Two-time U.S. presidential candidate and former US Senator Mike Gravel is dead. The 91-year-old Alaska Democrat is remembered for attracting national attention by reading the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record, while also making two unsuccessful bids for president..
Gravel’s daughter, Lynne Mosier described her father as a “terrific dad” while confirming his death in a message to CNN on June 27.
Gravel was born on May 13, 1930, in Springfield, Massachusetts and served in the US Army as an adjutant in the Communications Intelligence Service in Germany, besides later as special agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps in France from 1951 to 1954, according to a biography on his website.
Later, Gravel graduated from Columbia University in 1956 with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics and served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1966 where he was elected state House Speaker in 1965. He was elected to Congress in 1968 and served as a senator from 1969 to 1981.
1971 witnessed Gravel drawing nationwide attention when he read portions of the Pentagon Papers — a collection of leaked top-secret information about the Vietnam War — into the Congressional Record in an effort to end the war. The documents highlighted senior leaders — including several presidents – as believing the Vietnam being “unwinnable” and that the government had misled Congress and the public about its progress.
Gravel also launched an unsuccessful bid for presidency as a Democrat in 2006, before announcing that he would switch to the libertarian party. After a failed long-shot campaign for the presidency in 2019, he endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.