including staging a filibuster. The Senate, however, voted cloture and then passed the bill. Frustrated, Gravel said "the legislation denies Alaska its rights as a state, and denies the U.S. crucial strategic resources," and commented that the Senate was "a little bit like a tank of barracudas."
In 1978, Gravel authored and secured the passage into law of the General Stock Ownership Corporation, that became Subchapter U of the Tax Code under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. While that was originally done as a prerequisite to a failed 1980 Alaskan ballot initiative that would have paid dividends to Alaskan citizens for pipeline-related revenue, it also turned out to be significant in the development of binary economics
.
, the grandson of the man Gravel had defeated in a primary 12 years earlier. Several factors made Gravel vulnerable. As an insurgent candidate in 1968, Gravel had never established a firm party base. Not liking to hunt or fish, he was also always culturally suspect in the state. A group of Democrats, including future governor Steve Cowper
, led the campaign against Gravel, with Gravel's actions in respect to the 1978 and 1980 Alaskan lands bills a major issue, especially given that the latter's dénouement happened but a week before the primary. The sources of Gravel's campaign funds, some of which came from political action committee
s outside the state, also became an issue in the contest. Another factor may have been Alaska's blanket primary
system of the time, which allowed unlimited voting across party lines and from its many independents; Republicans believed Gruening would be an easier candidate to defeat in the general election.
Gruening won the bitterly-fought primary, with about 55 percent of the vote to Gravel's 44 percent. Gravel would later concede that by the time of his defeat, he had alienated "almost every constituency in Alaska."
Gruening lost the general election
to Republican Frank Murkowski
. Gravel was the last Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress for 28 years, until Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich
defeated Stevens, by now an aged, iconic figure who had just been convicted of seven felonies for taking unreported gifts, in a very close and protracted election result
in mid-November 2008. (The charges against Stevens were subsequently dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.)
During the 1980s, Gravel was a real estate developer in Anchorage
and Kenai, Alaska
, a consultant
, and a stockbroker. One of his real estate ventures, a condominium
business, was forced to declare bankruptcy
and a lawsuit
ensued. During 1986, Gravel worked in partnership with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets
to buy losses that financially troubled Alaska Native Corporations could not take as tax deductions and sell them to large national companies looking for tax writeoffs.
Gravel married his second wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, a former administrative assistant for Senator Jacob Javits, in 1984.
In 1989, Mike Gravel reentered politics. He founded and led The Democracy Foundation, which promotes direct democracy
. He established the Philadelphia II corporation, which seeks to replicate the original 1787 Constitutional Convention in bringing direct democracy about.
Gravel led an effort to get a United States Constitution
al amendment
to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiative
s. He argued that Americans are able to legislate responsibly, and that the Act and Amendment in the National Initiative
would allow American citizens to become "law makers".
In 2001, Gravel became director of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
, where he admired institute co-founder Gregory Fossedal
's work on direct democracy in Switzerland. By 2004, Gravel had become chair of the institute, and Fossedal (who in turn was a director of the Democracy Foundation) gave the introduction at Gravel's presidential announcement.
Mike and Whitney Gravel live in Arlington County, Virginia
. They have the two grown children from his first marriage, Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier, and four grandchildren. Whitney Gravel's income has sustained the couple since 1998. In the 2000s, Gravel suffered poor health, requiring three surgeries in 2003 for back pain
and neuropathy. Due to unreimbursed medical expenses and debts from his political causes, he declared personal bankruptcy
in 2004. He began taking a salary from the non-profit organizations for which he was working; much of that income was lent to his presidential campaign. In 2007, he declared that he had "zero net worth."
at a conference hosted by the American Free Press
. The event was cosponsored by the Barnes Review
, a journal that endorses Holocaust denial
. In the wake of criticism for his appearance, Gravel has said repeatedly that he does not share such a view, stating, "You better believe I know that six million Jews were killed. I've been to the Holocaust Museum. I've seen the footage of General Eisenhower touring one of the camps. They're [referring to the Barnes Review and publisher Willis Carto
] nutty as loons if they don't think it happened". The newspaper had intended to interview Gravel about the National Initiative. Gravel later recounted the background to the event:
The group invited Gravel to speak again, but he declined.
Gravel has stated that he is an advocate for "a national, universal single-payer not-for-profit health care system" in the United States which would utilize voucher
s and enable citizens to choose their own doctor. He has proposed to index veteran health care entitlements to take full account of increases in the costs of care and medicine. He supports a drug policy that legalizes and regulates all drugs, treating drug abuse
as a medical issue, rather than a criminal matter
. Gravel favors a guest worker program
, supports the FairTax
proposal that calls for eliminating the IRS and the income tax
and replacing it with a progressive national sales tax
of 23 percent on newly manufactured items and services, retaining progressivity via all taxes on spending up to the poverty
level being refunded to every household. Gravel has advocated that carbon energy should be taxed
to provide the funding for a global effort to bring together the world's scientific and engineering communities to develop energy alternatives to significantly reduce the world’s energy dependence on carbon.
Gravel in principle does not object to the use of embryonic stem cell
s for medical research purposes. He is avowedly pro-choice
on the issue of abortion
and women's reproductive rights. He supports constitutional amendment
s towards direct democracy
. His political leanings and convictions are also in his 1972 manifesto, Citizen Power: A People's Platform.
At the start of 2006, Gravel decided the best way he could promote direct democracy
and the National Initiative
was to run for president.
On April 17, 2006, Gravel became the first candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States
in the 2008 election
, announcing his run in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Short on campaign cash, he took public transportation to get to his announcement.
Other principal Gravel positions were the FairTax
, withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
within 120 days, a single payer national health care system
, and term limits.
Gravel campaigned almost full time in New Hampshire
, the first primary state
, following his announcement. Opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination showed Gravel with 1 percent or less support. By the end of March 2007, Gravel's campaign had less than $500 in cash on hand against debts of nearly $90,000.
Because of his time in the Senate, Gravel was invited to many of the early Democratic presidential debates. During the initial one at South Carolina State University
on April 26, 2007, he suggested a bill requiring the president to withdraw from Iraq on pain of criminal penalties. He also advocated positions such as opposing preemptive nuclear war
. He stated that the Iraq War had the effect of creating more terrorists and that the "war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis." Regarding his fellow candidates, he said, "I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me — they frighten me." Media stories said that Gravel was responsible for much of whatever "heat" and "flashpoints" had taken place. Gravel gained considerable publicity by shaking up the normally staid multiple-candidate format; The New York Times
' media critic said that what Gravel had done was "steal a debate with outrageous, curmudgeonly statements." The Internet was a benefit: a YouTube
video of his responses in the debate was viewed more than 225,892 times, ranking seventeenth in most views for week and first among news and politics clips; The YouTube debate clip was also ranked #7 top rated (for week), #23 top favored (for week), #25 most discussed (for week), #4 most linked (for week), and #1 top rated - news and politics (for week). his name became the fifteenth most searched-for in the blogosphere
; and his website garnered more traffic than those of frontrunners Hillary Rodham Clinton
, Barack Obama
, or John Edwards
. Gravel appeared on the popular Colbert Report on television on May 2, and his campaign and career were profiled in national publications such as Salon. Two wordless, Warholesque
campaign videos, "Rock" and "Fire", were released on YouTube in late May and became hits, and eventually gained over 760,000 and 185,000 views respectively. "Rock," in turn, was given airtime during an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Some thirty-five years after he first achieved the national spotlight, he had found it again.
All this did not improve his performance in the polls; a May 2007 CNN
poll showed him with less than 0.5 percent support among Democrats.
Gravel was in the next several debates, in one case after CNN
reversed a decision to exclude him. Gravel, as with some of the other second-tier candidates, did not get as much time as the leaders; during the June 2, 2007, New Hampshire
debate, which lasted two hours, he was asked 10 questions and allowed to speak for five minutes and 37 seconds.
During the July 23, 2007, CNN-YouTube presidential debate, Gravel responded to audience applause when he had complained of a lack of airtime and said: "Thank you. Has it been fair thus far?" Detractors began to liken him to "the cranky uncle who lives in the attic," or "the angry old guy that just seemed to want to become angrier." In the ABC News
Des Moines, Iowa
, debate of August 19, 2007, moderator George Stephanopoulos
noted that Gravel polled a statistical zero percent support in the state, meaning less than 0.5% support, and then directed roughly five percent of his questions to Gravel; in a poll asking who did the best in the debate, Gravel placed seventh among the eight candidates. National opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination continued to show Gravel with one percent or zero percent numbers. By the end of the third-quarter 2007, Gravel had about $17,500 in cash on hand, had collected a total of about $380,000 so far during the 2008 election cycle, and was continuing to run a threadbare campaign with minimal staff.
Beginning with the October 30, 2007, Philadelphia event, Gravel was excluded from most of the debates, with the debate sponsors or the Democratic National Committee
saying Gravel's campaign had not met fund-raising, polling, or local campaign organizational thresholds. For the Philadelphia exclusion, Gravel blamed corporate censorship
on the part of sponsor owner and alleged military-industrial complex
member General Electric
for his exclusion and mounted a counter-gathering and debate against a video screen a short distance away, but he had lost his easiest publicity. In reaction, supporters organized "mass donation days" to try to help the campaign gain momentum and funds, such as on December 5, 2007, the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition
.
Gravel did not compete in the initial 2008 vote, the Iowa caucuses
, but was still subjected to a false report from MSNBC
that he had pulled out of the race afterward. Gravel did focus his attention on the second 2008 vote, the New Hampshire primary
. There he received about 400 votes out of some 280,000 cast, or 0.14 percent, before taking time off to improve his health. He resumed campaigning, but fared no better in subsequent states. By the end of January 2008, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Gravel were the only remaining Democrats from the initial debates still running; Gravel vowed to stay in the presidential campaign until November. On March 11, 2008, Gravel continued to remain in the Democratic race but additionally endorsed a Green Party
candidate for president, Jesse Johnson
, saying he wanted to help Johnson prevail against Green Party rivals Cynthia McKinney
and Ralph Nader
. By late March, Gravel had almost no fundraising and was only on the ballot in one of the next ten Democratic primaries.
, saying: "My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average American; elites that reject the empowerment of American citizens I offered to the Democratic Party at the beginning of this presidential campaign with the National Initiative for Democracy." The following day Gravel entered the race for the 2008 Libertarian presidential nomination, saying that he would have run as a third-party candidate all along except that he needed the public exposure that came from being in the earlier Democratic debates. Gravel's initial notion of running as a fusion candidate
with other parties was met with skepticism and not pursued.
As a Libertarian candidate, Gravel faced resistance to his liberal past and unorthodox positions; nevertheless, he garnered more support than he had as a Democrat, placing second and third in two April 2008 straw poll
s. In the May 25 balloting at the 2008 Libertarian National Convention
in Denver, Gravel finished fourth out of eight candidates on the initial ballot, with 71 votes out of a total 618; he trailed former Congressman and eventual winner Bob Barr
, author Mary Ruwart
, and businessman Wayne Allyn Root
. Gravel's position did not subsequently improve and he was eliminated on the fourth ballot. Afterwards he stated that "I just ended my political career," but he vowed to continue promoting his positions as a writer and lecturer.
In August 2008, Gravel was speaking to a crowd of supporters of Sami Al-Arian
(who two years earlier had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison for a charge of conspiracy in helping Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist
" organization) when he was caught on tape saying of Al-Arian's prosecutor, "Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is: picket him all the time. Call him a racist in signs if you see him. Call him an injustice. Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time." Gravel was criticized for potentially involving the children of the prosecutor, and Al-Arian's family disavowed the sentiments.
Gravel defended Alaska Governor Sarah Palin
after she was chosen as Republican presidential nominee John McCain
's running mate in September 2008. He praised Palin's record in standing up to corruption among Alaskan Republicans, thought her national inexperience was an asset not a detriment, and predicted that the "Troopergate
" investigation into whether she improperly fired a state official would "come out in her favor." Gravel made clear he would not support or vote for either McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden in the general election.
The following year, Gravel said that Palin's politics were "terrible, but that doesn't detract from the fact that she's a very talented person". He predicted that Palin would run for president in 2012 and that "she's going to surprise a lot of people."
From mid-2008 through October 2009 Gravel gave several lectures at South Korean universities about the Korean National Initiative, a Korean adaption of the National Initiative Gravel has proposed in the United States.
In December 2010, Gravel praised WikiLeaks
, in the news during the year for the Afghan War documents leak, Iraq War documents leak
, and United States diplomatic cables leak
,
as the "most significant effort to save democracy (which is slowly being eclipsed by the Military Industrial Complex) since the release of the Pentagon Papers". Gravel also indicated that he might run for president again and possibly challenge President Obama for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 presidential election
.
Biographical
Pentagon Papers
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
United States Senator
United States Senate
The 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 Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and a former candidate in the 2008 presidential election
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
.
Born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
to French-Canadian
French Canadian
French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...
immigrant parents, Gravel served in the United States Army
United States Army
The 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...
in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
and graduated from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He moved to Alaska in the late 1950s, becoming a real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
developer and entering politics. He served in the Alaska House of Representatives
Alaska House of Representatives
The Alaska House of Representatives is the lower house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. The House is composed of 40 members, each of whom represents a district of about 15,673 people . Members serve two-year terms without term limits...
from 1963 to 1966 and became its Speaker of the House
Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives
This is a list of speakers of the Alaska House of Representatives. The speaker is the presiding officer of the Alaska House of Representatives. This list covers both the territorial House and the state House .-Territorial House:-State House:- External links :*...
. Gravel was elected to the United States Senate in 1968.
As Senator, Gravel became nationally known for his forceful but unsuccessful attempts to end the draft
Conscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The 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...
and for putting the Pentagon Papers
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967...
into the public record in 1971 at risk to himself. He conducted an unusual campaign for the Democratic nomination
United States presidential election, 1972
The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard...
for Vice President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
in 1972, and then played a crucial role in getting Congressional approval for the Trans-Alaska pipeline in 1973. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1974, but gradually alienated most of his Alaskan constituencies and his bid for a third term was defeated in a primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
in 1980.
Gravel returned to business ventures and went through difficult times, suffering corporate and personal bankruptcies
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
amid poor health. He is a passionate advocate of direct democracy
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
and the National Initiative
National initiative
National initiative refers to proposals within the United States to allow for ballot initiatives at the federal level. Currently, this is being proposed by Mike Gravel, a former U.S. Senator, and The Democracy Foundation, a non-profit non-governmental organization...
. In 2006, Gravel began a run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
to promote those ideas. His campaign
Mike Gravel presidential campaign, 2008
Mike Gravel, a former United States Senator from Alaska, on April 17, 2006, declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, in a speech to the National Press Club....
gained an Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
following and national attention due to forceful, humorous and politically unorthodox debate appearances during 2007, but showed very little support in national polls or in 2008 caucuses and primaries. In March 2008, he announced he was switching to the Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)
The 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...
to compete for its presidential nomination and the inclusion of the National Initiative into the Libertarian Platform. At the May 2008 Libertarian National Convention
2008 Libertarian National Convention
The 2008 Libertarian National Convention was held from May 22 to May 26, 2008 at the Sheraton Hotel in Denver, Colorado...
he failed on both counts and announced his political electoral career had ended.
Early life, military service, education
Gravel was born in Springfield, MassachusettsSpringfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
, one of five children to French-Canadian immigrant parents, Alphonse Gravel (born 1896/1897/1898, Sorel, Quebec — died 19??) and Marie (née Bourassa) Gravel (born January 26, 1901, Saint-Ours, Quebec
Saint-Ours, Quebec
Saint-Ours is a town located in the Pierre-De Saurel Regional County Municipality of Québec , in the administrative region of Montérégie. The population as of the Canada 2006 Census was 1,700.-Population:Population trend-Language:...
— died December 28, 1989).His parents were part of the Quebec diaspora
Quebec diaspora
The Quebec diaspora consists of Quebec emigrants and their descendants dispersed over the North American continent and historically concentrated in the New England region of the United States, Ontario, and the Canadian Prairies...
, and he was raised in a working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
neighborhood during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, speaking only French until he was seven years old. Calling him "Mike" from an early age, his father valued work above all else, while his mother stressed to him the importance of education.
Gravel was educated in parochial school
Parochial school
A parochial school is a school that provides religious education in addition to conventional education. In a narrower sense, a parochial school is a Christian grammar school or high school which is part of, and run by, a parish.-United Kingdom:...
s as a Roman Catholic. There he struggled – due to what he later said was undiagnosed dyslexia
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid...
– and was left back
Grade retention
Grade retention or grade repetition is the process of having a student repeat an educational course, usually one previously failed. Students who repeat a course are referred as "repeaters"...
in third grade. He completed elementary school in 1945 and his class voted him "most charming personality". A summer job as a soda jerk
Soda jerk
A soda jerk was a person — typically a youth — who operated the soda fountain in a drugstore, often for the purpose of preparing and serving ice cream soda. This was made by putting flavored syrup into a specially designed tall glass, adding carbonated water and, finally, one or two scoops of ice...
led to Gravel handing out campaign fliers for local candidates on behalf of his boss; Gravel was immediately impressed with "the awesomeness of political office."
Gravel then boarded at Assumption Preparatory School
Assumption Preparatory School
Assumption Preparatory School was an American secondary boarding school located in Worcester, Massachusetts, and operated by the Catholic order Augustinians of the Assumption...
in Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
, where his performance was initially mediocre. Then an English teacher, the Assumptionist Edgar Bourque, gave him personal attention, improving Gravel's language skills and instructing him in public speaking. Gravel's grades improved measurably in his final year, and he graduated in 1949. He has a sister, Marguerite, who became a Holy Cross nun
Marianites of Holy Cross
The Marianites of Holy Cross is a Roman Catholic congregation of nuns, founded in Le Mans, France, in 1841, by the Blessed Father Basil Anthony-Marie Moreau, CSC...
, but Gravel himself struggled with the Catholic faith. He studied for one year at Assumption College
Assumption College
Assumption College is a private, Roman Catholic, liberal arts college located on 185 acres in Worcester, Massachusetts. Assumption has an enrollment of about 2,117 undergraduates...
in Worcester, then transferred for his sophomore year to American International College
American International College
American International College is a private, co-educational liberal-arts college located in the Mason Square neighborhood of Springfield, Massachusetts.-History:...
in Springfield. Journalist I. F. Stone
I. F. Stone
Isidor Feinstein Stone was an iconoclastic American investigative journalist. He is best remembered for his self-published newsletter, I. F...
and philosopher Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
strongly influenced Gravel in their willingness to challenge assumptions and oppose social convention and political authority.
Around May 1951, Gravel saw that he was about to be drafted, and instead enlisted in the United States Army
United States Army
The 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...
for a three-year stint so that he could get into the counterintelligence corps. After basic training and counterintelligence school at Fort Holabird in Maryland and in South Carolina, he went to Officer Candidate School
Officer Candidate School (U.S. Army)
The United States Army's Officer Candidate School , located at Fort Benning, Georgia, provides training to become a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army...
at Fort Benning
Fort Benning
Fort Benning is a United States Army post located southeast of the city of Columbus in Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties in Georgia and Russell County, Alabama...
in Georgia. While he expected to be sent off to the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
when he graduated as a second lieutenant in early 1952, he instead was assigned to Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, as a Special Adjutant in the Army's Communications Intelligence Service. There he had an adventurous time moving around the country, conducting surveillance operations on civilians, and paying off spies. After about a year he transferred to Orléans
Orléans
-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where his French language abilities (if not his Quebec-American accent) allowed him to infiltrate French communist
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
rallies. He worked
as a Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps
Counter Intelligence Corps
The Counter Intelligence Corps was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and, in 1967, by the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency...
until 1954, eventually becoming a First Lieutenant
First Lieutenant
First lieutenant is a military rank and, in some forces, an appointment.The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations , but the majority of cases it is common for it to be sub-divided into a senior and junior rank...
.
Following his discharge, Gravel attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
's School of General Studies
Columbia University School of General Studies
The School of General Studies, commonly known as General Studies or simply GS, is one of the three official undergraduate colleges at Columbia University. It is a highly selective Ivy League undergraduate liberal arts college designed for non-traditional students and confers Bachelor of Art and...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he studied economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
and received a B.S. in 1956. He had come to New York "flat broke", and supported himself by working as a bar boy in a hotel, driving a taxicab
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
, and working in the investment bond department at Bankers Trust
Bankers Trust
Bankers Trust was an historic American banking organization. The bank merged with Alex. Brown & Sons before being acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1998.-History:A consortium of banks created Bankers Trust to perform trust company services for their clients....
. During this time he left the Catholic faith.
Move to Alaska
Gravel "decided to become a pioneer in a faraway place," and moved to pre-statehood AlaskaAlaska Territory
The Territory of Alaska was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 24, 1912, until January 3, 1959, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Alaska...
in August 1956, without funds or a job, looking for a place where someone without social or political connections could be a viable candidate for public office
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
. Alaska's voting age of 19, less than most other states' 21, played a role in his decision, as did its newness and cooler climate. Broke when he arrived, he immediately found work in real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
sales until winter arrived. Gravel then was employed as a brakeman
Brakeman
A brakeman is a rail transport worker whose original job it was to assist the braking of a train by applying brakes on individual wagons. The advent of through brakes on trains made this role redundant, although the name lives on in the United States where brakemen carry out a variety of functions...
for the Alaska Railroad
Alaska Railroad
The Alaska Railroad is a Class II railroad which extends from Seward and Whittier, in the south of the state of Alaska, in the United States, to Fairbanks , and beyond to Eielson Air Force Base and Fort Wainwright in the interior of that state...
, working the snow-clearing train on the Anchorage-Fairbanks run. Subsequently he opened a small real estate brokerage in Anchorage (the Territory of Alaska not requiring a license) and saved enough so as not to have to work the railroad again. Gravel joined the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist
Unitarian Universalism
Unitarian Universalism is a religion characterized by support for a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". Unitarian Universalists do not share a creed; rather, they are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth and by the understanding that an individual's theology is a...
fellowship, and would continue a sporadic relationship with the movement throughout his life.
Gravel married Rita Jeannette Martin, who had been Anchorage's "Miss Fur Rendezvous" of 1958, on April 29, 1959. They had two children, Martin Anthony Gravel and Lynne Denise Gravel, born circa 1960 and 1962 respectively.
Meanwhile, he went to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
in 1957 to campaign for Alaskan statehood via the "Tennessee Plan": dressed as Paul Revere
Paul Revere
Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...
, he rode with a petition to the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Seeing Alaska as a wide-open place with no political establishment or entrenched interests, and using the slogan "Gravel, the Roadbed to Prosperity", he ran for the territorial legislature in 1958 but lost. He went on a national speaking tour concerning tax reform
Tax reform
Tax reform is the process of changing the way taxes are collected or managed by the government.Tax reformers have different goals. Some seek to reduce the level of taxation of all people by the government. Some seek to make the tax system more progressive or less progressive. Some seek to simplify...
in 1959, sponsored by the Jaycees. He ran unsuccessfully for the Anchorage
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
City Council in 1960. During this time, he had become a successful real estate agent; after the 1960 election, he became a property developer in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Anchorage. A partner ran into financial difficulty, however, and the project went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Gravel was forced out in 1962.
State legislator
With the support of Alaska wholesale grocer Barney Gottstein and supermarket builder Larry Carr, Gravel ran for the Alaska House of RepresentativesAlaska House of Representatives
The Alaska House of Representatives is the lower house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. The House is composed of 40 members, each of whom represents a district of about 15,673 people . Members serve two-year terms without term limits...
representing Anchorage in 1962 and won.
Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives
Alaska House of Representatives
The Alaska House of Representatives is the lower house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. The House is composed of 40 members, each of whom represents a district of about 15,673 people . Members serve two-year terms without term limits...
from 1963 to 1966, winning re-election in 1964. He coauthored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. Gravel was the chief architect of the law that created a regional high school system for rural Alaska; this allowed Alaska Natives
Alaska Natives
Alaska Natives are the indigenous peoples of Alaska. They include: Aleut, Inuit, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Eyak, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures.-History:In 1912 the Alaska Native Brotherhood was founded...
to attend schools near where they lived, instead of having to go to schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
in the lower 48 states.
During the half-years that the legislature was not in session, Gravel resumed his real estate work. With Gottstein and Carr's backing, he became quite successful as a property developer on the Kenai Peninsula
Kenai Peninsula
The Kenai Peninsula is a large peninsula jutting from the southern coast of Alaska in the United States. The name Kenai is probably derived from Kenayskaya, the Russian name for Cook Inlet, which borders the peninsula to the west.-Geography:...
.
During 1965 and 1966, he served as the Speaker of the House, surprising observers by winning that post. Gravel convinced former Speaker Warren A. Taylor
Warren A. Taylor
Warren Arthur Taylor was an American Democratic politician from Alaska active during its territorial period and first years of statehood. He became the first Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives....
to not try for the position against him by promising Taylor chairmanship of the Rules Committee, then reneged on the promise. (Gravel denied later press charges that he had promised but not delivered on other committee chairmanships.) As Speaker he antagonized fellow lawmakers by imposing his will on the legislature's committees and feuded with Alaska State Senate president Robert J. McNealy.
Gravel did not run for re-election in 1966, instead choosing to run for Alaska's seat
Alaska's At-large congressional district
Alaska's At-large congressional district comprises the entire state of Alaska. This congressional district has the largest land area and lowest population density of any district in the United States...
in the U.S. House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, losing to four-term incumbent Democrat Ralph Rivers by 1,300 votes and splitting the Democratic party in the process. Rivers lost the general election that year to Republican state Senator Howard Wallace Pollock
Howard Wallace Pollock
Howard Wallace Pollock was an American politician and Republican Representative from Alaska.Pollock was born in Chicago and went to school in Perkinston, Mississippi. He studied law at the University of Santa Clara in California and at the University of Houston, Texas, and then did some...
.
Following his defeat, Gravel returned to the real estate business in Anchorage.
Election to Senate in 1968
In 1968 he ran against the 81-year-old incumbent Democratic Senator Ernest GrueningErnest Gruening
Ernest Henry Gruening was an American journalist and Democrat who was the Governor of the Alaska Territory from 1939 until 1953, and a United States Senator from Alaska from 1959 until 1969.-Early life:...
, a popular former governor of the Alaska Territory
Alaska Territory
The Territory of Alaska was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 24, 1912, until January 3, 1959, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Alaska...
who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood, for his party's nomination to the U.S. Senate
United States Senate
The 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...
. Gravel's campaign was primarily based on his youth rather than issue differences. He hired Joseph Napolitan
Joseph Napolitan
Joseph Napolitan is an American political consultant, who worked as a general consultant on over 100 political campaigns in the United States, and many others throughout the world...
, the first self-described political consultant, in late 1966. They spent over a year and a half planning a short, nine-day primary election campaign that featured the slogans "Alaska first" and "Let's do something about the state we're in", the distribution of a collection of essays entitled Jobs and More Jobs, and the creation a half-hour, well-produced, glamorized biographical film of Gravel, Man for Alaska. The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds of Eskimo
Eskimo
Eskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....
villages. The heavy showings quickly reversed a 2–to–1 Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead. Gravel visited many remote villages by seaplane and showed a thorough understanding of the needs of the bush country and the fishing and oil industries. Gravel also benefited by being deliberately ambiguous about his Vietnam policy. Gruening had been one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was a joint resolution which the United States Congress passed on August 10, 1964 in response to a sea battle between the North Vietnamese Navy's Torpedo Squadron 10135 and the destroyer on August 2 and an alleged second naval engagement between North Vietnamese boats...
and his opposition to President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate; according to Gravel, "...all I had to do was stand up and not deal with the subject, and people would assume that I was to the right of Ernest Gruening, when in point of fact I was to the left of him."
Gravel beat Gruening in the primary in a tight result with a margin of about 2,000 votes. Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers. In the general election, Gravel faced Republican Elmer E. Rasmuson
Elmer E. Rasmuson
Elmer E. Rasmuson was an Alaskan banker and philanthropist. He was Mayor of Anchorage from 1964 to 1967.-Origins and education:...
, a banker and former mayor of Anchorage. College students in the state implored Gruening to run a write-in campaign as an Independent, but legal battles prevented the senator from getting approval for it until only two weeks were left. A late appearance by anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy
Eugene McCarthy
Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first...
could not offset Gruening's lack of funds and endorsements; meanwhile, Gravel and Rasmuson both saturated local media with their filmed biographies. On November 5, 1968, Gravel won the general election, gaining 45 percent of the vote against 37 percent for Rasmuson and 18 percent for Gruening.
Senate assignments and style
United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
The United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is responsible for dealing with matters related to the environment and infrastructure.-Members, 112th Congress:...
, which he held throughout his time in the Senate. Finally, he was a member of the Select Committee on Small Business. In 1971 he became chair of the Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, then by 1973 he was chair of its Subcommittee on Water Resources, then by some date its Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution. Gravel was also initially named to the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations. By 1973 Gravel was off the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and the Select Small Business Committee and instead a member of the Finance Committee
United States Senate Committee on Finance
The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance is a standing committee of the United States Senate. The Committee concerns itself with matters relating to taxation and other revenue measures generally, and those relating to the insular possessions; bonded debt of the United States; customs, collection...
, and by 1977 was chair of that body's Subcommittee on Energy and Foundations. By 1973 he had also been on the ad hoc Special Committee to Study Secret and Confidential Government Documents.
By his own admission, Gravel was too new and "too abrasive" to be effective in the Senate by the usual means of seniority-based committee assignments or negotiating deals with other senators, and was sometimes seen as arrogant by the more senior members. Gravel instead relied upon attention-getting gestures to achieve what he wanted, hoping national exposure would force other senators to listen to him. As part of this he voted with Southern Democrats to keep the Senate filibuster
Filibuster
A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
rule in place, and accordingly supported Russell Long and Robert Byrd
Robert Byrd
Robert Carlyle Byrd was a United States Senator from West Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd served as a U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959 and as a U.S. Senator from 1959 to 2010...
and opposed Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
in Senate leadership battles. In retrospective assessment, University of Alaska Anchorage
University of Alaska Anchorage
The University of Alaska Anchorage is the largest school of the University of Alaska System, with about 16,500 students, about 14,000 of whom attend classes at Goose Lake, its main campus in Anchorage....
history professor Stephen Haycox would say, "Loose cannon is a good description of Gravel's Senate career. He was an off-the-wall guy, and you weren't really ever sure what he would do."
Nuclear issues and the Cold War
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the U.S. Department of DefenseUnited States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
was in the process of performing tests for the nuclear warhead
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
for the Spartan
LIM-49A Spartan
The LIM-49A Spartan was a United States Army anti-ballistic missile, whose warheads were developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It was a three-stage, solid-fuel surface-to-air missile that carried a W71 thermonuclear warhead with a lethal radius of up to 30 miles to intercept...
anti-ballistic missile
Anti-ballistic missile
An anti-ballistic missile is a missile designed to counter ballistic missiles .A ballistic missile is used to deliver nuclear, chemical, biological or conventional warheads in a ballistic flight trajectory. The term "anti-ballistic missile" describes any antimissile system designed to counter...
interceptor. Two tests, the Milrow and Cannikin tests, were planned, involving the detonation of nuclear bombs
Nuclear testing
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have tested them...
under Amchitka Island
Amchitka
Amchitka is a volcanic, tectonically unstable island in the Rat Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in southwest Alaska. It is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The island is about long, and from wide...
in Alaska. The Milrow test would be a one megaton calibration exercise for the second, and larger five megaton, Cannikin test, which would measure the effectiveness of the warhead. Gravel opposed the tests in Congress. Before the October 1969 Milrow test took place, he wrote that there were significant risks of earthquakes and other adverse consequences, and called for an independent national commission on nuclear and seismic safety to be created; he then made a personal appeal to President Nixon to stop the test.
After Milrow was conducted, there was continued pressure on the part of environmental groups against going forward with the larger Cannikin test, while the Federation of American Scientists
Federation of American Scientists
The Federation of American Scientists is a nonpartisan, 501 organization intent on using science and scientific analysis to attempt make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1945 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs...
claimed the warhead being tested was already obsolete. In May 1971 Gravel sent a letter to Atomic Energy Commission
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
hearings held in Anchorage, in which he said the risk of the test was not worth taking. Eventually a group not involving Gravel took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an injunction against it, and the Cannikin test took place as scheduled in November 1971. Gravel had failed to stop the tests (notwithstanding his later claims during his 2008 presidential campaign).Gravel claimed during his 2008 presidential campaign that "the Pentagon was performing five calibration tests ... [Gravel] succeeded in halting the program after the second test, limiting the expansion of this threat to the marine environment of the North Pacific." See In actuality, the Milrow and Cannikin tests were the only ones planned and both took place. See
Nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
was considered an environmentally clean alternative for the commercial generation of electricity and was part of a popular national policy for the peaceful use of atomic energy
Atoms for Peace
"Atoms for Peace" was the title of a speech delivered by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly in New York City on December 8, 1953....
in the 1950s and 1960s. Gravel publicly opposed this policy; besides the dangers of nuclear testing, he was a vocal critic of the Atomic Energy Commission
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
, which oversaw American nuclear efforts, and of the powerful United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy was a United States congressional committee that was tasked with exclusive jurisdiction over "all bills, resolutions, and other matters" related to civilian and military aspects of nuclear power from 1946 through 1977...
, which had a stranglehold on nuclear policy and which Gravel tried to circumvent. In 1971, Gravel sponsored a bill to impose a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction and to make power utilities liable for any nuclear accidents; in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums. By 1974, Gravel was allied with Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
's organization in opposing nuclear power.
Six months before United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
's secret mission to the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
in July 1971, Gravel introduced legislation to recognize
Diplomatic recognition
Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral political act with domestic and international legal consequences, whereby a state acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state...
and normalize relations with China, including a proposal for unity talks between China and Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
(Taiwan) regarding the China seat at the United Nations
China and the United Nations
China's seat in the United Nations and membership of the United Nations Security Council was originally occupied by the Republic of China since October 24, 1945. During the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China repelled the government of the ROC from Mainland China to the island of...
. Gravel reiterated his position in favor of recognition, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971.
Vietnam War, the draft, and the Pentagon Papers
President Richard NixonRichard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
had campaigned in 1968
United States presidential election, 1968
The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial United States presidential election. Coming four years after Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won in a historic landslide, it saw Johnson forced out of the race and Republican Richard Nixon elected...
on a promise to end the U.S. military draft
Conscription in the United States
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
, a decision endorsed by the February 1970 report of the Gates Commission.
The existing draft law was scheduled to conclude at the end of June 1971, and the Senate faced a contentious debate about whether to extend it as the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The 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...
continued. The Nixon administration announced in February 1971 that it wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, after which the draft would end; Army planners had already been operating under the assumption of a two-year extension, after which an all-volunteer force would be in place. Skeptics such as Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Stennis thought this unrealistic and wanted a four-year extension, but the two-year proposal is what went forward in Congress. By early May 1971, Gravel had indicated his intention to filibuster
Filibuster
A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
the draft renewal legislation, halting conscription and thereby bringing U.S. involvement in the war to a rapid end.
By June 1971, some Democratic senators opposed to the war wanted to limit the renewal to a one-year extension, while others wanted to end it immediately; Gravel reiterated that he was one of the latter, saying, "It's a senseless war, and one way to do away with it is to do away with the draft." A Senate vote on June 4 indicated majority support for the two-year extension. On June 18 Gravel announced again his intention to counteract that by filibustering the renewal legislation, defending the practice against those who associated it only with blocking civil rights legislation. The first filibuster attempt failed on June 23 when, by three votes, the Senate voted cloture for only the fifth time since 1927.
Protracted negotiations took place over House conference negotiations on the bill, revolving in large part around Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield
Mike Mansfield
Michael Joseph Mansfield was an American Democratic politician and the longest-serving Majority Leader of the United States Senate, serving from 1961 to 1977. He also served as United States Ambassador to Japan for over ten years...
's eventually unsuccessful amendment to tie renewal to a troop withdrawal timetable from Vietnam; during this time the draft law expired and no more were conscripted. On August 5, the Nixon administration pleaded for a renewal before the Senate went on recess, but Gravel successfully blocked Stennis's attempt to limit debate, and no vote was held. Finally on September 21, 1971, the Senate invoked cloture over Gravel's second filibuster attempt by one vote, and then passed the two-year draft extension. Gravel's attempts to stop the draft had failed (notwithstanding Gravel's later claims that he had stopped or shortened the draft, taken at face value in some media reports, during his 2008 presidential campaign).During Gravel's 2008 presidential campaign, he would claim that, "In 1971, Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), by waging a lone five month filibuster, singlehandedly ended the draft in The United States thereby saving thousands of lives." See A 2006 article in The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
stated that "It was Gravel who in 1971, against the advice of Democratic leaders in the Senate, launched a one-man filibuster to end the peacetime military draft, forcing the administration to cut a deal that allowed the draft to expire in 1973." See Neither of these assessments is correct. From the beginning of the draft review process in February 1971, the Nixon administration wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, followed by a shift to an all-volunteer force — see ; for confirmation, see — and this is what is what the September 1971 Senate vote gave them. Gravel's goal had been to block the renewal of the draft completely, thereby ending conscription past June 1971. See In Gravel's 2008 memoir, he conceded that he failed to bring about the immediate end of the war that he wanted, and that Nixon had gotten the two-year extension he had originally asked for. However, Gravel wrote that he had never trusted Nixon's pledge to only extend the draft for two years, and that when Nixon let the draft expire in 1973 it was the threat of a renewed filibuster that caused him to stick to the pledge. See Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, p. 180. No other accounts support this interpretation; in fact, Nixon had first become interested in the idea of an all-volunteer army during his time out of office, and he saw ending the draft as an effective way to undermine the anti-Vietnam war movement, since he believed affluent youths would stop protesting the war once their own possibility of having to fight in it was gone. See pp. 396–397 and Ambrose, Nixon, Volume Two: The Triumph of a Politician, pp. 264–266.
Meanwhile, on June 13, 1971, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
began printing large portions of the Pentagon Papers
Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967...
. The papers were a large collection of secret government documents and studies pertaining to the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The 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...
, of which former Defense Department
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
analyst Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War,...
had made unauthorized copies and was determined to make public. Ellsberg had for a year and a half approached members of Congress — such as William Fulbright, George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
, Charles Mathias, and Pete McCloskey
Pete McCloskey
Paul Norton "Pete" McCloskey Jr. is a former Republican politician from the U.S. state of California who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983. He ran on an anti-war platform for the Republican nomination for President in 1972 but was defeated by incumbent President...
— about publishing the documents, on the grounds that the Speech or Debate Clause
Speech or Debate Clause
The Speech or Debate Clause is a clause in the United States Constitution . The clause states that members of both Houses of Congress...
of the Constitution would give congressional members immunity from prosecution
Parliamentary immunity
Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which members of the parliament or legislature are granted partial immunity from prosecution. Before prosecuting, it is necessary that the immunity be removed, usually by a superior court of justice or by the parliament itself...
, but all had refused. Instead, Ellsberg gave the documents to the Times.
The U.S. Justice Department immediately tried to halt publication, on the grounds that the information revealed within the papers harmed the national interest. Within the next two weeks, a federal court injunction halted publication in The Times; The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
and several other newspapers began publishing parts of the documents, with some of them also being halted by injunctions; and the whole matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court for arguments. Looking for an alternate publication mechanism, Ellsberg returned to his idea of having a member of Congress read them, and chose Gravel based on the latter's efforts against the draft; Gravel agreed where previously others had not. Ellsberg arranged for the papers to be given to Gravel on June 26 via an intermediary, Washington Post editor Ben Bagdikian
Ben Bagdikian
Ben Haig Bagdikian is an American educator and journalist. Bagdikian has made journalism his profession since 1941. He is a significant American media critic and the dean emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism...
. Gravel used his counter-intelligence experience to choose a midnight transfer in front of the Mayflower Hotel
Mayflower Hotel
The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, known locally as simply The Mayflower, is a historic hotel in downtown Washington, DC located on Connecticut Avenue NW, two blocks north of Farragut Square . It is the largest luxury hotel in the U.S. capital and the longest continuously operating hotel in the...
in the center of Washington.
On the night of June 29, 1971, Gravel attempted to read the papers on the floor of the Senate as part of his filibuster against the draft, but was thwarted when no quorum could be formed. Gravel instead convened a session of the Buildings and Grounds subcommittee that he chaired. He got New York Congressman John Dow to testify that the war had soaked up funding for public buildings, thus making discussion of the war relevant to the committee. He began reading from the papers with the press in attendance, omitting supporting documents that he felt might compromise national security, and declaring, "It is my constitutional obligation to protect the security of the people by fostering the free flow of information absolutely essential to their democratic decision-making."
He read until 1 a.m., until with tears and sobs he said that he could no longer physically continue, the previous three nights of sleeplessness and fear about the future having taken their toll. Gravel ended the session by, with no other senators present, establishing unanimous consent
Unanimous consent
In parliamentary procedure, unanimous consent, also known as general consent, or in the case of the parliaments under the Westminster system, leave of the house, is a situation in which no one present objects to a proposal. The chair may state, for instance: "If there is no objection, the motion...
towards inserting 4,100 pages of the Papers into the Congressional Record
Congressional Record
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks...
of his subcommittee. The following day, the Supreme Court's New York Times Co. v. United States
New York Times Co. v. United States
New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 , was a United States Supreme Court per curiam decision. The ruling made it possible for the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censure.President Richard Nixon had...
decision ruled in favor of the newspapers and publication in The Times and others resumed. In July 1971, Bantam Books
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
published an inexpensive paperback edition of the papers containing the material The Times had published.
Gravel, too, wanted to privately publish the portion of the papers he had read into the record, believing that "immediate disclosure of the contents of these papers will change the policy that supports the war." After being turned down by many commercial publishers, on August 4 he reached agreement with Beacon Press
Beacon Press
Beacon Press is an American non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association.Beacon Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses....
, the publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalist Association , in full the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in North America, is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations formed by the consolidation in 1961 of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of...
, of which Gravel was a member. Announced on August 17 and published on October 22, 1971, this four-volume, relatively expensive set became the "Senator Gravel Edition", which studies from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
and the Annenberg Center for Communication
Annenberg Center for Communication
The Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California promotes interdisciplinary research in communications between the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Viterbi School of Engineering, and the separate USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, also funded by...
have labeled as the most complete edition of the Pentagon Papers to be published. The "Gravel Edition" was edited and annotated by Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
and Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...
, and included an additional volume of analytical articles on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn. Beacon Press then was subjected to a FBI investigation; an outgrowth of this was the Gravel v. United States
Gravel v. United States
Gravel v. United States, 408 U.S. 606 , was a case regarding the protections offered by the Speech or Debate Clause of the United States Constitution...
court case, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled upon in June 1972; it held that the Speech or Debate Clause
Speech or Debate Clause
The Speech or Debate Clause is a clause in the United States Constitution . The clause states that members of both Houses of Congress...
did grant immunity to Gravel for his reading the papers in his subcommittee, did grant some immunity to Gravel's congressional aide, but granted no immunity to Beacon Press in relation to their publishing the same papers.
The events of 1971 changed Gravel in the months following from an obscure freshman senator in a far corner of the country to a nationally-visible political figure. He became a sought-after speaker on the college circuit as well as at political fundraisers, opportunities he welcomed as lectures were "the one honest way a Senator has to supplement his income." The Democratic candidates for the 1972 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1972
The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard...
sought out his endorsement. In January 1972 Gravel did endorse Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
Senator Ed Muskie, hoping his endorsement would help Muskie with the party's left wing and in the ethnic French-Canadian areas in first primary state New Hampshire
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire primary is the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years , as part of the process of choosing the Democratic and Republican nominees for the presidential elections to be held the subsequent November.Although only a...
(which Muskie won, but not strongly, and his campaign faltered soon thereafter). In April 1972, Gravel appeared on all three network nightly newscasts to decry the Nixon administration's reliance on Vietnamization
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard M. Nixon administration during the Vietnam War, as a result of the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S....
by making reference to the secret National Security Study Memorandum 1 document, which stated it would take 8–13 years before the Army of the Republic of Vietnam
Army of the Republic of Vietnam
The Army of the Republic of Viet Nam , sometimes parsimoniously referred to as the South Vietnamese Army , was the land-based military forces of the Republic of Vietnam , which existed from October 26, 1955 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975...
could defend South Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
. Gravel made excerpts from the study public, but his attempt to read NSSM 1 into the Congressional Record was blocked by Senators Robert P. Griffin
Robert P. Griffin
Robert Paul Griffin was a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan and Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court....
and William B. Saxbe
William B. Saxbe
William Bart "Bill" Saxbe was an American politician affiliated with the Republican Party, who served as a U.S. Senator from Ohio, as U.S. Attorney General under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, and as United States Ambassador to India.At the time of his death, Saxbe was the...
.
Run for Vice President in 1972
Gravel actively campaigned for the office of Vice President of the United StatesVice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
during the 1972 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1972
The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard...
, announcing on June 2, 1972, over a month before the 1972 Democratic National Convention
1972 Democratic National Convention
The 1972 Democratic National Convention was the presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party for the 1972 presidential election. It was held at Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida on July 10–13, 1972....
began, that he was interested in running for the nomination should the choice be opened up to convention delegates. Towards this end he began soliciting delegates for their support in advance of the convention. He was not alone in this effort, as former Governor of Massachusetts
Governor of Massachusetts
The Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the executive magistrate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The current governor is Democrat Deval Patrick.-Constitutional role:...
Endicott Peabody
Endicott Peabody
Endicott "Chub" Peabody was the 62nd Governor of Massachusetts from January 3, 1963 to January 7, 1965.-Early life:...
had been running a quixotic campaign for the same post since the prior year. Likely presidential nominee George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
was in fact considering the unusual move of naming three or four acceptable vice-presidential candidates and letting the delegates choose.
At the convention's final day on July 14, 1972, presidential nominee McGovern selected and announced Senator Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Francis Eagleton was a United States Senator from Missouri, serving from 1968–1987. He is best remembered for briefly being the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972...
of Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
as his vice-presidential choice. Eagleton was unknown to many delegates and the choice seemed to smack of traditional ticket balancing considerations. Thus, there were delegates willing to look elsewhere. Gravel was nominated by Bettye Fahrenkamp, the national committeewoman of Alaska; He then seconded his own nomination, breaking down in tears at his own words and maybe trying to withdraw his nomination. In any case he won 226 delegate votes, coming in third behind Eagleton and Frances "Sissy" Farenthold
Frances Farenthold
Frances Tarlton Farenthold , commonly referred to as Sissy Farenthold, is an American Democratic politician, attorney and educator, who was the third woman whose name was put into nomination for Vice President of the United States at a major party's nominating convention Frances Tarlton Farenthold...
of Texas, in chaotic balloting that included several other candidates as well.
For his efforts, Gravel attracted some attention: famed writer Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
would say he "provided considerable excitement" and was "good-looking enough to have played leads in B-films", while Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
correspondent Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author who wrote The Rum Diary , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 .He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to...
said Gravel "probably said a few things that might have been worth hearing, under different circumstances ..." Yet, the whole process had been doubly disastrous for the Democrats. The time consumed with the nominating and seconding and other speeches of all the vice-presidential candidates had lost the attention of the delegates on the floor and pushed McGovern's speech until 3:30 a.m. The haste with which Eagleton had been selected led to surprise when his past mental health treatments were revealed; he withdrew from the ticket soon after the convention, to be replaced by Sargent Shriver
Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., known as Sargent Shriver, R. Sargent Shriver, or, from childhood, Sarge, was an American statesman and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family, serving in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations...
.
Re-election to Senate in 1974
Several years earlier, Alaska politicians had speculated that Gravel would have a hard time getting both renominated and elected when his first term expired, given that he was originally elected without a base party organization and tended to focus on national rather than local issues.Nonetheless, in 1974 Gravel was re-elected to the Senate, winning 58 percent of the vote against 42 percent for Republican State Senator C. R. Lewis, who was a national officer of the John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
.
Second term
In June 1976, Gravel was the focus of a federal investigation into allegations that he was involved in a sex-for-vote arrangement. Congressional staff clerk Elizabeth RayElizabeth Ray
Elizabeth Ray was the central figure in a much publicized sex scandal in 1976 that ended the career of U.S. Rep. Wayne Hays ....
(who was already the subject of a sex scandal that led to the downfall of Representative Wayne Hays
Wayne Hays
Wayne Levere Hays was an American politician whose strong rule of the House Administration Committee extended to even the smallest items. In the mid-1970s, lawmakers avoided crossing Hays for fear that he would shut off the air conditioning in their offices...
) stated that in August 1972, she had sex with Gravel aboard a houseboat on the Potomac River
Potomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
, under the instruction of Representative Kenneth J. Gray
Kenneth J. Gray
Kenneth James Gray was a U.S. Representative from Illinois.Born in West Frankfort, Illinois, Gray attended the West Frankfort and Pope County elementary schools and graduated from Frankfort Community High School. He was owner of Gray Motors, West Frankfort, Illinois from 1942 to 1954...
, her boss at the time. Gray allegedly wanted to secure Gravel's support for further funding for construction of the National Visitor Center
National Visitor Center
The National Visitor Center was an ill-fated attempt to repurpose Washington, D.C.'s Union Station as an information center for tourists visiting the United States Capitol and other Washington attractions...
in Washington, a troubled project that was under the jurisdiction of subcommittees that both members chaired. Another Congressional staffer said she witnessed the boat encounter, but Gravel said at the time that he had never met either of the women. Both Gravel and Gray strongly denied that they had made any arrangement regarding legislation, and neither was ever charged with any wrongdoing. Decades later, Gravel wrote that he had indeed had sex with Ray, but had not changed any votes because of it.
Alaskan issues
By 1971, Gravel was urging construction of the much-argued Trans-Alaska pipeline, addressing environmentalNatural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
concerns by saying that the pipeline's builders and operators should have "total and absolute" responsibility for any consequent environmental damage. Two years later, the debate over the pipeline came to a crux, with The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
describing it as "environmentalists [in] a holy war with the major oil companies." In February 1973 the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the issuance of permits for construction; Gravel and fellow Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens
Ted Stevens
Theodore Fulton "Ted" Stevens, Sr. was a United States Senator from Alaska, serving from December 24, 1968, until January 3, 2009, and thus the longest-serving Republican senator in history...
reacted by urging Congress to pass legislation overturning the court's decision. Environmentalists opposed to the pipeline, such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...
then sought to use the recently-passed National Environmental Policy Act
National Environmental Policy Act
The National Environmental Policy Act is a United States environmental law that established a U.S. national policy promoting the enhancement of the environment and also established the President's Council on Environmental Quality ....
to their advantage; Gravel designed an amendment to the pipeline bill that would immunize the pipeline from any further court challenges under that law, and thus speed its construction. Passage of the amendment became the key battle regarding the pipeline. On July 17, 1973, in a dramatic roll call vote, the Gravel amendment was approved as a 49–49 tie was broken in favor by Vice President Spiro Agnew
Spiro Agnew
Spiro Theodore Agnew was the 39th Vice President of the United States , serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland...
. The actual bill enabling the pipeline then passed easily; Gravel had triumphed.
In opposition to the Alaskan fishing industry
Fishing industry
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products....
, Gravel advocated American participation in the formation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty, is the international agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea , which took place from 1973 through 1982...
. For two years he opposed legislation that established a 200 miles (321.9 km) Exclusive Economic Zone
Exclusive Economic Zone
Under the law of the sea, an exclusive economic zone is a seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources, including production of energy from water and wind. It stretches from the seaward edge of the state's territorial sea out to 200 nautical...
for marine resources. He was one of only 19 senators to vote against Senate approval for the expanded zone in 1976, saying it would undermine the U.S. position in Law of the Sea negotiations and that nations arbitrarily extending their fishing rights limits would "produce anarchy of the seas." The legislation was passed, and the United States has signed but never ratified
Ratification
Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent where the agent lacked authority to legally bind the principal. The term applies to private contract law, international treaties, and constitutionals in federations such as the United States and Canada.- Private law :In contract law, the...
the Law of the Sea treaty.
During his first year in the Senate Gravel urged abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
. In the early 1970s Gravel supported a demonstration project that established links between Alaskan villages and the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda is a census designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House , which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda...
, for medical diagnostic communications. Gravel helped secure a private grant to facilitate the first Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1977, attended by Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
representatives from Alaska, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
. These conferences now also include representatives from Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. In 1977, Gravel helped lead an effort to have the U.S. Interior Department rename Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley or Denali in Alaska, United States is the highest mountain peak in North America and the United States, with a summit elevation of above sea level. It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.- Geology and features :Mount McKinley is a granitic pluton...
to Denali; this eventually led to Denali National Park being so named. Subsequently Gravel proposed a never-built "Denali City" development above the Tokositna River near the mountain, to consist of a giant Teflon dome enclosing hotels, golf courses, condominiums, and commercial buildings.
A key, emotional issue in the state at the time was "locking up Alaska", making reference to allocation of its vast, mostly uninhabited land.
In 1978 Gravel blocked passage, via procedural delays such as walking out of House-Senate conference committee
United States Congress Conference committee
A conference committee is a committee of the Congress appointed by the House of Representatives and Senate to resolve disagreements on a particular bill...
meetings, of a complex bill which represented a compromise on land use policy. The bill would have put some of Alaska's vast federal land holdings under state control while preserving other portions for federal parks and refuges; the action would earn Gravel the enmity of fellow Alaska Senator Ted Stevens
Ted Stevens
Theodore Fulton "Ted" Stevens, Sr. was a United States Senator from Alaska, serving from December 24, 1968, until January 3, 2009, and thus the longest-serving Republican senator in history...
. In 1980, a new lands bill came up for consideration, that was less favorable to Alaskan interests and more liked by environmentalists; it set aside 127000000 acres (513,951.2 km²) of Alaska's 375000000 acres (1,517,572.5 km²) for national parks, conservation areas, and other restricted federal uses. Gravel blocked it, as not ensuring enough future development in the state. A new compromise version of the bill came forward, which reduced the land set aside to 104000000 acres (420,873.4 km²). Gravel, in representation of Alaskan interests, tried to stop the bill, including staging a filibuster. The Senate, however, voted cloture and then passed the bill. Frustrated, Gravel said "the legislation denies Alaska its rights as a state, and denies the U.S. crucial strategic resources," and commented that the Senate was "a little bit like a tank of barracudas."
In 1978, Gravel authored and secured the passage into law of the General Stock Ownership Corporation, that became Subchapter U of the Tax Code under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. While that was originally done as a prerequisite to a failed 1980 Alaskan ballot initiative that would have paid dividends to Alaskan citizens for pipeline-related revenue, it also turned out to be significant in the development of binary economics
Binary Economics
Binary economics is a heterodox theory of economics that endorses both private property and a free market but proposes significant reforms to the banking system. The aim of binary economics is to ensure that all individuals receive income from their own independent capital estate, using...
.
Loss of Senate seat in 1980
In 1980, Gravel was challenged for the Democratic Party's nomination by State Representative Clark GrueningClark Gruening
Clark S. Gruening is an attorney and Democratic Party politician from the U.S. state of Alaska. He is chiefly known as the second of three persons to defeat the incumbent holder of Alaska's Class 3 United States Senate seat in the primary election.Clark Gruening was born in San Francisco,...
, the grandson of the man Gravel had defeated in a primary 12 years earlier. Several factors made Gravel vulnerable. As an insurgent candidate in 1968, Gravel had never established a firm party base. Not liking to hunt or fish, he was also always culturally suspect in the state. A group of Democrats, including future governor Steve Cowper
Steve Cowper
Steve Cowper is an American Democratic politician who was the sixth Governor of Alaska of Alaska from 1986 to 1990. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later served in the Alaska House of Representatives before being elected governor.Cowper served as Governor at...
, led the campaign against Gravel, with Gravel's actions in respect to the 1978 and 1980 Alaskan lands bills a major issue, especially given that the latter's dénouement happened but a week before the primary. The sources of Gravel's campaign funds, some of which came from political action committee
Political action committee
In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
s outside the state, also became an issue in the contest. Another factor may have been Alaska's blanket primary
Blanket primary
The blanket primary is a system used for selecting political party candidates in a primary election in the USA. In a blanket primary, voters may pick one candidate for each office without regard to party lines; for instance, a voter might select a Democratic candidate for governor and a Republican...
system of the time, which allowed unlimited voting across party lines and from its many independents; Republicans believed Gruening would be an easier candidate to defeat in the general election.
Gruening won the bitterly-fought primary, with about 55 percent of the vote to Gravel's 44 percent. Gravel would later concede that by the time of his defeat, he had alienated "almost every constituency in Alaska."
Gruening lost the general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
to Republican Frank Murkowski
Frank Murkowski
Francis Hughes Murkowski is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Senator from Alaska from 1981 until 2002 and the eighth Governor of Alaska from 2002 until 2006.- Early life and career :...
. Gravel was the last Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress for 28 years, until Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich
Mark Begich
Mark Peter Begich is the junior United States Senator from Alaska and a member of the Democratic Party. A former mayor of Anchorage, he served on the Anchorage Assembly for almost ten years prior to being elected mayor in 2003...
defeated Stevens, by now an aged, iconic figure who had just been convicted of seven felonies for taking unreported gifts, in a very close and protracted election result
United States Senate election in Alaska, 2008
The 2008 United States Senate election in Alaska was held on November 4, 2008. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Ted Stevens ran for re-election. It was one of the ten Senate races that U.S. Senator John Ensign of Nevada, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, predicted as...
in mid-November 2008. (The charges against Stevens were subsequently dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.)
A difficult transition
Gravel took the 1980 defeat hard, recalling years later: "I had lost my career. I lost my marriage. I was in the doldrums for ten years after my defeat," and "Nobody wanted to hire me for anything important. I felt like I was worthless. I didn't know what I could do." By his own later description, Gravel had been a womanizer while in the Senate, and in December 1980 he and his wife Rita separated. They filed for divorce in September 1981; she would later get all of his Senate pension income.During the 1980s, Gravel was a real estate developer in Anchorage
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
and Kenai, Alaska
Kenai, Alaska
Kenai is a city in Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 7,464...
, a consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
, and a stockbroker. One of his real estate ventures, a condominium
Condominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
business, was forced to declare bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
and a lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
ensued. During 1986, Gravel worked in partnership with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
to buy losses that financially troubled Alaska Native Corporations could not take as tax deductions and sell them to large national companies looking for tax writeoffs.
Gravel married his second wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, a former administrative assistant for Senator Jacob Javits, in 1984.
Return to politics
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
. He established the Philadelphia II corporation, which seeks to replicate the original 1787 Constitutional Convention in bringing direct democracy about.
Gravel led an effort to get a United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
al amendment
Constitutional amendment
A constitutional amendment is a formal change to the text of the written constitution of a nation or state.Most constitutions require that amendments cannot be enacted unless they have passed a special procedure that is more stringent than that required of ordinary legislation...
to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiative
Initiative
In political science, an initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote...
s. He argued that Americans are able to legislate responsibly, and that the Act and Amendment in the National Initiative
National initiative
National initiative refers to proposals within the United States to allow for ballot initiatives at the federal level. Currently, this is being proposed by Mike Gravel, a former U.S. Senator, and The Democracy Foundation, a non-profit non-governmental organization...
would allow American citizens to become "law makers".
In 2001, Gravel became director of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is a Washington, D.C.–based conservative think tank that produced reports and policy research....
, where he admired institute co-founder Gregory Fossedal
Gregory Fossedal
Gregory Fossedal is the self-described chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution .Fossedal, Gordon Haff, Benjamin Hart, and Keeney Jones founded the right-wing Dartmouth Review in 1980. Fossedal graduated from Dartmouth College in 1981 magna cum laude with an A.B. in English Literature...
's work on direct democracy in Switzerland. By 2004, Gravel had become chair of the institute, and Fossedal (who in turn was a director of the Democracy Foundation) gave the introduction at Gravel's presidential announcement.
Mike and Whitney Gravel live in Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The land that became Arlington was originally donated by Virginia to the United States government to form part of the new federal capital district. On February 27, 1801, the United States Congress organized the area as a subdivision of...
. They have the two grown children from his first marriage, Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier, and four grandchildren. Whitney Gravel's income has sustained the couple since 1998. In the 2000s, Gravel suffered poor health, requiring three surgeries in 2003 for back pain
Back pain
Back pain is pain felt in the back that usually originates from the muscles, nerves, bones, joints or other structures in the spine.The pain can often be divided into neck pain, upper back pain, lower back pain or tailbone pain...
and neuropathy. Due to unreimbursed medical expenses and debts from his political causes, he declared personal bankruptcy
Personal bankruptcy
Personal bankruptcy is a procedure which, in certain jurisdictions, allows an individual to declare bankruptcy. In other jurisdictions, bankruptcies are reserved for corporations.-Canada:...
in 2004. He began taking a salary from the non-profit organizations for which he was working; much of that income was lent to his presidential campaign. In 2007, he declared that he had "zero net worth."
Barnes Review controversy
In June 2003, Gravel gave a speech on direct democracyDirect democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
at a conference hosted by the American Free Press
American Free Press
The American Free Press is a weekly newspaper published in the United States.According to one former correspondent, the newspaper's direct ancestor was the publication The Spotlight, which ceased publication in 2001 when its parent company, Liberty Lobby, was forced into bankruptcy...
. The event was cosponsored by the Barnes Review
Barnes Review
The Barnes Review is a bi-monthly magazine founded in 1994 by Willis Carto, dedicated to historical revisionism such as Holocaust denial. Willis Carto had earlier founded the Institute for Historical Review in 1979 but lost control of that organization in an internal takeover by former...
, a journal that endorses Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
. In the wake of criticism for his appearance, Gravel has said repeatedly that he does not share such a view, stating, "You better believe I know that six million Jews were killed. I've been to the Holocaust Museum. I've seen the footage of General Eisenhower touring one of the camps. They're [referring to the Barnes Review and publisher Willis Carto
Willis Carto
Willis Allison Carto is a longtime figure on the American far right. He describes himself as Jeffersonian and populist, but is primarily known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.-Influences on Carto:...
] nutty as loons if they don't think it happened". The newspaper had intended to interview Gravel about the National Initiative. Gravel later recounted the background to the event:
"He [Carto] liked the idea of the National Initiative. I figured it was an opportunity to discuss it. Whether it is the far right, far left, whatever, I'll make my pitch to them. They gave me a free subscription to American Free Press. They still send it to me today. I flip through it sometimes. It has some extreme views, and a lot of the ads in it are even more extreme and make me want to upchuck. Anyways, sometime later, Carto contacted me to speak at that Barnes Review Conference. I had never heard of the Barnes Review, didn't know anything about it or what they stood for. I was just coming to give a presentation about the National Initiative. I was there maybe 30 minutes. I could tell from the people in the room (mainly some very old men) that they were pretty extreme. I gave my speech, answered some questions and left. I never saw the agenda for the day or listened to any of the other presentations."
The group invited Gravel to speak again, but he declined.
Political positions
Gravel has stated that he is an advocate for "a national, universal single-payer not-for-profit health care system" in the United States which would utilize voucher
Voucher
A voucher is a bond which is worth a certain monetary value and which may be spent only for specific reasons or on specific goods. Examples include housing, travel, and food vouchers...
s and enable citizens to choose their own doctor. He has proposed to index veteran health care entitlements to take full account of increases in the costs of care and medicine. He supports a drug policy that legalizes and regulates all drugs, treating drug abuse
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
as a medical issue, rather than a criminal matter
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
. Gravel favors a guest worker program
Guest worker program
The Guest Worker Program is a program that has been proposed many times, including by U.S. President George W. Bush's administration as a way to permit U.S. employers to sponsor non-U.S. citizens as laborers for approximately three years, to be deported afterwards if they have not yet obtained a...
, supports the FairTax
FairTax
The FairTax is a tax reform proposal for the federal government of the United States that would replace all federal taxes on personal and corporate income with a single broad national consumption tax on retail sales. The Fair Tax Act would apply a tax once at the point of purchase on all new goods...
proposal that calls for eliminating the IRS and the income tax
Income tax
An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
and replacing it with a progressive national sales tax
Sales tax
A sales tax is a tax, usually paid by the consumer at the point of purchase, itemized separately from the base price, for certain goods and services. The tax amount is usually calculated by applying a percentage rate to the taxable price of a sale....
of 23 percent on newly manufactured items and services, retaining progressivity via all taxes on spending up to the poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
level being refunded to every household. Gravel has advocated that carbon energy should be taxed
Carbon tax
A carbon tax is an environmental tax levied on the carbon content of fuels. It is a form of carbon pricing. Carbon is present in every hydrocarbon fuel and is released as carbon dioxide when they are burnt. In contrast, non-combustion energy sources—wind, sunlight, hydropower, and nuclear—do not...
to provide the funding for a global effort to bring together the world's scientific and engineering communities to develop energy alternatives to significantly reduce the world’s energy dependence on carbon.
Gravel in principle does not object to the use of embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst, an early-stage embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells...
s for medical research purposes. He is avowedly pro-choice
Pro-choice
Support 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....
on the issue of abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
and women's reproductive rights. He supports constitutional amendment
Constitutional amendment
A constitutional amendment is a formal change to the text of the written constitution of a nation or state.Most constitutions require that amendments cannot be enacted unless they have passed a special procedure that is more stringent than that required of ordinary legislation...
s towards direct democracy
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
. His political leanings and convictions are also in his 1972 manifesto, Citizen Power: A People's Platform.
2008 presidential campaign
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
and the National Initiative
National initiative
National initiative refers to proposals within the United States to allow for ballot initiatives at the federal level. Currently, this is being proposed by Mike Gravel, a former U.S. Senator, and The Democracy Foundation, a non-profit non-governmental organization...
was to run for president.
On April 17, 2006, Gravel became the first candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
in the 2008 election
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
, announcing his run in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Short on campaign cash, he took public transportation to get to his announcement.
Other principal Gravel positions were the FairTax
FairTax
The FairTax is a tax reform proposal for the federal government of the United States that would replace all federal taxes on personal and corporate income with a single broad national consumption tax on retail sales. The Fair Tax Act would apply a tax once at the point of purchase on all new goods...
, withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
The withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq has been a contentious issue within the United States since the beginning of the Iraq War. As the war has progressed from its initial 2003 invasion phase to a multi-year occupation, U.S. public opinion has turned in favor of troop withdrawal...
within 120 days, a single payer national health care system
Single-payer health care
Single-payer health care is medical care funded from a single insurance pool, run by the state. Under a single-payer system, universal health care for an entire population can be financed from a pool to which many parties employees, employers, and the state have contributed...
, and term limits.
Gravel campaigned almost full time in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, the first primary state
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire primary is the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years , as part of the process of choosing the Democratic and Republican nominees for the presidential elections to be held the subsequent November.Although only a...
, following his announcement. Opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination showed Gravel with 1 percent or less support. By the end of March 2007, Gravel's campaign had less than $500 in cash on hand against debts of nearly $90,000.
Because of his time in the Senate, Gravel was invited to many of the early Democratic presidential debates. During the initial one at South Carolina State University
South Carolina State University
South Carolina State University is a historically black university located in Orangeburg, South Carolina, United States. It is the only state funded, historically black land-grant institution in South Carolina and is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund.- Colleges, departments,...
on April 26, 2007, he suggested a bill requiring the president to withdraw from Iraq on pain of criminal penalties. He also advocated positions such as opposing preemptive nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
. He stated that the Iraq War had the effect of creating more terrorists and that the "war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis." Regarding his fellow candidates, he said, "I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me — they frighten me." Media stories said that Gravel was responsible for much of whatever "heat" and "flashpoints" had taken place. Gravel gained considerable publicity by shaking up the normally staid multiple-candidate format; The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
video of his responses in the debate was viewed more than 225,892 times, ranking seventeenth in most views for week and first among news and politics clips; The YouTube debate clip was also ranked #7 top rated (for week), #23 top favored (for week), #25 most discussed (for week), #4 most linked (for week), and #1 top rated - news and politics (for week). his name became the fifteenth most searched-for in the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
; and his website garnered more traffic than those of frontrunners Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
, Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack 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...
, or John Edwards
John Edwards
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
. Gravel appeared on the popular Colbert Report on television on May 2, and his campaign and career were profiled in national publications such as Salon. Two wordless, Warholesque
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
campaign videos, "Rock" and "Fire", were released on YouTube in late May and became hits, and eventually gained over 760,000 and 185,000 views respectively. "Rock," in turn, was given airtime during an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Some thirty-five years after he first achieved the national spotlight, he had found it again.
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
poll showed him with less than 0.5 percent support among Democrats.
Gravel was in the next several debates, in one case after CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
reversed a decision to exclude him. Gravel, as with some of the other second-tier candidates, did not get as much time as the leaders; during the June 2, 2007, New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
debate, which lasted two hours, he was asked 10 questions and allowed to speak for five minutes and 37 seconds.
During the July 23, 2007, CNN-YouTube presidential debate, Gravel responded to audience applause when he had complained of a lack of airtime and said: "Thank you. Has it been fair thus far?" Detractors began to liken him to "the cranky uncle who lives in the attic," or "the angry old guy that just seemed to want to become angrier." In the ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
, debate of August 19, 2007, moderator George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television journalist and a former political advisor.Stephanopoulos is most well known as the chief political correspondent for ABC News – the news division of the broadcast television network ABC – and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news...
noted that Gravel polled a statistical zero percent support in the state, meaning less than 0.5% support, and then directed roughly five percent of his questions to Gravel; in a poll asking who did the best in the debate, Gravel placed seventh among the eight candidates. National opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination continued to show Gravel with one percent or zero percent numbers. By the end of the third-quarter 2007, Gravel had about $17,500 in cash on hand, had collected a total of about $380,000 so far during the 2008 election cycle, and was continuing to run a threadbare campaign with minimal staff.
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
saying Gravel's campaign had not met fund-raising, polling, or local campaign organizational thresholds. For the Philadelphia exclusion, Gravel blamed corporate censorship
Corporate censorship
Corporate censorship is censorship by corporations, the sanctioning of speech by spokespersons, employees, and business associates by threat of monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace.- TV Guide debate :...
on the part of sponsor owner and alleged military-industrial complex
Military-industrial complex
Military–industrial complex , or Military–industrial-congressional complex is a concept commonly used to refer to policy and monetary relationships between legislators, national armed forces, and the industrial sector that supports them...
member General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
for his exclusion and mounted a counter-gathering and debate against a video screen a short distance away, but he had lost his easiest publicity. In reaction, supporters organized "mass donation days" to try to help the campaign gain momentum and funds, such as on December 5, 2007, the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition
Repeal of Prohibition
The Repeal of Prohibition in the United States was accomplished with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.-Background:...
.
Gravel did not compete in the initial 2008 vote, the Iowa caucuses
Iowa Democratic caucuses, 2008
The Iowa Democratic Presidential Caucus occurred on January 3, 2008, and was the state caucuses of the Iowa Democratic Party. It was the first election for the Democrats of the 2008 presidential election. Also referred to as "the First in the Nation Caucus," it was the first election of the primary...
, but was still subjected to a false report from MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
that he had pulled out of the race afterward. Gravel did focus his attention on the second 2008 vote, the New Hampshire primary
New Hampshire Democratic primary, 2008
The 2008 New Hampshire Democratic primary on January 8, 2008 was the first primary in the United States in 2008. Its purpose was to determine the number of delegates from New Hampshire that would represent a certain candidate at the National Convention. In a primary, members of a political party—in...
. There he received about 400 votes out of some 280,000 cast, or 0.14 percent, before taking time off to improve his health. He resumed campaigning, but fared no better in subsequent states. By the end of January 2008, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Gravel were the only remaining Democrats from the initial debates still running; Gravel vowed to stay in the presidential campaign until November. On March 11, 2008, Gravel continued to remain in the Democratic race but additionally endorsed a Green Party
Green Party (United States)
The Green Party of the United States is a nationally recognized political party which officially formed in 1991. It is a voluntary association of state green parties. Prior to national formation, many state affiliates had already formed and were recognized by other state parties...
candidate for president, Jesse Johnson
Jesse Johnson (politician)
Jesse C. Johnson, Jr. is an Executive Committee member and former chair of the environmentalist Mountain Party, the West Virginia affiliate of the Green Party. He has twice been his party's candidate for Governor of West Virginia, and once for a Senate seat...
, saying he wanted to help Johnson prevail against Green Party rivals Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia Ann McKinney is a former US Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President of the United States...
and Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
. By late March, Gravel had almost no fundraising and was only on the ballot in one of the next ten Democratic primaries.
Switch to Libertarian Party
On March 25, 2008, Gravel announced that he would leave the Democrats and join the Libertarian PartyLibertarian Party (United States)
The 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...
, saying: "My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average American; elites that reject the empowerment of American citizens I offered to the Democratic Party at the beginning of this presidential campaign with the National Initiative for Democracy." The following day Gravel entered the race for the 2008 Libertarian presidential nomination, saying that he would have run as a third-party candidate all along except that he needed the public exposure that came from being in the earlier Democratic debates. Gravel's initial notion of running as a fusion candidate
Electoral fusion
Electoral fusion is an arrangement where two or more political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, pooling the votes for that candidate...
with other parties was met with skepticism and not pursued.
As a Libertarian candidate, Gravel faced resistance to his liberal past and unorthodox positions; nevertheless, he garnered more support than he had as a Democrat, placing second and third in two April 2008 straw poll
Straw poll
A straw poll or straw vote is a vote with nonbinding results. Straw polls provide dialogue among movements within large groups, reflecting trends like organization and motivation...
s. In the May 25 balloting at the 2008 Libertarian National Convention
2008 Libertarian National Convention
The 2008 Libertarian National Convention was held from May 22 to May 26, 2008 at the Sheraton Hotel in Denver, Colorado...
in Denver, Gravel finished fourth out of eight candidates on the initial ballot, with 71 votes out of a total 618; he trailed former Congressman and eventual winner Bob Barr
Bob Barr
Robert Laurence "Bob" Barr, Jr. is a former federal prosecutorand a former member of the United States House of Representatives. He represented Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003. Barr attained national prominence as one of the leaders of the impeachment of...
, author Mary Ruwart
Mary Ruwart
Mary J. Ruwart, Ph. D. is a research scientist and libertarian speaker, writer, and activist. She was a leading candidate for the 2008 Libertarian Party presidential nomination and is the author of the award-winning international bestseller "Healing Our World."-Biography:Born in Detroit, Ruwart...
, and businessman Wayne Allyn Root
Wayne Allyn Root
Wayne Allyn Root is an American politician, entrepreneur, television and radio personality, author and political commentator. He was the 2008 Libertarian Party vice-presidential nominee. In June 2009 Richard Winger wrote he was the front runner for the 2012 Libertarian Presidential nomination...
. Gravel's position did not subsequently improve and he was eliminated on the fourth ballot. Afterwards he stated that "I just ended my political career," but he vowed to continue promoting his positions as a writer and lecturer.
After the campaigns
In June 2008, Gravel endorsed the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative, saying the measure would create a "citizens commission rather than a government commission" with subpoena power against top U.S. officials to "make a true investigation as to what happened" regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Gravel subsequently said that, "Individuals in and out of government may certainly have participated with the obviously known perpetrators of this dastardly act. Suspicions abound over the analysis presented by government. Obviously an act that has triggered three wars, Afghan, Iraqi and the continuing War on Terror, should be extensively investigated which was not done and which the government avoids addressing."In August 2008, Gravel was speaking to a crowd of supporters of Sami Al-Arian
Sami Al-Arian
Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian , is a former resident of Temple Terrace, Florida, now living in Northern Virginia, who is a Muslim activist, and former University of South Florida professor of computer engineering...
(who two years earlier had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison for a charge of conspiracy in helping Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist
Specially Designated Terrorist
A Specially Designated Terrorist is any person who is determined by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to be a specially designated terrorist under notices or regulations issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control ....
" organization) when he was caught on tape saying of Al-Arian's prosecutor, "Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is: picket him all the time. Call him a racist in signs if you see him. Call him an injustice. Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time." Gravel was criticized for potentially involving the children of the prosecutor, and Al-Arian's family disavowed the sentiments.
Gravel defended Alaska Governor Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
after she was chosen as Republican presidential nominee John McCain
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....
's running mate in September 2008. He praised Palin's record in standing up to corruption among Alaskan Republicans, thought her national inexperience was an asset not a detriment, and predicted that the "Troopergate
Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal
The Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal, also known as Troopergate, involves the July 2008 dismissal of the Public Safety Commissioner for the State of Alaska by Governor Sarah Palin....
" investigation into whether she improperly fired a state official would "come out in her favor." Gravel made clear he would not support or vote for either McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden in the general election.
The following year, Gravel said that Palin's politics were "terrible, but that doesn't detract from the fact that she's a very talented person". He predicted that Palin would run for president in 2012 and that "she's going to surprise a lot of people."
From mid-2008 through October 2009 Gravel gave several lectures at South Korean universities about the Korean National Initiative, a Korean adaption of the National Initiative Gravel has proposed in the United States.
In December 2010, Gravel praised WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
, in the news during the year for the Afghan War documents leak, Iraq War documents leak
Iraq War documents leak
The Iraq War documents leak is the unsanctioned disclosure of a collection of 391,832 United States Army field reports, also called the Iraq War Logs, of the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009 to several international media organizations and published on the Internet by WikiLeaks on 2010. The files record...
, and United States diplomatic cables leak
United States diplomatic cables leak
The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began in February 2010 when WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates,...
,
as the "most significant effort to save democracy (which is slowly being eclipsed by the Military Industrial Complex) since the release of the Pentagon Papers". Gravel also indicated that he might run for president again and possibly challenge President Obama for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 presidential election
United States presidential election, 2012
The United States presidential election of 2012 is the next United States presidential election, to be held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. It will be the 57th quadrennial presidential election in which presidential electors, who will actually elect the President and the Vice President of the United...
.
Writings
- Gravel, Mike. Jobs and More Jobs. Mt. McKinley Publishers, 1968.
- Gravel, Mike. Citizen Power: A People's Platform. Holt, Rinehart and WinstonHenry Holt and CompanyHenry Holt and Company is an American book publishing company. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt...
, 1972. ISBN 0-03-091465-5.- revised and reissued as Citizen Power: A Mandate for ChangeCitizen Power: A Mandate for ChangeCitizen Power: A Mandate for Change is a 2008 book on American politics by 2008 United States presidential candidate Mike Gravel, published by Authorhouse. It describes the numerous efforts that Gravel has experienced throughout his political career as an Alaska state legislator and United States...
, AuthorHouseAuthorHouseAuthorHouse, formerly known as 1stBooks, is a self-publishing company based in the United States. AuthorHouse uses print on demand business model and technology.-History:...
, 2008. ISBN 1-4343-4315-4.
- revised and reissued as Citizen Power: A Mandate for Change
- Gravel, Mike and Lauria, Joe. A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism and One Man's Fight to Stop It. Seven Stories PressSeven Stories PressSeven Stories Press is an independent publishing company. Located in New York City, the company was founded by editor Dan Simon in 1995 after he parted company with Four Walls Eight Windows. The company was named for its seven founding authors: Annie Ernaux, Gary Null, the estate of Nelson Algren,...
, 2008. ISBN 1-58322-826-8. - Gravel, Mike and Eisenbach, DavidDavid EisenbachDavid Eisenbach is a historian and an expert on media and politics. He hosts the History Channel web series "Vote 101" and is a featured historian on the Emmy Award winning History Channel series "Great Moments on the Campaign Trial." Eisenbach is also the host and co-writer of "The Beltway...
. The Kingmakers: How the Media Threatens Our Security and Our Democracy. Phoenix Books, 2008. ISBN 1-59777-586-X. - Gravel, Mike. Voice of a Maverick: The Speeches and Writings of Senator Mike Gravel. Brandywine House, 2008.
- Gravel, Mike. Foreword to "Poisoned Power: The Case Against Nuclear Power Plants." [John W. Goffman & Arthur R. Tamplin, Rodale Press, Inc., Emmaus, PA, June 1971].
External links
Official websites- Mike Gravel official website
- Mike Gravel YouTube channel
- Mike Gravel MySpace
- National Initiative for Democracy official website
Biographical
Pentagon Papers
- Gravel edition of the Pentagon Papers Complete text, with supporting documents
- Unedited footage of Senator Gravel reading the Pentagon Papers in the Senate in 1971 Streaming and download links at archive.org
- Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
special: "How the Pentagon Papers Came to Be Published by the Beacon Press": Mike Gravel and Daniel Ellsberg (audio/video and transcript)