Ex-Senate intelligence chief dies
Former Florida Gov. Graham, 87, was early foe of Iraq war
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Former U.S. Sen. and two-term Florida Gov. Bob Graham, who gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks and an early critic of the Iraq war, has died. He was 87.
Graham’s family announced the death Tuesday in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, by his daughter Gwen Graham.
“We are deeply saddened to report the passing of a visionary leader, dedicated public servant, and even more importantly, a loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather,” the family said.
Graham, who served three terms in the Senate, made an unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, emphasizing his opposition to the Iraq invasion.
But his bid was delayed by heart surgery in January 2003, and he was never able to gain enough traction with voters to catch up, bowing out that October. He didn’t seek reelection in 2004 and was replaced by Republican Mel Martinez.
Graham was among the earliest opponents of the Iraq war, saying it diverted America’s focus on the battle against terrorism centered in Afghanistan. He was also critical of President George W. Bush for failing to have an occupation plan in Iraq after the U.S. military threw out Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Graham said Bush took the United States into the war by exaggerating claims of the danger presented by the Iraqi weapons of destruction that were never found. He said Bush distorted intelligence data and argued it was more serious than the sexual misconduct issues that led the House to impeach President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.
It led him to launch his short presidential bid.
“The quagmire in Iraq is a distraction that the Bush administration, and the Bush administration alone, has created,” Graham said in 2003.
During his 18 years in Washington, Graham worked well with colleagues from both parties, particularly Florida Republican Connie Mack during their dozen years together in the Senate.
Graham’s political career spanned five decades, beginning with his election to the Florida House of Representatives in 1966.
He won a state Senate seat in 1970 and then was elected governor in 1978. He was re-elected in 1982. Four years later, he won the first of three terms in the U.S. Senate when he ousted incumbent Republican Paula Hawkins.
Graham remained widely popular with Florida voters — winning reelection by wide margins in 1992 and 1998 when he carried 63 of 67 counties. In that latter election, he defeated Charlie Crist, who later served as a Republican governor from 2007-11.
Crist, who has since switched parties and most recently served as a U.S. representative, said Graham was an influence on him.
“I always felt that when he was governor, that he was trying to govern for the people of Florida — not in any way political or partisan — and I took that to heart and tried to, in some small way, emulate it,” Crist said.
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi called Graham “a patriotic American” and thanked him for his “distinguished public service.”
Even when in Washington, Graham never took his eye off the state and the leadership in Tallahassee.
When Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican-controlled Legislature eliminated the Board of Regents in 2001, Graham saw it as a move to politicize the state university system. He led a successful petition drive the next year for a state constitutional amendment that created the Board of Governors to assume the regents’ role.
Daniel Robert Graham was born Nov. 9, 1936, in Coral Gables, Fla., where his father, Ernest Graham, had moved from South Dakota and established a large dairy operation. One of his half-brothers, Phillip Graham, was publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek until he took his own life in 1963 — just a year after Bob Graham’s graduation from Harvard Law.
Graham was president of the student body at Miami Senior High School and attended the University of Florida, graduating in 1959.
In 1966, he was elected to the Florida Legislature, where he focused largely on education and health care issues.
As governor, he handled several serious crises. He also signed numerous death warrants, founded the Save the Manatee Club with entertainer Jimmy Buffett and led efforts to establish several environmental programs.
Graham pushed through a bond program to buy beaches and barrier islands threatened by development and started the Save Our Everglades program to protect the state’s water supply, wetlands and endangered species.
After leaving public life in 2005, Graham spent much of his time at a public policy center named after him at the University of Florida and pushing the Legislature to require more civics classes in the state’s public schools.
Graham was one of five members selected for an independent commission by President Barack Obama in June 2010 to investigate a BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatened sea life and beaches along several southeastern Gulf states.