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Senator Mike Gravel: Man for America
Mike Gravel was born in Springfield,
Massachusetts, to French
Canadian immigrants. He
attended French-speaking Catholic
schools, and as a teenager, when he wasn’t
working with his father and brothers in
the house painting and construction business,
he volunteered in local Springfield
politics, developing an avid interest in
governance and government.
In the early 1950s, Mike Gravel enlisted
in the U.S. Army and served as adjutant
in the Communications Intelligence
Service and as a Special Agent in the
Counter Intelligence Corps in Germany
and France.
After graduating with a B.S. in economics
from Columbia University, Mike
Gravel moved to Alaska, where he built a
real estate business. He served in the
Alaska House of Representatives from
1963 to 1966, and was then elected to two
terms in the U.S. Senate, representing
Alaska from 1969 to 1981.
Senator Gravel served on the Finance,
Interior, and Environment and Public
Works committees, chairing the Energy,
Water Resources, Buildings and Grounds,
and the Environmental Pollution subcommittees.
During the environmental watershed
decade of the 1970s, he co-sponsored
or co-authored every piece of meaningful
Senate legislation dealing with air,
water, waste and energy.
In 1971, as a freshman senator critical
of the Vietnam War and of government
secrecy, Mike Gravel used his position as
a senator to release the “secret” Pentagon
Papers and facilitated their publication as
The Senator Gravel Edition, The
Pentagon Papers, Beacon Press (1971).
This publication occasioned litigation,
Gravel v. U.S. Government, resulting in a
landmark Supreme Court decision relative
to the Speech and Debate Clause of
the United States Constitution, establishing
the precedent that members of
Congress cannot be bound by the official
secrets of any presidential administration.
Senator Gravel waged a successful lone
filibuster for five months, ending the military
draft in the United States. He forced
an end to the undersea testing of obsolete
nuclear warheads in the earthquake-prone
area of Amchitka Island, Alaska, which
could have compromised the food chain
of the North Pacific. He also initiated the
national and global critique of nuclear
power generation.
Despite being opposed by both government
entities and the oil industry, in 1973
Senator Gravel introduced the amendment
to authorize the construction of the
Alaska oil pipeline, building support and
allies to secure passage of the amendment
by a single vote. In addition to providing
jobs and a wide array of economic benefits
to citizens of Alaska, the pipeline has
been responsible for providing 20 percent
of the United States’ oil supply over the
last generation.
PUBLIC LIFE
Senator Gravel’s business activities
have encompassed real estate, finance,
and energy. He also worked as a cab driver
in New York City, as a clerk on Wall
Street, and as a brakeman on the Alaska
Railroad. Senator Gravel was the founding
president of the Democracy
Foundation, Philadelphia II, and Direct
Democracy—nonprofit corporations dedicated
to the establishment of direct
democracy in the United States through
the enactment by American voters of a
federal ballot initiative called the National
Initiative. The National Initiative will permit
citizens to vote for or against policy
issues that affect their lives.
Senator Gravel lectures and writes
about governance, capitalism, Social
Security, tax reform, energy, environmental
issues, and democracy. Books
authored by Senator Gravel are Jobs and
More Jobs and Citizen Power. He holds
four honorary degrees in law and public
affairs.
Senator Gravel is married to Whitney
Stewart Gravel and has two grown children:
Martin Gravel, living in Colorado,
and Lynne Gravel Mosier, living in
California. The Gravels have four grandchildren:
Renee, Alex, Madison and
Mackenzie.
Senator Gravel announced his candidacy
for the Democratic nomination in the
2008 presidential race on April 17, 2006. Subsequently, on March 25, 2008, Senator Gravel announced he would join the Libertarian Party. Senator Gravel's candidacy officially came to an end on May 25, 2008, after the Libertarian National Convention. Senator Gravel will continue to work on making the National Initiative the law of the land, and he will also go on book tours across the United States.
