Mike Gravel, former U.S. senator from Alaska, dies at 91

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, California.

Gravel’s two terms came during tumultuous years for Alaska when construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was authorized and when Congress was deciding how to settle Alaska Native land claims and whether to classify vast federal land as parks, preserves and monuments.

Gravel’s Senate tenure also was notable for his anti-war activity.

In 1971, he led a one-man filibuster to protest the Vietnam-era draft and he read into the Congressional Record 4,100 pages of the 7,000-page leaked document known as the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department’s history of the country’s early involvement in Vietnam.

Gravel reentered national politics in 2006 - decades after his time in the Senate to twice run for president as a Democrat in the 2008 election ultimately won by Obama.

He launched his quest for the nomination as a critic of the Iraq war, hitching his campaign to an effort that would give all policy decisions to the people through a direct vote, including health care reform and declarations of war.

At: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/27/mike-gravel-former-us-senator-alaska-dies-496563

Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, during his 1969-81 tenure in the Senate - and in his brief, final campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2019.