Mike Gravel

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Mike Gravel
U.S. Senator, Alaska
In office January 1969–January 1981
Preceded by	Ernest Gruening
Succeeded by	Frank Murkowski
Born	May 13, 1930 (age 76) Springfield, Massachusetts
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Whitney Stewart Gravel
Religion	Unitarian
Signature

Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (pronounced Gruh-VELL) (born May 13, 1930), was a Democratic United States Senator from Alaska for two terms, from 1969 to 1981. He is primarily known for having put into the public record the Pentagon Papers in 1971. He is currently a candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

[edit] Early life

Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to French-Canadian immigrant parents, Marie Bourassa and Alphonse Gravel.^[1] There, he was raised and educated (in parochial schools) as a Roman Catholic, but he no longer practices that faith. Gravel enlisted in the United States Army in 1951 and served in the Counter Intelligence Corps until 1954. He attended Columbia University's School of General Studies, where he studied economics.

[edit] State legislator

Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1962 to 1966. During the last two years of his term, he served as the Speaker of the House. He left that body to run for Alaska's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, losing to the incumbent, Ralph Rivers.

During the period 1963-1966, Gravel initiated electronic voting in Alaska.

In 1968, he ran against incumbent Democratic Senator Ernest Gruening, a popular former governor, for his party's nomination to the U.S. Senate, unexpectedly beating him in the primary and going on to win the general election.

[edit] Senator

Mike Gravel as Senator for Alaska during the 1970s.

Gravel served on the Environment and Public Works Committee throughout his Senate career.

[edit] Nuclear issues

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Pentagon was in the process of performing calibration tests for a nuclear warhead that, upon investigation, was revealed to be obsolete. The Cannikin tests involved the detonation of nuclear bombs under the seabed of the North Pacific at Amchitka Island, Alaska. Gravel opposed the tests in Congress and organized worldwide environmental opposition to their continuation. The program was halted after the second test.

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 in 1970. He used his office to organize citizen opposition to the policy and to persuade Ralph Nader's organization to join the opposition.

[edit] Vietnam War and foreign policy

In 1971, Gravel played a key role in the release of the Pentagon Papers — a large collection of secret government documents pertaining to the Vietnam War — which were made public by former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg. Gravel inserted 4,100 pages of the Papers into the Congressional Record of his Senate Subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds. These pages were later issued by the Beacon Press as the "Senator Gravel Edition" — 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.

Also in 1971, Gravel embarked on a one-man filibuster against legislation renewing the military draft. Using various parliamentary maneuvers, Gravel was able to block the bill for five months before President Richard Nixon and Senate Republicans agreed to allow the draft to expire in 1973.

Six months before US 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 the PRC.

[edit] Alaskan issues

Mike Gravel and Whitney Gravel (with Ginger)

In 1973, Gravel introduced an amendment to empower the Congress to make the policy decision about the construction of the Alaska Pipeline. The amendment passed the Senate by a single vote. The pipeline has been responsible for 20% of the U.S. oil supply.

Gravel opposed the Alaskan fishing industry in advocating American participation in the formation of the UNCLOS. For two years he opposed legislation that permitted the U.S. to unilaterally take control of the 200-mile waters bordering its land mass. The legislation was passed, and the United States has signed but never ratified the UNCLOS.

Gravel helped secure a private grant to facilitate the first Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1977, attended by Inuit (often referred to as Eskimo) representatives from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Norway. These conferences now also include representatives from Russia.

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 authored and secured the passage into law of the General Stock Ownership Corporation (GSOC), Subchapter U of the Tax Code, as a prerequisite to a failed 1980 Alaskan ballot initiative that would have paid dividends to Alaskan citizens for Pipeline-related revenue.

[edit] Run for Vice-President

Gravel actively campaigned for the office of Vice President of the United States during the 1972 presidential election. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, he was nominated by Bettye Fahrenkamp, the national committeewoman of Alaska. The senator then addressed the convention and won 226 delegate votes, coming in third behind Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, who was convention presidential nominee George McGovern's choice, and Frances "Sissy" Farenthold, in chaotic balloting after many delegates were unsatisfied by McGovern's choice.^[2]

[edit] Loss of Senate seat

In 1980, Gravel was challenged for the Democratic Party's nomination by State Representative Clark Gruening, the grandson of the man Gravel had defeated in a primary 12 years earlier. Gravel was himself defeated in the primary after Jerry Falwell mustered the Christian Right in support of Gruening^{[citation needed]}, who would go on to lose in the general election to Republican Frank Murkowski.

[edit] Career after leaving the Senate

Mike Gravel with campaign finance reform activist and friend Ethel Granny D Haddock

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."^[3]

In the years since, Gravel has been a real estate developer in Anchorage and Kenai, Alaska,^[4] consultant, and founder and head of the Democracy Foundation, which promotes direct democracy.^[5]

Gravel led an effort to get a United States Constitutional amendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives. 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 June 2003, Gravel gave a speech on direct democracy at a conference hosted by the American Free Press. The event was co-sponsored by the Barnes Review, a journal that endorses Holocaust denial.^[6] Gravel has said repeatedly that he does not share such a view.^[7]

Gravel and his wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, live in Arlington County, Virginia. They have two grown children, Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier, and four grandchildren.^[8]

[edit] Writings

During his first term in the Senate, Gravel authored a book titled Citizen Power. In it, he advocated the implementation of numerous populist ideas, including a guaranteed annual income (dubbed the "Citizen's Wage"), public financing of elections, a progressive tax with no deductions or exemptions, steps against the military-industrial complex (which he calls the "Warfare State"), a national law to do away with voter registration and other barriers to voting, abolition of the death penalty, universal health care, school vouchers, a drastic reduction in government secrecy, and an end to what he viewed as an imperialistic foreign policy. The book also contained the complete text of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the complete platform adopted by the Populist Party during the 1892 presidential election.

[edit] Political views

Main article: Political views of Mike Gravel

[edit] Presidential bid in 2008

Main article: Mike Gravel presidential campaign, 2008

This article or section contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election. Content may change dramatically as the election approaches and unfolds.

Mike Gravel announcing his intention to seek the 2008 Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States at the National Press Club in Washington DC, 17 April 2006

On April 17, 2006, Gravel became a declared 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. Short on campaign cash, he took public transportation to get to his announcement.^[9]

Gravel's campaign is based primarily on his ardent support for direct democracy (the National Initiative), but also emphasizes his support for a national sales tax and abolition of the IRS, immediate withdrawal from the war in Iraq, a single payer national health care system, and term limits during his campaign.

Although Gravel's campaign has been little-noticed by the national media, he has campaigned almost full time in New Hampshire, the first primary state, since his announcement. He addressed the Democratic National Committee's Winter Convention in early February 2007 and was one of the participants in the Democratic Presidential Candidates forum in Carson City, Nevada later the same month.

Through February 2007, opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination have all shown Gravel with a 1% or less support level.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Reference

• The Pentagon Papers Senator Gravel Edition. Vol. Five. Critical Essays. Boston. Beacon Press, 1972. 341p. plus 72p. of Index to Vol. I-IV of the Papers, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, editors.

[edit] External links

• Gravel for President
• Gravel2008 Youtube Channel
• Congressional Biography
• Biographical entry at The Democracy Foundation
• Gravel edition of the Pentagon Papers
• National Initiative for Democracy
• Blue State Observer - Interview
• Blue State Observer - Scones with the Senator
• Know Your Candidate: Mike Gravel
• Mike Gravel MySpace.com page