10 Things You Didn't Know About Mike Gravel
Compiled by the U.S. News Library staff
1. Maurice Robert Gravel (pronounced Gra-VEL) was born May 13, 1930, in Springfield, Mass. In elementary school he was voted the student with the "most charming personality." Thanks to his time spent in French-speaking Roman Catholic schools and his French-Canadian parents, he speaks Canadian French fluently. His preferred name is Mike, as that is what his parents have always called him. While he was raised Catholic, he now lists his religion as Unitarian.
2. At 15, Gravel became interested in politics while working as a soda jerk for a local drug store whose owner was involved in local politics. He asked young Mike to hand out political leaflets for a local candidate. The experience left him impressed with "the awesomeness of political office."
3. He left his hometown after two years in college to join the Army, where he served overseas in the Counter Intelligence Corps from 1951 to 1954. When he returned, he put himself through Columbia University by driving a cab in New York City, eventually graduating in 1956 with a degree in economics. He holds four honorary degrees in law and public affairs.
4. Gravel ended up in Alaska after deciding he wanted to run for office and deciding it would be the best place for him to accomplish that goal. Before being elected to the state Legislature at age 38, he worked as a brakeman on the Alaska Railroad and became a successful real-estate developer.
5. During his 12 years as a Democratic senator from Alaska (1969–1981), he was a harsh critic of the Vietnam War, leading a five-month filibuster that led the Nixon administration to abolish the draft. Gravel is most prominently known for reading a leaked copy of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Defense Department account of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, into the Congressional Record during a midnight committee meeting in 1971, thus angering the Nixon administration. The reading went on for 3½ emotional hours, with Gravel breaking into sobs at several moments.
6. Gravel's major legislative victory for his state was successfully leading the fight to create the Alaskan oil pipeline.
7. During his colorful Senate career, Gravel nominated himself as vice president at the 1972 Democratic convention.
8. Gravel founded three organizations–the Democracy Foundation, Direct Democracy, and Philadelphia II–for the purpose of promoting his National Initiative for Democracy, which includes a constitutional amendment asserting the people's right to make laws–making every American voter, in effect, a member of Congress. It would establish an administrative agency, the Electoral Trust, to create a "Legislature of the People" that would enable American voters to make laws independent of, yet in a governing partnership with, elected officials.
9. He has written three books: Jobs and More Jobs, Citizen Power, and The Senator Gravel Edition: Pentagon Papers.
10. He would be the oldest man in history elected president if he won.
Sources:
Current Biography
Roll Call
Springfield Republican
Washington Post
Interview with former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel, National Press Club, 4/17/2006
www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/gravel/gravel041706int.html
Mike Gravel for President 2008
National Initiative for Democracy
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