Senate leader, presidential candidate Bob Dole dies
TOPEKA, Kan. — Bob Dole, who overcame disabling war wounds to become a sharptongued Senate leader from Kansas, a Republican presidential candidate and a symbol and celebrant of his dwindling generation of World War II veterans, has died. He was 98.
His wife, Elizabeth Dole, said in an announcement posted on social media that he died early Sunday morning in his sleep.
Dole announced in February 2021 that he’d been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. During his 36-year career on Capitol Hill, Dole became one of the most influential legislators and party leaders in the Senate, combining a talent for compromise with a caustic wit, which he often turned on himself but didn’t hesitate to turn on others, too.
He shaped tax policy, foreign policy, farm and nutrition programs and rights for the disabled, enshrining protections against discrimination in employment, education and public services in the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Today’s accessible government offices and national parks, sidewalk ramps and the sign-language interpreters at official local events are just some of the more visible hallmarks of his legacy and that of the fellow lawmakers he rounded up for that sweeping civil rights legislation 30 years ago.
Dole devoted his later years to the cause of wounded veterans, their fallen comrades at Arlington National Cemetery and remembrance of the fading generation of World War II vets.
Thousands of old soldiers massed on the National Mall in 2004 for what Dole, speaking at the dedication of the World War II Memorial there, called “our final reunion.” He’d been a driving force in its creation.
“Our ranks have dwindled,” he said then. “Yet if we gather in the twilight it is brightened by the knowledge that we have kept faith with our comrades.”
Long gone from Kansas, Dole made his life in the capital, at the center of power and then in its shadow upon his retirement, living all the while at the storied Watergate complex. When he left politics and joined a law firm staffed by prominent Democrats, he joked that he brought his dog to work so he would have another Republican to talk to.
He tried three times to become president. The last was in 1996, when he won the Republican nomination only to see President Bill Clinton reelected. He sought his party’s presidential nomination in 1980 and 1988 and was the 1976 GOP vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket with President Gerald Ford.
Through all of that he carried the mark of war. Charging a German position in northern Italy in 1945, Dole was hit by a shell fragment that crushed two vertebrae and paralyzed his arms and legs. The young Army platoon leader spent three years recovering in a hospital and never regained use of his right hand.
To avoid embarrassing those trying to shake his right hand, Dole always clutched a pen in it and reached out with his left.
Six weeks after the 2020 election, with Donald Trump still refusing to concede and promoting unfounded claims of voter fraud, Dole told The Kansas City Star, “The election is over.”
He said: “It’s a pretty bitter pill for Trump, but it’s a fact he lost.”
Trump issued a statement Sunday praising Dole as “an American war hero and true patriot for our Nation” who represented “Kansas with honor and the Republican Party was made stronger by his service.”
In September 2017, Congress voted to award Dole its highest expression of appreciation for distinguished contributions to the nation, a Congressional Gold Medal. That came a decade after he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Congress honored Dole again in 2019 by promoting him from Army captain to colonel, in recognition of the military service that earned him two Purple Hearts.
Robert Joseph Dole was born July 22, 1923, in Russell, a western Kansas farming and oil community. He was the eldest of four children. His father ran a cream and egg business and managed a grain elevator, and his mother sold sewing machines and vacuum cleaners to help support the family during the Depression. Dole attended the University of Kansas for two years before enlisting in the Army in 1943.
Dole met Phyllis Holden, a therapist at a military hospital, as he was recovering from his war wounds in 1948. They married and had a daughter, Robin. The couple would divorce in 1972.
Dole began his political career while a student at Washburn University, winning a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives.
He met his second wife, Elizabeth Dole, while she was working for the Nixon White House. She also served on the Federal Trade Commission and as transportation secretary and labor secretary while Dole was in the Senate. They married in 1975.