U.S. Senator
Election to Senate in 1968 In 1968, Gravel ran against 81-year-old incumbent Democratic United States Senator
Ernest Gruening, a popular former
governor of the
Alaska Territory who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood, He hired
Joseph Napolitan, the first self-described
political consultant, in late 1966. The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska, and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds of
Alaska Native villages. Gruening had been one of only two senators to vote against the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and his opposition to President
Lyndon B. Johnson's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate; During the campaign he also claimed that he was "more in the mainstream of American thought on Vietnam" than Gruening, despite the fact that he had written to Gruening to praise his antiwar stance four years earlier. Decades later, Gravel conceded that "I said what I said [about Vietnam] to advance my career." Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers.
Senate assignments and style When Gravel joined the U.S. Senate in January 1969, he requested and received a seat on the
Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, which had direct relevance to Alaskan issues. Finally, he was a member of the
Select Committee on Small Business. In 1971, he became chair of the Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, then later its Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution. Gravel was also initially named to the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations. By 1973 he had also been on the ad hoc Special Committee to Study Secret and Confidential Government Documents.
Nuclear issues and the Cold War In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the
U.S. Department of Defense was in the process of performing tests for the
nuclear warhead for the
Spartan anti-ballistic missile. Two tests, the
"Milrow" and "Cannikin" tests, were planned, involving the
detonation of nuclear bombs under
Amchitka Island in Alaska. The Milrow test would be a one-megaton calibration exercise for the second and larger five-megaton Cannikin test, which would measure the effectiveness of the warhead. Gravel opposed the tests. Before the Milrow test took place in October 1969, he wrote that there were significant risks of earthquakes and other adverse consequences and called for an independent national commission on nuclear and seismic safety; he then made a personal appeal to President
Richard Nixon to stop the test. After Milrow was conducted, there was continued pressure on the part of
environmental groups against going forward with the Cannikin test, while the
Federation of American Scientists claimed that the warhead being tested was already obsolete. Eventually a group not involving Gravel took the case to the
U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an injunction against it, and the Cannikin test took place as scheduled in November 1971. In 1971, Gravel voted against the Nixon administration's proposed anti-ballistic missile system, the
Safeguard Program, having previously vacillated over the issue, suggesting that he might be willing to support it in exchange for federal lands in Alaska being opened up for private oil drilling. His vote alienated Senator
Henry "Scoop" Jackson, who had raised funds for Gravel's primary campaign. Gravel publicly opposed this policy; besides the dangers of nuclear testing, he was a vocal critic of the Atomic Energy Commission, in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums. By 1974, Gravel was allied with
Ralph Nader's organization in opposing nuclear power. Six months before
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's July 1971 secret mission to the
People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Gravel introduced legislation to
recognize and normalize relations with the P.R.C., including a proposal for unity talks between the P.R.C. and the
Republic of China (Taiwan) regarding
the Chinese seat on the U.N. Security Council. He reiterated his position in favor of recognition, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971.
Vietnam War, the draft, and the Pentagon Papers Although he did not campaign against the
Vietnam War during his first Senate campaign, by the end of 1970, Gravel was speaking out against United States policy in southeast Asia: in December of that year he persuaded
William Fulbright to join him in a spontaneous two-day filibuster against a $155 million military aid package to Cambodia's
Khmer Republic government in the
Cambodian Civil War. President
Richard Nixon had
campaigned in 1968 on a promise to end the
U.S. military draft, a decision endorsed by the February 1970 report of the Gates Commission. The existing draft law was scheduled to conclude at the end of June 1971, and the Senate faced a contentious debate about whether to extend it as the Vietnam War continued. The
Nixon administration announced in February 1971 that it wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, after which the draft would end; Army planners had already been operating under the assumption of a two-year extension, after which an
all-volunteer force would be in place. During this period he also supported efforts to mobilize and influence public opinion against the war, endorsing the
"Vietnam War Out Now" rallies in
Washington D.C. and
San Francisco on April 24, 1971, and financing a broadcast campaign by the antiwar group War No More with a personal loan. In June 1972, he escorted a group of over 100 antiwar protesters, including psychiatrist
Robert Jay Lifton, actress
Candice Bergen, theater producer and director
Joseph Papp, and pediatrician
Dr. Benjamin Spock, into the
United States Capitol Building; the group was arrested after blocking a hallway outside the Senate chamber. By June 1971, some Democratic senators opposed to the war wanted to limit the renewal to a one-year extension, while others wanted to end it immediately; defending the practice against those who associated it only with blocking
civil rights legislation. Protracted negotiations took place over House conference negotiations on the bill, revolving in large part around Senate Majority Leader
Mike Mansfield's eventually unsuccessful amendment to tie renewal to a troop withdrawal timetable from Vietnam; during this time the draft law expired and no more were conscripted. On August 5, the Nixon administration pleaded for a renewal before the Senate went on recess, but Gravel blocked Stennis's attempt to limit debate, and no vote was held. Finally on September 21, 1971, the Senate invoked cloture over Gravel's second filibuster attempt by one vote, and then passed the two-year draft extension. Meanwhile, on June 13, 1971,
The New York Times began printing large portions of the
Pentagon Papers. The papers were a large collection of secret government documents and studies pertaining to the Vietnam War, of which former
Defense Department analyst
Daniel Ellsberg had made unauthorized copies and was determined to make public. Ellsberg had for a year and a half approached members of Congress – such as
William Fulbright,
George McGovern,
Charles Mathias, and
Pete McCloskey – about publishing the documents, on the grounds that the
Speech or Debate Clause of the
Constitution would give congressional members
immunity from prosecution, but all had refused. Instead, Ellsberg allowed
Times reporter
Neil Sheehan to take notes of the Papers, but Sheehan disobeyed, copying them and taking the copies by plane to Washington, then New York, for organization and publication. The
U.S. Justice Department immediately tried to halt publication, on the grounds that the information revealed within the papers harmed the national interest. Gravel used his counter-intelligence experience to choose a midnight transfer in front of the
Mayflower Hotel in the center of Washington, D.C. Over the next several days, Gravel (who was
dyslexic) was assisted by his congressional office staff in reading and analyzing the report. Worried his home might be raided by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gravel smuggled the report (which filled two large suitcases) into his congressional office, which was then guarded by disabled Vietnam veterans. Gravel instead convened a session of the Buildings and Grounds subcommittee that he chaired. He began reading from the papers with the press in attendance, and declaring, "It is my constitutional obligation to protect the security of the people by fostering the free flow of information absolutely essential to their democratic decision-making." Gravel, too, wanted to privately publish the portion of the papers he had read into the record, believing that "immediate disclosure of the contents of these papers will change the policy that supports the war". the publishing arm of the
Unitarian Universalist Association, of which Gravel was a member. The "Gravel Edition" was edited and annotated by
Noam Chomsky and
Howard Zinn, and included an additional volume of analytical articles on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn. The events of 1971 changed Gravel in the following months from an obscure freshman senator to a nationally visible political figure. He became a sought-after speaker on the college circuit as well as at political fundraisers, hoping that his support would help Muskie with the party's left wing and in ethnic
French-Canadian areas during
the first primary contest in New Hampshire Gravel made excerpts from the study public, but senators
Robert P. Griffin and
William B. Saxbe blocked his attempt to read NSSM 1 into the Congressional Record. In 1969, Gravel was the only Democratic Senator outside of the South to vote for Nixon's Supreme Court nominee
Clement Haynsworth. The following year, Gravel opposed Nixon's next pick,
G. Harrold Carswell.
Run for vice president in 1972 Gravel actively campaigned for the office of
Vice President of the United States during the
1972 presidential election, announcing on June 2, 1972, over a month before the
1972 Democratic National Convention began, that he was interested in the nomination should the choice be opened up to convention delegates. Toward this end he began soliciting delegates for their support. He was not alone in this effort, as former
Governor of Massachusetts Endicott Peabody had been running a quixotic campaign for the same post since the prior year. Likely presidential nominee
George McGovern was in fact already considering the unusual move of naming three or four acceptable vice-presidential candidates and letting the delegates choose. Eagleton was unknown to many delegates and the choice seemed to smack of traditional
ticket balancing considerations. He then seconded his own nomination, breaking down in tears at his own words and maybe trying to withdraw his nomination. that included several other candidates. Gravel attracted some attention for his efforts: writer
Norman Mailer said he "provided considerable excitement" and was "good-looking enough to have played leads in B-films", while
Rolling Stone correspondent
Hunter S. Thompson said Gravel "probably said a few things that might have been worth hearing, under different circumstances". Yet the process was doubly disastrous for the Democrats. In the time consumed by nominating and seconding and all the vice-presidential candidates' speeches, the attention of the delegates on the floor was lost with 58 percent of the vote. His Republican opponent, State Senator C. R. Lewis, was a national officer of the
John Birch Society, and earned 42 percent of the vote.
Second term In 1975, Gravel introduced an amendment to cut the number of troops overseas by 200,000, but it was defeated on a
voice vote. In September 1975, Gravel was named as one of several Congressional Advisers to the
Seventh Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which met to discuss problems related to economic development and international economic cooperation. In June 1976, Gravel was the focus of a federal investigation into allegations that he was involved in a sex-for-vote arrangement. Congressional staff clerk
Elizabeth Ray (who had already been involved in a sex scandal that led to the downfall of Representative
Wayne Hays) said that in August 1972 she had sex with Gravel aboard a houseboat on the
Potomac River, under the instruction of Representative
Kenneth J. Gray, her boss at the time. Gray allegedly wanted to secure Gravel's support for further funding for construction of the
National Visitor Center in Washington, a troubled project that was under the jurisdiction of subcommittees that both members chaired. Another Congressional staffer said she witnessed the boat encounter, but Gravel said at the time that he had never met either of the women. Gravel and Gray strongly denied that they had made any arrangement regarding legislation, Decades later, Gravel wrote that he had indeed had sex with Ray, but had not changed any votes because of it. Gravel wrote in 2008 that it was the only time Gottstein had ever asked him for a favor, and the rupture resulted in their never speaking to each other again.
Alaskan issues sign the
Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act in 1973 By 1971, Gravel was urging construction of the much-argued
Trans-Alaska pipeline, addressing
environmental concerns by saying that the pipeline's builders and operators should have "total and absolute" responsibility for any consequent environmental damage. Two years later, the debate over the pipeline came to a crux, with
The New York Times describing it as "environmentalists [in] a holy war with the major oil companies". In February 1973, the
U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the issuance of permits for construction; Gravel and fellow Alaskan Senator
Ted Stevens reacted by urging Congress to pass legislation overturning the court's decision. Environmentalists opposed to the pipeline, such as the
Environmental Defense Fund and the
Sierra Club The actual bill enabling the pipeline then passed easily; saying it would undermine the U.S. position in Law of the Sea negotiations and that nations arbitrarily extending their fishing rights limits would "produce anarchy of the seas". Later, his views changed; in the early 1970s Gravel supported a demonstration project that established links between Alaskan villages and the
National Institute of Health in
Bethesda, Maryland, for medical diagnostic communications. Gravel helped secure a private grant to facilitate the first
Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1977, attended by
Inuit representatives from Alaska,
Canada, and
Greenland. These conferences now also include representatives from
Russia. In 1977, Gravel helped lead an effort to have the
U.S. Interior Department rename
Mount McKinley to Denali; this eventually led to
Denali National Park being
so named. Subsequently, Gravel proposed a never-built "Denali City" development above the Tokositna River near the mountain, to consist of a giant
Teflon dome enclosing hotels, golf courses, condominiums, and commercial buildings. A related idea of his to build a
high-speed rail line to Denali also failed to gain traction. A key, emotional issue in the state at the time was "locking up Alaska", making reference to allocation of its vast, mostly uninhabited land. such as walking out of
House–Senate conference committee meetings, of a complex bill which represented a compromise on land use policy. The bill would have put some of Alaska's vast federal land holdings under state control while preserving other portions for federal parks and refuges; Gravel blocked it, as not ensuring enough future development in the state. This gave states the ability to create corporations that would invest in for-profit enterprises, with all citizens within the state owning shares in the corporation. led the campaign against Gravel, with Gravel's actions in respect to the 1978 and 1980 Alaskan lands bills a major issue. Gravel later conceded that by the time of his defeat, he had alienated "almost every constituency in Alaska". which allowed unlimited voting across party lines and from its many independents; ==Career after leaving the Senate==