Antiwar senator read Pentagon Papers into record
SEASIDE, Monterey County — Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska who read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record and confronted Barack Obama about nuclear weapons during a later presidential run, has died. He was 91.
Gravel, who represented Alaska as a Democrat in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, died Saturday, according to his daughter, Lynne Mosier. Gravel had been living in Seaside (Monterey County) and was in failing health, said Theodore Johnson, a former aide.
Gravel’s two terms came during tumultuous years for Alaska when construction of the transAlaska oil pipeline was authorized and when Congress was deciding how to settle Alaska Native land claims and whether to classify enormous amounts of federal land as parks, preserves and monuments.
He had the unenviable position of being an Alaska Democrat when some residents were burning President Jimmy Carter in effigy for his measures to place large sections of public lands in the state under protection from development.
In the end, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, a compromise that set aside millions of acres for national parks, wildlife refuges and other protected areas. It was one of the last bills Carter signed before leaving office.
Gravel’s Senate tenure also was notable for his antiwar activity. In 1971, he led a oneman filibuster to protest the Vietnamera draft and he read into the Congressional Record 4,100 pages of the 7,000page leaked document known as the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department’s history of the country’s early involvement in Vietnam.
Gravel reentered national politics decades after his time in the Senate to twice run for president. Gravel, then 75, and his wife, Whitney, took public transportation in 2006 to announce he was running for president as a Democrat in the 2008 election ultimately won by Obama.
He launched his quest for the 2008 Dem presidential nomination as a critic of the Iraq war.
“I believe America is doing harm every day our troops remain in Iraq — harm to ourselves and to the prospects for peace in the world,” Gravel said in 2006.
Gravel garnered attention for his fiery comments at Democratic forums.
In one 2007 debate, the issue of the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Iran came up, and Gravel confronted thenSen. Obama. “Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?” Gravel said. Obama replied: “I’m not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike.”
Gravel then ran as a Libertarian candidate after he was excluded from later Dem debates.
In an email to supporters, he said the Democratic Party “no longer represents my vision for our great country.”
“It is a party that continues to sustain war, the militaryindustrial complex and imperialism — all of which I find anathema to my views,” he said.
He failed to get the Libertarian nomination.
Gravel briefly ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. He again criticized American wars and vowed to slash military spending. .
Gravel failed to qualify for the debates. He endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the contest eventually won by nowPresident Biden.
Gravel was born Maurice Robert Gravel in Springfield, Mass., on May 13, 1930.
In Alaska, he served as a state representative, including a stint as House speaker, in the 1960s.
He won his first Senate term after defeating incumbent Sen. Ernest Gruening, a former territorial governor, in the 1968 Democratic primary.
Gravel served two terms until he was defeated in the 1980 Democratic primary by Gruening’s grandson, Clark Gruening, who lost the election to Republican Frank Murkowski.