Mike Gravel | |
|---|---|
 Gravel in 1973 | |
| United States Senator fromAlaska | |
| In office January 3, 1969 – January 3, 1981 | |
| Preceded by | Ernest Gruening |
| Succeeded by | Frank H. Murkowski |
| 3rdSpeaker of the Alaska House of Representatives | |
| In office January 25, 1965 – January 22, 1967 | |
| Preceded by | Bruce Kendall |
| Succeeded by | Bill Boardman |
| Member of theAlaska House of Representatives from the 8th district | |
| In office January 23, 1963 – January 22, 1967 | |
| Preceded by | John S. Hellenthal |
| Succeeded by | Michael F. Beirne |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Maurice Robert Gravel (1930-05-13)May 13, 1930 |
| Died | June 26, 2021(2021-06-26) (aged 91) Seaside, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Arlington National Cemetery |
| Political party | Democratic (before 2008, 2010–2021) |
| Other political affiliations | Libertarian (2008–2010) |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Columbia University (BS) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch/service |  United States Army |
| Years of service | 1951–1954 |
| Rank |  First Lieutenant |
Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (/ɡrəˈvɛl/grə-VELL; May 13, 1930 – June 26, 2021) was an American politician and writer who representedAlaska in theUnited States Senate from 1969 to 1981 as a member of theDemocratic Party. He ran for president twice: in2008, and2020. He was the fourth US Senator in Alaska's history.
Born and raised inSpringfield, Massachusetts, byFrench-Canadian immigrant parents, Gravel moved to Alaska in the late 1950s, becoming a real estate developer and entering politics. He served in theAlaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1967, and also becameSpeaker of the Alaska House. Gravel was elected to the U.S. Senatein 1968.
As a senator, Gravel became nationally known for his forceful, but unsuccessful, attempts to endthe draft during theWar in Vietnam, and for putting thePentagon Papers into the public record in 1971. He conducted an unsuccessful campaign for theDemocratic nomination in 1972 forVice President of the United States, and then played a crucial role in obtaining Congressional approval for theTrans-Alaska pipeline in 1973. He was re-elected to the Senate inin 1974, but was defeated in his bid for a third term inthe primary election in 1980.
An advocate ofdirect democracy and theNational Initiative, Gravel staged a run for the2008 Democratic nomination forPresident of the United States.His campaign failed to gain support, and in March 2008, he left the Democratic Party, and joined theLibertarian Party, to compete unsuccessfully for its presidential nomination and the inclusion of the National Initiative into theLibertarian Platform. Heran for president as a Democrat again in the2020 election, in a campaign that ended four months after it began. Two years before his death, Gravel and his campaign staff founded the progressive think tankThe Gravel Institute.
Gravel was born on May 13, 1930, inSpringfield, Massachusetts, one of five children ofFrench-Canadian immigrant parents, Alphonse and Marie (née Bourassa) Gravel.[1][2][3] His parents were part of theQuebec diaspora,[4] and he was raised in aworking-class neighborhood[5] during theGreat Depression,[3] speaking only French until he was seven years old.[6] Calling him "Mike" from an early age,[2] his father valued work above all else, while his mother stressed the importance of education.[7]
Gravel was educated inparochial schools as aRoman Catholic.[2] There he struggled, due to what he later said was undiagnoseddyslexia,[6][8] and wasleft back in third grade.[9] He completed elementary school in 1945[10] and his class voted him "most charming personality".[2] A summer job as asoda jerk led to Gravel handing out campaign fliers for local candidates on his boss's behalf; Gravel was immediately impressed with "the awesomeness of political office".[2][6]
Gravel then boarded atAssumption Preparatory School inWorcester, Massachusetts,[2] where his performance was initially mediocre.[11] By Gravel's telling, in the summer of 1948 he intended to volunteer for theIsrael Defense Forces during the1947–1949 Palestine war, butAlexandra Tolstaya told him to return to school.[12] There an English teacher, theAssumptionist Edgar Bourque, gave him personal attention, improving Gravel's language skills and instructing him in public speaking.[11] Gravel's grades improved measurably in his final year[11] and he graduated in 1949.[12] His sister, Marguerite, became aHoly Cross nun,[2] but Gravel himself struggled with the Catholic faith.[13] He studied for one year atAssumption College, a Catholic school in Worcester, then transferred for his sophomore year toAmerican International College in Springfield.[2] JournalistI. F. Stone and philosopherBertrand Russell strongly influenced Gravel in their willingness to challenge assumptions and oppose social convention and political authority.[14]
Around May 1951, Gravel saw that he was about to be drafted and instead enlisted in theU.S. Army for a three-year term so that he could get into theCounterintelligence Corps.[15] After basic training and counterintelligence school atFort Holabird inMaryland and inSouth Carolina, he went toOfficer Candidate School atFort Benning,Georgia.[15] While he expected to be sent off to theKorean War when he graduated as asecond lieutenant in early 1952, he was instead assigned toStuttgart,West Germany, as a SpecialAdjutant in the Army's Communications Intelligence Service.[15] In Germany, Gravel conducted surveillance operations on civilians and paid off spies.[15] After about a year, he transferred toOrléans, France, where his French language abilities (if not his French-Canadian accent) allowed him to infiltrateFrench communist rallies.[15] He worked as a Special Agent in the Counterintelligence Corps until 1954,[5] eventually becoming afirst lieutenant.[16]
Following his discharge, Gravel entered theColumbia University School of General Studies inNew York City, where he studiedeconomics and received aBachelor of Science degree in 1956.[17][18] He moved to New York "flat broke"[16] and supported himself by working as a bar boy in a hotel,[16] driving ataxicab,[19] and working in the investment bond department atBankers Trust.[16] During this time he left the Roman Catholic faith.[13]
Gravel "decided to become a pioneer in a faraway place,"[16] and moved topre-statehood 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 forpublic office.[6][19] Alaska's voting age of 19, less than most other states' 21, played a role in his decision,[21] as did its newness[6] and cooler climate.[19] Broke when he arrived, he immediately found work inreal estate sales until winter arrived.[20] Gravel then was employed as abrakeman for theAlaska Railroad, working the snow-clearing train on theAnchorage-to-Fairbanks run.[20] 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.[20] The firm was named the M. R. Gravel Real Estate Company.[22] Gravel joined theAnchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and continued a sporadic relationship with the movement throughout his life.[13]
Seeing Alaska as a wide-open place with no political establishment or entrenched interests,[23] Gravel quickly became part of the civic scene there. By October 1957, he was a Division Chairman for Anchorage for the Democratic Central Committee in the territory,[24] and by June 1958, he was president of the Alaska Young Democrats organization.[25] He also became active in theUnited States Junior Chamber (Jaycees), and by early 1958, his duties included handing out awards for farmer of the year.[26]
By early 1958, Gravel was running as Democratic Party primary candidate for a Third Division seat in House of Representatives of the territorial legislature.[27] (This was one of the four administrative divisions into which Alaska was sectioned at the time.) Under the slogan "Gravel, the Roadbed to Prosperity", he lost.[19][23] At the same time, he was also an advocate forAlaskan statehood.[25]
Gravel went on a 44-state national speaking tour concerningtax reform in 1959, sponsored by the Jaycees, often dressing for events asPaul Revere.[17][28][29][30] Gravel was selected from some two thousand applications for this position.[31] The tour received a good amount of local newspaper coverage at its various stops, with Gravel's first name sometimes given as Mike and other times as Maurice.[28][29] The tour's general message was an urging of "lower taxes, more efficiency in government and a system of taxation moderate at all levels of income".[28] At several stops Gravel stated that the "tide of socialism" had to be stopped.[28][30] He elaborated at another stop, "It is part of our Jaycee creed that economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise. We really want to see that free enterprise become our inheritance."[32] The tour was scheduled to conclude inWashington D.C., onTax Day, April 15, with petition signatures accumulated for reform to be presented to U.S. lawmakers:[29] dressed as Revere, Gravel rode with the petition to the steps of theU.S. Capitol.[33]
The tour over, Gravel married Rita Jeannette Martin at the First Methodist Church of Anchorage on April 29, 1959.[34][22] She was a native of Montana who had attended Billings Business College before moving to Alaska two years prior and becoming a secretary in the office of the Anchorage city manager.[22] She had also been named Anchorage's "Miss Fur Rendezvous" of 1958.[34] They had two children, Martin Anthony Gravel and Lynne Denise Gravel,[34] bornc. 1960 and 1962 respectively.[21]
Gravel ran without avail for the City Council inAnchorage in 1960.[19] 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.[35] After a partner ran into financial difficulty, however, the project went intoChapter 11 bankruptcy, and Gravel was forced out in 1962.[35]
With the support of Alaska wholesale grocer Barney Gottstein and supermarket builder Larry Carr,[2][21] Gravel ran for theAlaska House of Representatives representing Anchorage in 1962, initially assigned the 10th and then 8th districts.[nb 1] Alaska had very crowded primaries that year: Gravel was one of 33 Democrats, along with 21 Republicans, who were running for the chance to compete for the 14 House seats allocated to the 8th district.[36] Gravel made it through the primary, and in November eight Republicans and six Democrats were elected to the House from the district, with Gravel finishing eighth overall and third among with Democrats, with 8,174 votes.[37] Gottstein became Gravel's main financial backer during most of his subsequent campaigns.[38]
Gravel served in theAlaska House of Representatives from January 28, 1963, to January 22, 1967, winning reelection in 1964. In his first term, he served as a minority member on two House committees: Commerce, and Labor and Management.[39] He co-authored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights.[2] Gravel was the chief architect of the law that created a regional high school system for rural Alaska; this allowedAlaska Natives to attend schools near where they lived instead of having to go to schools run by theBureau of Indian Affairs in the lower 48 states.[2]
During the half-years that the legislature was not in session, Gravel resumed his real estate work.[40] With Gottstein and Carr's backing, he became quite successful as a property developer on theKenai Peninsula.[2][16][41]
During 1965 and 1966, he served as the Speaker of the House, surprising observers by winning that post.[21] Gravel convinced former SpeakerWarren A. Taylor to not try for the position against him by promising Taylor chairmanship of the Rules Committee, then reneged on the promise.[42] Gravel denied later press charges that he had promised but not delivered on other committee chairmanships.[42][43][44] As Speaker he antagonized fellow lawmakers by imposing his will on the legislature's committees[21] and feuded withAlaska State Senate president Robert J. McNealy.[43]
Gravel did not run for reelection in 1966, instead choosing to run forAlaska's seat in theU.S. House of Representatives, losing the primary to four-term incumbent DemocratRalph Rivers[19] by 1,300 votes[21] and splitting the Democratic Party in the process.[21] Rivers lost the general election that year to Republican state SenatorHoward Pollock. Following this defeat, Gravel returned to the real estate business in Anchorage.[21]
In 1968, Gravel ran against 81-year-old incumbent Democratic United States SenatorErnest Gruening, a popular formergovernor of theAlaska Territory who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood,[19] for his party's nomination to theU.S. Senate. Gravel's campaign was primarily based on his youth and telegenic appearance rather than issue differences.[21][45][44] He hiredJoseph Napolitan, the first self-describedpolitical consultant, in late 1966.[21] 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 titledJobs and More Jobs, and the creation of a half-hour, well-produced, glamorized biographical film of Gravel,A Man for Alaska.[2][19][21][46] The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska, and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds ofAlaska Native villages.[2][21][44] The heavy showings quickly reversed a 2–to–1 Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead.[21] Gravel visited many remote villages byseaplane and showed a thorough understanding of the needs of the bush country and the fishing and oil industries.[2][47]
Gravel also benefited from maintaining a deliberately ambiguous posture about Vietnam policy.[47] Gruening had been one of only two senators to vote against theGulf of Tonkin Resolution and his opposition to PresidentLyndon B. Johnson's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate;[48] 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".[19] InA Man for Alaska, Gravel argued that "the liberals" would come toWest Germany's defense if it was attacked, and that they "should apply the same rule to Asians".[49] During the campaign he also claimed that he was "more in the mainstream of American thought on Vietnam" than Gruening, despite the fact that he had written to Gruening to praise his antiwar stance four years earlier. Decades later, Gravel conceded that "I said what I said [about Vietnam] to advance my career."[45]
Gravel beat Gruening in the primary by about 2,000 votes.[48][50] Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers.[44] In the general election, Gravel facedRepublicanElmer E. Rasmuson, a banker and former mayor of Anchorage.[48] College students in the state implored Gruening to run awrite-in campaign as anIndependent, but legal battles prevented him from getting approval for it until only two weeks were left.[48] A late appearance by anti-war presidential candidateEugene McCarthy did not offset Gruening's lack of funds and endorsements; meanwhile, Gravel and Rasmuson both saturated local media with their filmed biographies.[48] On November 5, 1968, Gravel won the general election with 45 percent of the vote to Rasmuson's 37 percent and Gruening's 18 percent.[48]
When Gravel joined the U.S. Senate in January 1969, he requested and received a seat on theInterior and Insular Affairs Committee, which had direct relevance to Alaskan issues.[47] He also got a spot on thePublic Works Committee,[47] which he held throughout his time in the Senate.[51] Finally, he was a member of theSelect Committee on Small Business.[52] In 1971, he became chair of the Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds,[47] and by 1973 he was chair of its Subcommittee on Water Resources,[53] then later its Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution. Gravel was also initially named to the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations.[47] By 1973, Gravel was off the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and the Select Small Business Committee and instead a member of theFinance Committee,[53] and by 1977, he was chair of that body's Subcommittee on Energy and Foundations.[54] By 1973 he had also been on the ad hoc Special Committee to Study Secret and Confidential Government Documents.[53]
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,[21][55] and was sometimes seen as arrogant or a nuisance by the more senior and tradition-oriented members.[21][45] Gravel relied on attention-getting gestures to achieve what he wanted, hoping national exposure would force other senators to listen to him.[55] But even senators who agreed with him on issues considered his methods to be showboating.[56]
As part of this approach, Gravel voted with Southern Democrats to keep the Senatefilibuster rule in place,[21] and accordingly supportedRussell Long andRobert Byrd but opposedTed Kennedy in Senate leadership battles.[21] In retrospective assessment,University of Alaska Anchorage history professor Stephen Haycox said, "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."[57]
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, theU.S. Department of Defense was in the process of performing tests for thenuclear warhead for theSpartananti-ballistic missile. Two tests, the"Milrow" and "Cannikin" tests, were planned, involving thedetonation of nuclear bombs underAmchitka 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. Before the Milrow test took place in October 1969, 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;[58] he then made a personal appeal to PresidentRichard Nixon to stop the test.[59]
After Milrow was conducted, there was continued pressure on the part ofenvironmental groups against going forward with the Cannikin test, while theFederation of American Scientists claimed that the warhead being tested was already obsolete.[59] In May 1971, Gravel sent a letter toU.S. Atomic Energy Commission hearings held in Anchorage in which he said the risk of the test was not worth taking.[60] Eventually a group not involving Gravel took the case to theU.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an injunction against it,[61] and the Cannikin test took place as scheduled in November 1971.[61] Gravel had failed to stop the tests (notwithstanding his later claims during his 2008 presidential campaign).[nb 2]
In 1971, Gravel voted against the Nixon administration's proposed anti-ballistic missile system, theSafeguard Program, having previously vacillated over the issue, suggesting that he might be willing to support it in exchange for federal lands in Alaska being opened up for private oil drilling. His vote alienated SenatorHenry "Scoop" Jackson, who had raised funds for Gravel's primary campaign.[38]
Nuclear power was considered an environmentally clean alternative for commercial generation of electricity and was part of a popular national policy for thepeaceful use of atomic energy in the 1950s and 1960s.[62] Gravel publicly opposed this policy; besides the dangers of nuclear testing, he was a vocal critic of the Atomic Energy Commission,[62] which oversaw American nuclear efforts, and of the powerfulUnited States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which had a stranglehold on nuclear policy and which Gravel tried to circumvent.[62] 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;[63] in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums.[64] By 1974, Gravel was allied withRalph Nader's organization in opposing nuclear power.[65]
Six months beforeU.S. Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger's July 1971 secret mission to thePeople's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Gravel introduced legislation torecognize and normalize relations with the P.R.C., including a proposal for unity talks between the P.R.C. and theRepublic of China (Taiwan) regardingthe Chinese seat on the U.N. Security Council.[66] He reiterated his position in favor of recognition, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971.[67]
Although he did not campaign against theVietnam War during his first Senate campaign, by the end of 1970, Gravel was speaking out against United States policy in southeast Asia: in December of that year he persuadedWilliam Fulbright to join him in a spontaneous two-day filibuster against a $155 million military aid package to Cambodia'sKhmer Republic government in theCambodian Civil War.[68]
PresidentRichard Nixon hadcampaigned in 1968 on a promise to end theU.S. military draft,[69][70] a decision endorsed by the February 1970 report of the Gates Commission.[69][71]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.[72] TheNixon administration announced in February 1971 that it wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, after which the draft would end;[73][74] Army planners had already been operating under the assumption of a two-year extension, after which anall-volunteer force would be in place.[71] Skeptics such asSenate Armed Services Committee chairmanJohn Stennis thought this unrealistic and wanted a four-year extension,[73] but the two-year proposal is what went forward in Congress.[72] By early May 1971, Gravel had indicated his intention tofilibuster the draft renewal legislation, halting conscription and thereby bringing U.S. involvement in the war to a rapid end.[75] During this period he also supported efforts to mobilize and influence public opinion against the war, endorsing the"Vietnam War Out Now" rallies inWashington D.C. andSan Francisco on April 24, 1971,[76] and financing a broadcast campaign by the antiwar group War No More with a personal loan.[77] In June 1972, he escorted a group of over 100 antiwar protesters, including psychiatristRobert Jay Lifton, actressCandice Bergen, theater producer and directorJoseph Papp, and pediatricianDr. Benjamin Spock, into theUnited States Capitol Building; the group was arrested after blocking a hallway outside the Senate chamber.[78]
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;[72] 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."[72] A Senate vote on June 4 indicated majority support for the two-year extension.[72] On June 18 Gravel announced again his intention to counteract that by filibustering the renewal legislation,[79] defending the practice against those who associated it only with blockingcivil rights legislation.[79] The first filibuster attempt failed on June 23 when, by three votes, the Senate votedcloture for only the fifth time since 1927.[80]
Protracted negotiations took place over House conference negotiations on the bill, revolving in large part around Senate Majority LeaderMike 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.[81] On August 5, the Nixon administration pleaded for a renewal before the Senate went on recess, but Gravel blocked Stennis's attempt to limit debate, and no vote was held.[82] 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.[81] Gravel's attempts to stop the draft had failed[55] (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).[nb 3]
Meanwhile, on June 13, 1971,The New York Times began printing large portions of thePentagon Papers.[83] The papers were a large collection of secret government documents and studies pertaining to the Vietnam War, of which formerDefense Department analystDaniel Ellsberg had made unauthorized copies and was determined to make public.[84] Ellsberg had for a year and a half approached members of Congress – such asWilliam Fulbright,George McGovern,Charles Mathias, andPete McCloskey – about publishing the documents, on the grounds that theSpeech or Debate Clause of theConstitution would give congressional membersimmunity from prosecution, but all had refused.[85] Instead, Ellsberg allowedTimes reporterNeil Sheehan to take notes of the Papers, but Sheehan disobeyed, copying them and taking the copies by plane to Washington, then New York, for organization and publication.[86]
TheU.S. Justice Department immediately tried to halt publication, on the grounds that the information revealed within the papers harmed the national interest.[84] Within the next two weeks, a federal courtinjunction halted publication in theTimes;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 theU.S. Supreme Court for arguments.[84] 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;[6] Gravel agreed where previously others had not. Ellsberg arranged for the papers to be given to Gravel on June 26[6] via an intermediary,Post editorBen Bagdikian.[87] Gravel used his counter-intelligence experience to choose a midnight transfer in front of theMayflower Hotel in the center of Washington, D.C.[88]
Over the next several days, Gravel (who wasdyslexic) was assisted by his congressional office staff in reading and analyzing the report.[89] Worried his home might be raided by theFederal Bureau of Investigation, Gravel smuggled the report (which filled two large suitcases) into his congressional office, which was then guarded by disabled Vietnam veterans.[89]
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.[90] Gravel instead convened a session of the Buildings and Grounds subcommittee that he chaired.[90] He got New York CongressmanJohn G. Dow to testify that the war had soaked up funding for public buildings, thus making discussion of the war relevant to the committee.[91] He began reading from the papers with the press in attendance,[90] omitting supporting documents that he felt might compromise national security,[92] 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."[92]
He read until 1 a.m., culminating by saying "Arms are being severed. Metal is clashing through human bodies because of the public policy this government and all its branches continue to support."[45] Then with tears and sobs he said that he could no longer physically continue,[92] the previous three nights of sleeplessness and fear about the future having taken their toll.[6] Gravel ended the session by, with no other senators present, establishingunanimous consent[91] to insert 4,100 pages of the Papers into theCongressional Record of his subcommittee.[55][84] The following day, the Supreme Court'sNew York Times Co. v. United States decision ruled in favor of the newspapers[84] and publication in theTimes and others resumed. In July 1971,Bantam Books published an inexpensive paperback edition of the papers containing the material theTimes had published.[93]
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".[87] After being turned down by many commercial publishers,[87] on August 4, he reached agreement withBeacon Press,[94] the publishing arm of theUnitarian Universalist Association, of which Gravel was a member.[55] Announced on August 17[93] and published on October 22, 1971,[87] this four-volume, relatively expensive set[93] became the "Senator Gravel Edition", which studies fromCornell University and theAnnenberg Center for Communication have labeled as the most complete edition of the Pentagon Papers to be published.[95][96] The "Gravel Edition" was edited and annotated byNoam Chomsky andHoward Zinn, and included an additional volume of analytical articles on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn.[96] Beacon Press then was subjected to anFBI investigation;[88] an outgrowth of this was theGravel v. United States court case, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled upon in June 1972;[88] in a 5-to-4 decision it held that theSpeech or Debate Clause of the Constitution did grant immunity to Gravel for his reading the papers in his subcommittee; did grant some immunity to Gravel's congressional aide, but compelled the aide to testify before a grand jury about matters not directly related to the legislative process; and granted no immunity to Beacon Press in relation to their publishing the same papers.[97]
The events of 1971 changed Gravel in the following months from an obscure freshman senator to a nationally visible political figure.[55] He became a sought-after speaker on the college circuit as well as at political fundraisers,[55] opportunities he welcomed as lectures were "the one honest way a Senator has to supplement his income".[55] The Democratic candidates for the1972 presidential election sought his endorsement.[55] In January 1972, Gravel endorsedMaine SenatorEd Muskie,[98] hoping that his support would help Muskie with the party's left wing and in ethnicFrench-Canadian areas duringthe first primary contest in New Hampshire[55] (Muskie won, but not overwhelmingly, and his campaign faltered soon after). In April 1972, Gravel appeared on all three networks' nightly newscasts to decry the Nixon administration's reliance onVietnamization by making reference to the secretNational Security Study Memorandum 1 document, which stated it would take 8–13 years for theArmy of the Republic of Vietnam to defendSouth Vietnam.[99] Gravel made excerpts from the study public,[100] but senatorsRobert P. Griffin andWilliam B. Saxbe blocked his attempt to read NSSM 1 into the Congressional Record.[99]
In 1970, Gravel co-sponsored legislation to establish aguaranteed minimum income, entitling poor families to up to $6,300 a year (the equivalent of $42,000 in 2019 after adjustment for inflation). He subsequently voted for a "work bonus" program, which would have entitled low-income working families with dependent children if they were payingSocial Security orRailroad Retirement taxes to a non-taxable bonus of up to 10 percent of their wages.[101]
In 1969, Gravel was the only Democratic Senator outside of the South to vote for Nixon's Supreme Court nomineeClement Haynsworth.[102] The following year, Gravel opposed Nixon's next pick,G. Harrold Carswell.[103]
Gravel actively campaigned for the office ofVice President of the United States during the1972 presidential election, announcing on June 2, 1972, over a month before the1972 Democratic National Convention began, that he was interested in the nomination should the choice be opened up to convention delegates.[104] Toward this end he began soliciting delegates for their support.[105] He was not alone in this effort, as formerGovernor of MassachusettsEndicott Peabody had been running a quixotic campaign for the same post[106] since the prior year. Likely presidential nomineeGeorge McGovern was in fact already considering the unusual move of naming three or four acceptable vice-presidential candidates and letting the delegates choose.[106]
On the convention's final day, July 14, 1972, McGovern selected and announced SenatorThomas Eagleton ofMissouri as his vice-presidential choice.[107] Eagleton was unknown to many delegates and the choice seemed to smack of traditionalticket balancing considerations.[107][108] Thus there were delegates willing to look elsewhere. Gravel was nominated byBettye Fahrenkamp, theDemocratic National Committeewoman from Alaska.[109] He then seconded his own nomination, breaking down in tears at his own words[110] and maybe trying to withdraw his nomination.[110] In any case he won 226 delegate votes, coming in third behind Eagleton andFrances "Sissy" Farenthold of Texas, inchaotic balloting[108][111] that included several other candidates.
Gravel attracted some attention for his efforts: writerNorman Mailer said he "provided considerable excitement" and was "good-looking enough to have played leads in B-films",[112] whileRolling Stone correspondentHunter S. Thompson said Gravel "probably said a few things that might have been worth hearing, under different circumstances".[113] Yet the process was doubly disastrous for the Democrats. In the time consumed by nominating and seconding and all the vice-presidential candidates' speeches, the attention of the delegates on the floor was lost[113] and McGovern's speech was pushed to 3:30 a.m.[113] The haste with which Eagleton was selected led to surprise when his pastmental health treatments were revealed; he withdrew from the ticket soon after the convention, to be replaced bySargent Shriver.
Several years earlier, Alaska politicians had speculated that Gravel would have a hard time getting both renominated and elected when his first term expired,[55] given that he was originally elected without a base party organization and tended to focus on national rather than local issues.[55]
Nonetheless, Gravel was reelected to the Senate in 1974,[114] with 58 percent of the vote. His Republican opponent, State Senator C. R. Lewis, was a national officer of theJohn Birch Society, and earned 42 percent of the vote.[115]
In 1975, Gravel introduced an amendment to cut the number of troops overseas by 200,000, but it was defeated on avoice vote.[116]
In September 1975, Gravel was named as one of several Congressional Advisers to theSeventh Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which met to discuss problems related to economic development and international economic cooperation.[117]
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 clerkElizabeth Ray (who had already been involved in a sex scandal that led to the downfall of RepresentativeWayne Hays) said that in August 1972 she had sex with Gravel aboard a houseboat on thePotomac River, under the instruction of RepresentativeKenneth J. Gray, her boss at the time.[118] Gray allegedly wanted to secure Gravel's support for further funding for construction of theNational Visitor Center in Washington, a troubled project that was under the jurisdiction of subcommittees that both members chaired.[119][120] Another Congressional staffer said she witnessed the boat encounter, but Gravel said at the time that he had never met either of the women.[118][121] Gravel and Gray strongly denied that they had made any arrangement regarding legislation,[118] and neither was ever charged with any wrongdoing.[122] Decades later, Gravel wrote that he had indeed had sex with Ray, but had not changed any votes because of it.[123]
Gravel and his main financial backer, Gottstein, had a falling out in 1978, during the Congressional debate over whether to allow a controversial sale of U.S.F-15 fighter aircraft toSaudi Arabia. An ardent backer ofIsrael, Gottstein opposed the sale and asked Gravel to vote against it. But Gravel not only voted for it but made an emotional speech attacking the anti-sale campaign.[38] Gravel wrote in 2008 that it was the only time Gottstein had ever asked him for a favor, and the rupture resulted in their never speaking to each other again.[124]
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By 1971, Gravel was urging construction of the much-arguedTrans-Alaska pipeline, addressingenvironmental concerns by saying that the pipeline's builders and operators should have "total and absolute" responsibility for any consequent environmental damage.[125] Two years later, the debate over the pipeline came to a crux, withThe New York Times describing it as "environmentalists [in] a holy war with the major oil companies".[126] In February 1973, theU.S. Court of Appeals blocked the issuance of permits for construction;[127] Gravel and fellow Alaskan SenatorTed Stevens reacted by urging Congress to pass legislation overturning the court's decision.[128] Environmentalists opposed to the pipeline, such as theEnvironmental Defense Fund and theSierra Club[129] then sought to use the recently passedNational Environmental Policy Act to their advantage;[126] Gravel designed an amendment to the pipeline bill that would immunize the pipeline from any further court challenges under that law,[126] and thus speed its construction. Passage of the amendment became the key battle regarding the pipeline. On July 17, 1973, in what theNew York Times termed a "nip-and-tuck roll-call", the Gravel amendment was approved, as a 49–49 tie was broken in favor by Vice PresidentSpiro Agnew.[129] The actual bill enabling the pipeline then passed easily;[129] Gravel had triumphed in what became perhaps his most lasting accomplishment as a senator.[56]
In opposition to the Alaskanfishing industry, Gravel advocated American participation in the formation of theUnited Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. For two years he opposed legislation that established a 200-mile (320 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,[130] 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".[130] The legislation was passed, and the United States has signed but neverratified the Law of the Sea treaty.
Gravel accumulated a complicated record on Indian affairs during his time in the Senate. During his first year in the Senate Gravel urged abolition of theBureau of Indian Affairs, criticizing the agency for the pace of development of schools in Alaska, its paternalistic attitudes and the culturally inappropriate nature of its education, and advocating greater shared decision-making between the federal government and native communities in Alaska.[52][131] Later, his views changed; in the early 1970s Gravel supported a demonstration project that established links between Alaskan villages and theNational Institute of Health inBethesda, Maryland, for medical diagnostic communications. Gravel helped secure a private grant to facilitate the firstInuit Circumpolar Conference in 1977,[132] attended byInuit representatives from Alaska,Canada, andGreenland. These conferences now also include representatives fromRussia. In 1977, Gravel helped lead an effort to have theU.S. Interior Department renameMount McKinley to Denali;[133] this eventually led toDenali National Park beingso named. Subsequently, Gravel proposed a never-built "Denali City" development above the Tokositna River near the mountain, to consist of a giantTeflon dome enclosing hotels, golf courses, condominiums, and commercial buildings.[134] A related idea of his to build ahigh-speed rail line to Denali also failed to gain traction.[135]
A key, emotional issue in the state at the time was "locking up Alaska", making reference to allocation of its vast, mostly uninhabited land.[136] PresidentJimmy Carter desired to put large portions of this land under federal protection against development, a move that some Alaskans vociferously opposed.[137]In 1978 Gravel blocked passage, via procedural delays[136] such as walking out ofHouse–Senate conference committee meetings,[138] 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;[19] the blocking action earned Gravel the enmity of fellow Alaska SenatorTed Stevens, who had supported the compromise.[19][137] 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 127,000,000 acres (510,000 km2) of Alaska's 375,000,000 acres (1,520,000 km2) for national parks, conservation areas, and other restricted federal uses.[139] Gravel blocked it, as not ensuring enough future development in the state.[139] A new compromise version of the 1980 bill came forward, which reduced the land set aside to 104,000,000 acres (420,000 km2).[136] Representing Alaskan interests, Gravel tried to stop the bill, including by filibuster.[19] But the Senate voted for cloture and passed the bill.[139][140] Frustrated, Gravel said, "the legislation denies Alaska its rights as a state, and denies the U.S. crucial strategic resources,"[139] and opined that the Senate was "a little bit like a tank of barracudas".[136] Nonetheless, the bill, known as theAlaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, was signed by President Carter shortly before leaving the White House, and led to millions of acres being set aside in the state for national parks, wildlife refuges, and other kinds of areas under protection.[137]
In 1978 Gravel authored and secured the passage into federal law of the General Stock Ownership Corporation, that became Subchapter U of the Tax Code under theInternal Revenue Code of 1954.[141][142] This gave states the ability to create corporations that would invest in for-profit enterprises, with all citizens within the state owning shares in the corporation.[142] Gravel's attempt to convince the Alaska state legislature to create such a corporation failed, as did a 1980 state ballot initiative towards the same end, but nevertheless the creation of the General Stock Ownership Corporation in federal law turned out to be significant in the development ofbinary economics.[141][142]
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In 1980, Gravel was challenged for the Democratic Party's nomination byState RepresentativeClark Gruening, the grandson of the man Gravel had defeated in a primary 12 years earlier. One of Gruening's supporters was Gravel's former backer Gottstein.[38] Several factors made Gravel vulnerable. As an insurgent candidate in 1968, Gravel had never established a firm party base.[50] Not liking to hunt or fish, he was also always culturally suspect in the state.[143][144]
The primary campaign was bitterly fought.[140] A group of Democrats, including future governorSteve Cowper,[145] led the campaign against Gravel, with Gravel's actions in respect to the 1978 and 1980 Alaskan lands bills a major issue.[19][140][146] This was especially so given that the 1980 bill's dénouement happened but a week before the primary.[136] The sources of Gravel's campaign funds, some of which Gravel readily acknowledged came frompolitical action committees outside the state, also became an issue in the contest.[140][56][146] Gruening had pledged that he would not take special interest group money, but Gravel said that Gruening was "dishonest" in accepting individual contributors from Jewish donors living outside the state because to him such contributors comprised "a special interest group ... that seeks to influence the foreign policy of the U.S."[146][56]
Gruening decisively won the primary with about 55 percent of the vote to Gravel's 44 percent.[140] Gravel later conceded that by the time of his defeat, he had alienated "almost every constituency in Alaska".[19] Another factor may have been Alaska'sblanket primary system of the time,[147] which allowed unlimited voting across party lines and from its many independents;[145] Republicans believed Gruening would be an easier candidate to defeat in the general election.[140]
Gruening lost thegeneral election to Republican bankerFrank Murkowski. Gravel was the last Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress for 28 years until the2008 election ofMark Begich.[148]
Of his 1980 defeat, Gravel later recalled: "I had lost my career. I lost my marriage. I was in the doldrums for ten years after my defeat,"[149] and "Nobody wanted to hire me for anything important. I felt like I was worthless. I didn't know what I could do."[6] By his own later description, Gravel was awomanizer, and had an affair while in the Senate, and he and his wife Rita separated in December 1980.[123][150][151] They filed for divorce in September 1981;[151] she later received all of his Senate pension income.[19]
During the 1980s, Gravel was a real estate developer inAnchorage andKenai, Alaska,[152] a consultant, and a stockbroker.[19] One of his real estate ventures, a condominium business, was forced to declare bankruptcy and a lawsuit ensued.[19] In 1986, Gravel worked in partnership withMerrill Lynch Capital Markets to buy losses that financially troubledAlaska Native Corporations could not take as tax deductions and sell them to large national companies looking for tax write-offs.[153] Gravel also learnedcomputer programming at some point but never practiced it.[154]
In 1984, Gravel married his second wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, who had been an administrative assistant for U.S. Senator from New YorkJacob Javits.[6][155]
In 1989, Gravel reentered politics.[19] He founded and led The Democracy Foundation, which promotesdirect democracy.[156] He established the Philadelphia II corporation, which seeks to replicate the original1787 Constitutional Convention and have aSecond Constitutional Convention to bring about direct democracy[157] Gravel led an effort to get aUnited States Constitutionalamendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballotinitiatives.[19][158] He argued that Americans are able to legislate responsibly, and that the Act and Amendment in theNational Initiative would allow American citizens to become "law makers". However such efforts met with little success.[45]
In 2001, Gravel became director of theAlexis de Tocqueville Institution, where he admired institute co-founderGregory Fossedal's work on direct democracy inSwitzerland.[157] By 2004, Gravel had become chair of the institute,[159] and Fossedal (who in turn was a director of the Democracy Foundation) gave the introduction at Gravel's presidential announcement.[160]
In 2003, Gravel gave a speech ondirect democracy at a conference hosted by theAmerican Free Press. The event was cosponsored byThe Barnes Review,[19] a journal that endorsesHolocaust denial.[161] After some controversy over his appearance, Gravel apologized, saying he did not realize the group's ties. Gravel said repeatedly that he did not share the group's views onthe Holocaust,[162] stating, "You better believe I know that six million Jews were killed. [TheBarnes Review publishers] are nutty as loons if they don't think it happened".[163] The group invited Gravel to speak again, but he declined.[162]
Mike and Whitney Gravel lived inArlington County, Virginia, until 2010, and then resided inBurlingame, California.[164] They have the two grown children from his first marriage, Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier, and four grandchildren.[165] Whitney Gravel's income sustained the couple from 1998 on.[6] In the 2000s, Gravel had poor health, requiring three surgeries in 2003 forback pain andneuropathy.[19] Due to unreimbursed medical expenses and debts from his political causes, he declaredpersonal bankruptcy in 2004.[6][19] 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".[19]
At the start of 2006, Gravel decided the best way he could promotedirect democracy and theNational Initiative was to run for president.[19] On April 17, 2006,[166] Gravel became the first candidate for theDemocratic nomination forPresident of the United States in the2008 election, announcing his run in a speech to theNational Press Club inWashington, D.C. Short on campaign cash, he tookpublic transportation to get to his announcement.[167] (Gravel called forpublic financing of elections.[168]) Other principal Gravel positions were theFairTax,[169] as well aswithdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days and asingle payer national health care system.[170]
Gravel had opposed theIraq War, and PresidentGeorge W. Bush's rationale for it, from the beginning,[170][171] and in 2006 said that U.S. troops in Iraq, as in Vietnam, had "died in vain".[170][172] He also favored a regional peace initiative, as well asreparation payments for Iraqis.[170][171] Gravel also called for a "U.S. corporate withdrawal from Iraq", with reconstruction contracts held by U.S. companies to be turned over to Iraqi firms.[170][171]
Gravel campaigned almost full-time inNew 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.[173]
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Because of his time in the Senate, Gravel was invited to many of the early Democratic presidential debates. During the initial one atSouth 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 opposingpreemptive 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".[174] 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."[174] In one such exchange, Gravel said, "Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?" to which Obama responded, "I'm not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike, I promise."[45][135]
Media stories said that Gravel was responsible for much of whatever "heat" and "flashpoints" had taken place during the Democratic debates.[174][175][176] 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".[177] The Internet was a benefit: aYouTube 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;[nb 4] his name became the fifteenth most searched-for in theblogosphere;[178] and his website garnered more traffic than those of frontrunnersHillary Clinton,Barack Obama, orJohn Edwards.[19] Gravel appeared on the popularColbert Report on television on May 2,[19] and his campaign and career were profiled in national publications such asSalon.[19] Two wordless,Warholesque campaign videos, "Rock" and "Fire", were released on YouTube in late May and became hits,[179] and eventually gained over 760,000 and 185,000 views respectively.[180][181] "Rock", in turn, was given airtime during an episode ofThe 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 2007CNN poll showed him with less than 0.5 percent support among Democrats.[182] Gravel was in the next several debates, in one case afterCNN reversed a decision to exclude him.[183] Like some of the other second-tier candidates, Gravel 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.[184]
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?"[185] Detractors began to liken him to "the cranky uncle who lives in the attic,"[186] or "the angry old guy that just seemed to want to become angrier".[187] Berkeley political scientist David Terr found that moderatorGeorge Stephanopoulos directed roughly five percent of his questions to Gravel;[188] in a poll asking who did the best in the debate, Gravel placed seventh among the eight candidates.[189]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 during the 2008 election cycle,[190] and was continuing to run a threadbare campaign with minimal staff.[6]
Beginning with the October 30, 2007,Philadelphia event, Gravel was excluded from most of the debates, with the debate sponsors or theDemocratic National Committee saying Gravel's campaign had not met fund-raising, polling, or local campaign organizational thresholds.[191][192][193] For the Philadelphia exclusion, Gravel blamedcorporate censorship on the part of sponsor owner and allegedmilitary-industrial complex memberGeneral Electric for his exclusion[194][195] and mounted a counter-gathering and debate against a video screen a short distance away,[196] 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 theRepeal of Prohibition.[197]
Gravel did not compete in the initial 2008 vote,the Iowa caucuses,[198] but was still subjected to a false report fromMSNBC that he had pulled out of the race afterward.[199] Gravel did focus his attention on the second 2008 vote, theNew Hampshire primary. In early January,Mother Jones' investigative reporterJames Ridgeway was filmed interviewing and following Gravel in New Hampshire, in which Gravel is interviewed on the phone byNeal Conan for NPR's,Talk of the Nation.[200] He received about 400 votes out of some 280,000 cast in New Hampshire, or 0.14 percent,[201] before taking time off to improve his health.[202] 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;[203] Gravel vowed to stay in the presidential campaign until November.[204][205] On March 11, 2008, Gravel continued to remain in the Democratic race but additionally endorsed aGreen Party candidate for president,Jesse Johnson,[206] saying he wanted to help Johnson prevail against Green Party rivalsCynthia McKinney andRalph Nader.[207] By late March, Gravel had almost no fundraising and was only on the ballot in one of the next ten Democratic primaries.[208]
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On March 25, 2008, Gravel announced that he would leave the Democrats and join theLibertarian Party,[209][210] 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."[209] The following day Gravel entered the race for the2008 Libertarian presidential nomination,[211] 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.[211] Gravel's initial notion of running as afusion candidate with other parties was met with skepticism.[212]
As a Libertarian candidate, Gravel faced resistance to his past support of big government initiatives and his unorthodox positions around direct democracy.[213] Nevertheless, he garnered more support than he had as a Democrat, placing second and third in two April 2008straw polls.[214] In the May 25 balloting at the2008 Libertarian National Convention inDenver, 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 winnerBob Barr, authorMary Ruwart, and businessmanWayne Allyn Root.[215] Gravel's position did not subsequently improve and he was eliminated on the fourth ballot.[215] Afterwards he stated, "I just ended my political career", but he vowed to continue promoting his positions as a writer and lecturer.[216]
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 theSeptember 11 attacks.[217][218] He later said, "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 continuingwar on terror, should be extensively investigated which was not done and which the government avoids addressing."[219]
In August 2008, Gravel was speaking to a crowd of supporters ofSami Al-Arian (who two years earlier had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison for a charge of conspiracy in helpingPalestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist" organization)[220][221] 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."[222] Gravel was criticized for potentially involving the children of the prosecutor, and Al-Arian's family disavowed the sentiments.[222][223]
Gravel defended Alaska GovernorSarah Palin after she was chosen as Republican presidential nomineeJohn 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 rather than a detriment, and predicted that the "Troopergate" investigation into whether she improperly fired a state official would "come out in her favor".[224] Gravel made clear he would not support or vote for either McCain–Palin or Obama–Biden in the general election.[224] 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".[144] Palin did not run, but Gravel's prediction about "TrooperGate" was accurate as Palin was found not to have violated ethics laws.
In 2013, by the invitation of Hamed Ghashghavi, the secretary for international affairs of the 3rdInternational Conference on Hollywoodism inTehran, Iran, Gravel attended that event as anIranian government-organized anti-Hollywood conference.[225] Gravel noted that the conference was attended by "various elements of extremes" but said it was necessary to discuss how the U.S. film industry portrayed Iran in order to prevent "an insane war" between the two nations.[226]
In May 2013, Gravel was one of several former members of Congress to accept $20,000 from the Paradigm Research Group, an advocacy group forUFO disclosure, as part of holding what they termed a Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, modeled after congressional hearings, regarding supposed U.S. government suppression of evidence concerningUFOs.[227] Gravel said, "Something is monitoring the planet, and they are monitoring it very cautiously, because we are a very warlike planet,"[228] and, "What we're faced with here is, in areas of the media, and the government too, an effort to marginalize and ridicule people who have specific knowledge."[227]
In December 2014, Gravel was announced as the new CEO of KUSH, a company which makes marijuana-infused products for medicinal and recreational use, and a subsidiary of Cannabis Sativa, Inc.[229] He also became an Independent Director of Cannabis Sativa.[230]
During the2016 Democratic presidential primaries, Gravel praisedBernie Sanders andhis campaign, saying "Bernie is one of the most gifted politicians I have ever observed. He's a person of great integrity and very clever." Gravel predicted that Sanders would be elected president but would be unable to get his key reforms through Congress, and thus that Sanders and his supporters should back some of the proposals of the National Initiative.[231]
In 2016, Gravel said in relation to theSeptember 11 attacks: "We killed 58,000 American servicemen in the Vietnam War and all they did was die in vain. What's so unusual about killing 3,000 more in order to develop the grist for the mill to empower into infinity the military industrial complex?" and "There's no question in my mind that 9/11 was an inside job". The remarks were later disavowed by even Gravel supporters.[232]
By 2019, Gravel was living inSeaside, California.[154] He was working on a book, at the time titledHuman Governance, about his principal idea for direct democracy, aU.S. Constitutional Amendment to create a "Legislature of the People" that would circumvent the existing Congress.[154][233] The book wasself-published at the end of the year byAuthorHouse under the titleThe Failure of Representative Government and the Solution: A Legislature of the People.[234]
On March 19, 2019, Gravel announced that he was considering running in the2020 Democratic primaries. He said, "The goal will not be to win, but to bring a critique of American imperialism to the Democratic debate stage." Anexploratory committee was formed, with filing a statement of organization with theFederal Election Commission on that same day.[235][nb 5] The filing was the idea of a group of teenagers, led byDavid Oks andHenry Williams, inspired by the podcastChapo Trap House, and done with Gravel's consent (after a week spent convincing him of the idea's merits), but without his involvement.[154][236] Intrigued by the group's commitment to amplifying his long-held policy goals, Gravel (who would be 90 years, 8 months old onInauguration Day in 2021) said he planned to meet with them in April, and to discuss a2020 White House run with his wife.[237] On April 2, 2019, Gravel filed to officially run for office.[238][239] The campaign called itself the "#Gravelanche".[240]
Gravel's initial stated goal was merely to qualify for debates by getting the required 65,000 small donors.[233][241] He discouraged people from voting for him[233] and said his preferences wereBernie Sanders andTulsi Gabbard, both of whom favor a non-interventionist foreign policy.[242][233] But on April 29, Gravel's campaign said he was running to win, not just to participate in debates.[241] In a subsequent interview, though, Gravel emphasized the virtue of Sanders and Gabbard in some order as a presidential ticket.[243] Statements like these causedVox to call Gravel "2020's oddest Democratic presidential candidate".[244] TheNew York Times Magazine included Gravel as an example in the rise ofdemocratic socialism in the United States also exemplified by Sanders's2016 race and the 2018 election of RepresentativeAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "[Gravel's] campaign represents the most absurd form of a legitimate movement on the left that feels little obligation to the Democratic Party."[154]
In June 2019, Gravel touted the endorsement ofMuntadher al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who, in December 2008, made headlines after hethrew his shoes atPresident George W. Bush in protest of the U.S. war in Iraq. Al-Zaidi endorsed Gravel based on his promise to improve White House policies regarding Iraq and the Middle East.[245]
On June 13, 2019, the Democratic Party announced the 20 major candidates who qualified for the first debate later that month. Gravel was one of the four who missed out (the others were Montana GovernorSteve Bullock, U.S. RepresentativeSeth Moulton, and Miramar, Florida, MayorWayne Messam).[246] Gravel had been unable to get the requisite number of donations, or to score one percent or better in enough polls (many polls did not even include him).[247] Nevertheless, Gravel said he would not drop out and would try to qualify for the July debate.[248] In early July, however, Gravel's campaign said it was still 10,000 contributions short of the 65,000-donor threshold and that it was "nearing its conclusion". It solicited suggestions for where to donate $100,000 to $150,000 of leftover campaign funds.[249] Gravel added that he had always planned on ending the campaign before the teenagers in charge of it needed to return to school.[249] A few days later, the campaign became the first to run an attack ad against Democratic frontrunnerJoe Biden, using the text "Is this the best our party has to offer?"[250]
Gravel's campaign crossed the threshold of 65,000 donors on July 12, 2019, meeting the qualification mark for that month's debate.[251] But because 20 other candidates, the maximum allowed to participate, had already met at least the polling criterion, which takes priority over the donor criterion,[252] Gravel was not invited.[253]
The campaign officially came to a close on August 6, 2019, with Gravel endorsing bothBernie Sanders andTulsi Gabbard for president.[254][255] Gravel's campaign later stated onTwitter that they never wanted to win but saw the campaign as an "intimately democratic" project and expressed honor at working with Gravel.[256] Gravel said he would divide remaining campaign funds between charity and a new think tank which would espouse his ideas.[240]
Gravel used some of the funds remaining from his 2020 presidential campaign to found an eponymousprogressivethink tank calledThe Gravel Institute in 2019. As noted byVice magazine, the Institute aimed to do battle withPragerU from aleft-wing perspective.[257] Launched in September 2020, the new entity said it would "carry on the life's work of former U.S Senator Mike Gravel in fighting for global peace and democracy. Its mission is to promote bold and forward-looking ideas about a more peaceful and egalitarian world, and to build a robust movement of young people to win it".[258] Contributors to the Institute includedCornel West andSlavoj Žižek.[257] The institute was largely centered around the creation of videos and a website. The last of the videos was put up in 2022;[259] the website was shuttered in 2023 for lack of payment.[260]
Gravel died ofmultiple myeloma at his home inSeaside, California, on June 26, 2021, at age 91.[137][56][45] As a result of the delay in burials induced by theCOVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Gravel was later laid to rest on June 20, 2023, atArlington National Cemetery where his cremated remains were buried. While given a military burial, a gun salute was not given at his request as he remained steadfast with his anti-violence stance.[261] As of February 2024, a record of him is at Arlington[262]
The New York Times's obituary for Gravel characterized him as "an unabashed attention-getter" who later become known for "mounting long-shot presidential runs".[56] The obituary inThe Washington Post was similar, saying that Gravel was "an Alaska Democrat with a flair for the theatrical who rose from obscurity to brief renown" and later "ran quixotic campaigns for the presidency".[45] TheAnchorage Daily News quoted Gravel as saying of himself in 1989, "I'm an independent kind of guy. A rough and ready kind of guy. My glands work in a certain way that make me stand up, foolishly sometimes, and fight."[135]
Alan Abramowitz and Jeffrey Allan Segal described Gravel as "a maverick, if not an eccentric, in the Senate."[263][264] HisAmericans for Democratic Action "Liberal Quotient" scores ranged from 81 out of 100 (1971) to 39 out of 100 (1980),[263] with an average of around 61.[265] HisAmerican Conservative Union scores ranged from 0 out of 100 (several years, including 1971 and 1972) to 38 out of 100 (1979), with an average of 14.[266] Abramowitz and Segal note that Gravel's lowest ADA ratings coincided with his two Senate re-election bids,[263] and for the most part his highest ACU ratings followed the same pattern.
In 1972, as a young senator, Gravel publishedCitizen Power: A People's Platform, a manifesto outlining whatKirkus Reviews termed a "populist reform [that] would provide 'balanced political power' between the people and government and business interests."[267]
On drug policy, Gravel said in 2007 that he favored decriminalization and treating addiction as a public health matter.[168][268][269] During his 2008 presidential candidacy, he condemned thewar on drugs as a failure, saying that it did "nothing but savage our inner cities and put our children at risk".[269] Gravel called for abolition ofcapital punishment in his bookCitizen Power, and adhered to this position during his 2008 run for president.[170] He supportedabortion rights.[170][171][172]
During the 2008 campaign, Gravel was a strong supporter ofLGBT rights. He supportedsame-sex marriage and opposed theDefense of Marriage Act and the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.[170][171] He wrote in 2008 that "depriving gays and lesbians of equal rights is immoral".[170]
Later in life, Gravel described himself as a critic ofAmerican imperialism.[168]
Gravel firmly opposed U.S. military action against Iran and Syria.[171] He voiced opposition to theGuantanamo Bay detention camp, theMilitary Commissions Act of 2006, theuse of torture,indefinite detention, and what he called "flagrant ignorance" of theGeneva Convention.[171] In 2014, Gravel called for the release of the full, unredactedSenate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture.[270]
Gravel opposed the use ofinternational sanctions as a policy tool and blamed the ones againstIraq under Saddam Hussein for the deaths of a half-million children in that country.[170] In 2013, Gravel said thatsanctions against Iran were "illegal".[271]
During his 2008 candidacy, Gravel called for a cut in military spending, variously reported to be 15 percent[170] or 50 percent.[172] He called for the savings to boost public education spending.[170] To spur internationalnuclear nonproliferation efforts, Gravel called for unilateral reductions in theU.S. nuclear arsenal.[168]
In 2008, Gravel criticized the decision ofHouse SpeakerNancy Pelosi to not pursue theefforts to impeach George W. Bush and theattempted impeachment of Dick Cheney, saying also that Bush and Cheney had committed crimes and deserved "to be prosecuted" atThe Hague.[272] In 2013, he expressed disdain forPresident Obama, calling him "a total fraud" and saying that both Bush and Obama should be tried "for the crimes and murders they've committed" in theInternational Court of Justice.[273] Gravel specifically condemned Obama fordrone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere.[273]
During his 2008 candidacy, Gravel favored aFairTax scheme, which would abolish theInternal Revenue Service, eliminate thefederal income tax (which Gravel called "corrupt"),[168] and impose anational sales tax.[171][169][274] While Gravel described FairTax as "progressive",[275] others have criticized it as "regressive", disproportionately benefiting the wealthiest Americans.[276][277][278] To offset the new sales taxes on essential goods, Gravel's plan called for monthly government rebate payments to individuals and families.[171][169] During his 2020 campaign Gravel also voiced support for a third legislative body that would give the people direct control of the budget as well as the implementation of aland value tax.[279]
Gravel opposed theNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during his 2008 candidacy, calling it unfair and economically harmful and needing renegotiation.[170][171] Gravel believed that NAFTA was the "root cause" of illegal migration to the U.S.[171] He favored aguest worker program and "setting up naturalization procedures that would fairly bring immigrants into legal status".[171] In a 2007 interview, Gravel identified himself as "very much of a globalist" who believed in open markets and open borders and condemned the scapegoating of undocumented immigrants.[280] Gravel also said that he favored eliminating the cap onH1B visas.[280]
As a senator from Alaska, Gravel favoreddrilling in theArctic National Wildlife Refuge, but opposed it during his 2008 campaign.[170] In 2008, Gravel supported acarbon tax tocombat climate change.[170]
Gravel spoke in favor ofnet neutrality during his presidential campaign.[280]
Gravel called for the cost of college tuition to be borne by the federal government, rather than students.[170] In his 2008 campaign, he called theNo Child Left Behind Act "a failure"[168] and called for it to be "reformed and fully funded".[171] He expressed support for universalpre-kindergarten and the expansion of theHead Start program; and expressed an openness tocharter schools[171] andschool vouchers. He also suggested extending the school day and the school year, and supportedmerit pay for teachers.[281]
Gravel also called for publicly fundeduniversal health care to replace the currentemployer-sponsored health insurance system.[170][171] He supported "full funding" of theVA system.[171] When asked in 2007 aboutnaturopathy,homeopathy, andacupuncture, Gravel said that he was "very very much in favor" ofholistic health care.[168]
In 2008, Gravel received theColumbia University School of General Studies' first annual Isaac Asimov Lifetime Achievement Award.[282]
He later clarified to interviewer Primo Nutmeg that he was endorsing both Sanders and Gabbard.
| Alaska House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John S. Hellenthal | Member of theAlaska House of Representatives from the 8th district 1963–1967 | Succeeded by Michael F. Beirne |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives 1965–1967 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forU.S. Senator fromAlaska (Class 3) 1968,1974 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 3) from Alaska 1969–1981 Served alongside:Ted Stevens | Succeeded by |
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| Class 3 | ||
| Territorial(1912–59) |  | |
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| State(since 1959) | ||
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| People | |
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