Transportation chief ordered flights grounded after Sept. 11
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Norman Mineta, who broke racial barriers for Asian Americans serving in high-profile government posts and ordered commercial flights grounded after the 9/11 terror attacks as the nation’s federal transportation secretary, died Tuesday. He was 90.
John Flaherty, Mineta’s former chief of staff, said Mineta died of a heart ailment at his home while surrounded by family in Edgewater, Maryland.
Mineta broke racial barriers for Asian Americans in becoming mayor of San Jose, California. He also was the first Asian American to become a federal Cabinet secretary, serving under Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republican President George W. Bush.
Bush went on to award Mineta the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In a statement, the former president said Mineta was “a wonderful American story about someone who overcame hardship and prejudice to serve in the United States Army, Congress, and the Cabinet of two Presidents.”
The son of Japanese immigrants who spent two years of his childhood at a World War II internment camp, Mineta began his political career leading his hometown of San Jose before joining the Clinton administration as commerce secretary and then crossing party lines to serve in Bush’s Cabinet.
As Bush’s transportation secretary in 2001, Mineta led the department during the Sept. 11 crisis as hijacked commercial airliners barreled toward U.S. landmarks. After a second plane crashed into the World Trade Center, Mineta ordered the Federal
Aviation Administration to ground all civilian aircraft — more than 4,500 in flight at the time. It was the first such order given in the history of U .S. aviation.
It was Mineta who was charged with restoring confidence in air travel in the aftermath of the terror attacks. He oversaw the hasty creation of the Transportation Security Administration, which took over responsibility for aviation security from the airlines.
Within a year, the TSA had hired tens of thousands of airport screeners, put air marshals on commercial flights and installed hightech equipment to screen air travelers and their luggage for bombs.
The effort was derided at the time for wasteful spending and causing long lines at airports. But Mineta, widely liked and respected in Washington for his deep knowledge of transportation issues, managed to escape the brunt of that criticism.
Born on Nov. 12, 1931, Norman Yoshio Mineta was 10 years old and wearing his Cub Scouts uniform when he and his parents were sent to the Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
Mineta’s foray into politics came in 1967, when San
Jose’s mayor tapped him to fill a vacant seat on the city council. He won reelection and served four more years on the council before winning the city’s top seat in 1971.
Mineta was elected to Congress in 1974 and served 10 terms.
The co-founder of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus also scored a personal victory when he helped win passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which required the U.S. government to apologize to the 120,000 Japanese Americans forced to live in wartime internment camps. Former internees also received reparations of $20,000 each.
In 1993, Mineta became chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee — another first — but lost the job after Republicans won control of the House in 1994.
Mineta resigned from Congress in 1995 to join Lockheed Martin Corp., but Washington came calling again five years later when Clinton, in the final months of his presidency, appointed him to replace William Daley as commerce secretary.
Mineta then became the first Cabinet secretary to make the switch directly from a Democratic to Republican administration.
As transportation secretary, Mineta successfully promoted private investment in roads and bridges such as the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road and helped secure passage of a $286 billion highway spending plan after almost two years of wrangling with Congress.
Mineta had his department downsized by almost two-thirds when the TSA and Coast Guard were moved to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.