Mike Gravel

Mike Gravel
United States Senator from Alaska
In office January 3, 1969 – January 3, 1981
Preceded by	Ernest Gruening
Succeeded by	Frank Murkowski
3rd Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives
In office 1965–1966
Preceded by	Bruce Biers Kendall
Succeeded by	William K. Boardman
Personal details
Born	(1930-05-13) May 13, 1930 Springfield, Massachusetts
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Rita Martin (divorced) Whitney Stewart Gravel
Profession	Real estate development, author
Signature	File:Gravelsign.JPG

Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (Template:PronEng) (born May 13, 1930) is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alaska, having served for two terms, from 1969 to 1981. He is primarily known for his efforts in ending the draft following the Vietnam War and for having put the Pentagon Papers into the public record in 1971. He is currently a candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

Early life, military service, education

Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to French-Canadian immigrant parents, Marie Bourassa and Alphonse Gravel, a painting contractor. There, he was raised in a working class neighborhood, while he learned at home to speak French fluently. He was educated in parochial schools as a Roman Catholic, attending Assumption College Preparatory School. He has a sister, Marguerite, who became a nun, but Gravel himself struggled with Catholicism.

Gravel studied for one year at American International College in Springfield, then enlisted in the United States Army in 1951 and served in West Germany as a Special Adjutant in the Communication and Intelligent Services and as a Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps until 1954, eventually becoming a First Lieutenant. A dyslexic, who talks about his learning disability openly, he 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.

Move to Alaska

Gravel "decided to become a pioneer in a faraway place," and moved to Alaska in 1956, without funds or a job, looking for a place where he could be a viable candidate for public office; Alaska's voting age of 19, less than most other states' 21, played a role, as did its cooler climate. He found work in several areas, including real estate sales, brakeman for the Alaska Railroad, and as a very successful property developer on the Kenai Peninsula. He joined the Anchorage Unitarian Universalism 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 ran unsuccessfully for the territorial legislature in 1958. 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.

State legislator

With some newfound wealthy backers, Gravel ran for the Alaska House of Representatives representing Anchorage in 1962 and won.

Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1966, winning re-election in 1964. During 1965 and 1966, he served as the Speaker of the House, surprising observers by winning that post. As Speaker he antagonized fellow lawmakers by imposing his will on the legislature's commitees.

He 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.

Following his defeat, Gravel returned to the real-estate business in Anchorage.

U.S. Senator

Senator Mike Gravel

Election to Senate in 1968

In 1968 he ran against the 81-year-old incumbent Democratic Senator Ernest Gruening, 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. He hired Joseph Napolitan, the first self-described political consultant, in late 1966, and they spent over a year and a half planning a short primary election campaign that featured a half-hour, well-produced biographical film of Gravel that was shown frequently on both television and on home projectors in many Eskimo villages. The heavy showings quickly reversed a large Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead. Gravel also benefitted 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, 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 unexpectedly beat Gruening in a tight result in the primary and went on to win the general election, gaining 45% of the vote against 37% for Republican Elmer E. Rasmuson and 18% for Gruening, who ran a write-in campaign as an Independent.

Committee assignments

Gravel served on the Environment and Public Works Committee throughout his Senate career. He also served on the Finance and Interior Committees and he chaired the Energy, Water Resources, and Environmental Pollution subcommittees.

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.

Vietnam War and foreign policy

See also: Gravel v. United States

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 the PRC; he reiterated his position, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971.

In summer 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. On June 29, 1971, 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, the publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association, 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 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.

These events 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 speaking 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 would indeed win, but not convincingly and his campaign faltered soon thereafter).

Run for Vice President

Gravel actively campaigned for the office of Vice President of the United States 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 addressed the convention and 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 focus of the delegates on the floor and famously pushed back McGovern's speech until 3:30 a.m., while the haste and cynicism with which Eagleton had been selected was rewarded with his personal relevations and withdrawal from the ticket soon after the convention concluded.

Re-election to Senate in 1974

Several years earlier, Alaskan 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% of the vote against 42% for Republican State Senator C. R. Lewis, who was a national officer of the John Birch Society.

Alaskan issues

File:Gravel Stevens.jpg

Senator Gravel (left) with fellow Alaska Senator Ted Stevens

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

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 (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.

He 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 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.

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, a complex, compromise lands bill that 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; it set aside 104 of Alaska's 375 million acres for national parks, conservation areas, and other restricted federal uses. Gravel, in representation of those interests, tried to stop the bill, including staging a filibuster. The Senate, however, voted cloture and then passed the bill. Frustrated, Gravel said the Senate was "a little bit like a tank of barracudas."

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.

Loss of Senate seat in 1980

Main article: United States Senate election in Alaska, 1980

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 twelve years earlier. Gruening won the bitterly-fought primary, with about 55 percent of the vote to Gravel's 44 percent. As an incumbent candidate in 1968, Gravel had never established a firm party base; 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 denouement happened but a week before the primary. The sources of Gravel's campaign funds, some of which came from political action committees outside the state, also became an issue in the contest. Another factor may have been Alaska's primary system, which allows unlimited cross-over voting across parties and from its large unaffiliated electorate; Republicans believed Gruening would be an easier candidate to defeat in the general election. In any case, Gravel would later concede that by the time of his defeat, he had alienated "almost every constituency in Alaska." Gruening did go on to lose in the general election to Republican Frank Murkowski. To date, Gravel is the last Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress.

Career after leaving the Senate

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." Sometime in the early 1980s, he and his first wife Rita were divorced; she would later be the recipient of all of his Senate pension income.

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.

Mike Gravel and Whitney Gravel with their dog Ginger

Beginning in 1989 he reentered the world of politics. He became founder and head of The Democracy Foundation, which promotes direct democracy.

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".

Gravel married his second wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, circa 1984; they live in Arlington County, Virginia. They have the two grown children from his first marriage, Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier, and four grandchildren. In the 2000s, Gravel suffered from serious health issues, requiring three surgeries in 2003 for back pain and neuropathy; in 2004 he declared personal bankruptcy. After that, he began taking a salary from the non-profit organizations he was working for. Much of that income was lent to his presidential campaign; in 2007, he declared that he has "zero net worth."

Barnes Review controversy

In June 2003 Gravel gave a speech on direct democracy at a conference hosted by the American Free Press. The event was cosponsored by the Barnes Review, a journal that endorses Holocaust denial. 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. Senator Gravel recounts 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."

Political positions

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

Main article: Political positions of Mike Gravel

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 vouchers 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. (The tax is progressive because all taxes on spending up to the poverty level are 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 cells for medical research purposes. He is avowedly pro-choice on the issue of abortion and women's reproductive rights. He supports constitutional amendments towards direct democracy.

Some of his political leanings and convictions may also be gleaned from his 1972-published manifesto, Citizen Power.

Presidential bid in 2008

Main article: Mike Gravel presidential campaign, 2008

Mike Gravel at the launch of his Presidential campaign in April 2006

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. The motivation for Gravel's campaign has been his ardent support for, and desire to publicise, direct democracy and the National Initiative. He also opposes tax loopholes for the rich, which he says shift the tax burden onto the middle class and the poor; for this reason he believes that a better tax policy would be based on a progressive retail sales tax. He also emphasizes his support for a national sales tax and abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, withdrawal from the war in 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. Prior to February 2007, opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination all showed Gravel with a 1% or less support level. 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. At the end of March 2007, Gravel's campaign had less than US$500 in cash on hand against debts of nearly US$90,000.

On April 26, 2007, Gravel took part in the first Democratic presidential debate at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. During the debate he suggested a Democratic 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 powers of the Internet was a benefit: a YouTube video of his responses in the debate achieved in excess of 225,892 views, and honors such as #17 most views (for week), #7 top rated (for week), #23 top favorited (for week), #25 most discussed (for week), #4 most linked (for week), #1 most viewed - news and politics (for week), and #1 top rated - news and politics (for week); his name became the 15th 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 May 3, and his campaign and career was profiled in national publications such as Salon. Some thirty-five years after he first achieved the national spotlight, he had found it again.

However, it 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 participated in the next several debates, in one case after CNN reversed a prior 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?" In the ABC News Des Moines, Iowa debate of August 19, 2007, moderator George Stephanopoulos noted in his 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 US$17,526.55 in cash on hand, and had collected a total of US$379,794.85 so far during the 2008 election cycle.

Beginning with the October 30, 2007 Philadelphia event, Gravel was excluded from most of the remaining Democratic debates, with the debate sponsors or Democratic National Committee saying Gravel's campaign had not met fundraising, polling, or local campaign organizational thresholds. For the Philadelphia exclusion, Gravel blamed corporate censorship on the part of sponsor owner General Electric for his exclusion and mounted a counter-gathering a short distance away, but he had lost his most ready access to visibility.

Gravel's fundraising efforts for the first three quarters of 2007.

Following Gravel's exclusion from most debates, supporters have organized and held "mass donation days" to help the campaign gain momentum and necessary funds. One such day was December 5 2007, the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition; this day yielded upwards of $10,000 from donations. Supporters are now organizing another effort to boost Gravel's fundraising for January 1, 2008, using the phrase "Gravel Resolution for Revolution" as a catchphrase and way to publicize.

References

• 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.
• Statistical Analysis Shows ABC News Unfair in Democrat Debate http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2007/08/24/statistical-analysis-shows-abc-news-unfair-democrat-debate

External links

Official Web sites

• Gravel for President
• Gravel2008 Youtube Channel
• Gravel Blogspot
• Official Myspace

• National Initiative for Democracy (Founded by Mike Gravel)

Articles, analysis, biography

• Congressional Biography
• Biographical entry at The Democracy Foundation
• I'm voting for ... what's-his-name BBC article
• Vote for Mike Gravel article at Explorations Deep Into the Quagmire Known blog.
• Genealogy of Mike Gravel

Pentagon Papers

• Gravel edition of the Pentagon Papers Complete text, with supporting documents
• Democracy Now! Special: "How the Pentagon Papers Came to Be Published by the Beacon Press": Mike Gravel and Daniel Ellsberg (audio/video and transcript)

Interviews

• Blue State Observer — Interview
• Blue State Observer — Scones with the Senator
• Interview with Mike Gravel — The Eisenthal Report: Part 1, Part 2, Analysis
• Interview with Mike Gravel — CitizenPowerMagazine.net
• Mike Gravel on Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton
• Mike Gravel video interview: part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.
• Answering a question about gays in the military
• Conversation' With Mike Gravel
• Mike Gravel on CNN Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
• Washington Journal interview and call-in on C-SPAN — part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4. Wide range of issues are discussed.
• Interviewed by Harold Channer. Discusses Louis O. Kelso, Binary Economics, National Initiative, and the interplay between the National Initiative, and Binary Economics. The two being the different faces of the same coin.
• Bernie Ward Program KGO Radio San Francisco May 23,2007

Speeches and debates

• MP3 audio of speech delivered at the 2007 Democratic Winter conference in Washington, D.C., February 3, 2007. [2]
• A Legislative Plan To End The War In Iraq, May 14, 2007 National Press Club

Template:Persondata