Ex-Sen. Alan Cranston Dead At 86
S A N F R A N C I S C O, Dec. 31, 2000 -- Sen. Alan Cranston of California, who endeda 24-year U.S. Senate career in 1993 under the cloud of the savingsand loan industry scandal, has died. He was 86.
Cranston died at his home in the Los Altos hills around 11:30a.m. today, according to his daughter in law, Colette Cranston.His son, Kim, found him slumped over a sink, she said, andparamedics were not able to revive him.
She said the cause of death was not immediately known. She saidover the past year Cranston had spells when he found it difficultto maintain his balance and that recently he has been takingantibiotics.
Campaigned For Nuke Control
After his retirement from the Senate, Cranston, who had been aDemocratic contender for president in 1984, largely dropped out ofpublic view. But he continued to champion the cause of nuclear armscontrol which had been the centerpiece of his political career forfive decades.
In 1996, he became chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation USA, aSan Francisco-based think tank founded by former Soviet PresidentMikhail Gorbachev to promote world peace and nuclear disarmament.
“Sen. Cranston’s life-long dedication to peace in the world andnuclear arms reduction have been inspirational to me,” said Sen.Barbara Boxer, who took over Cranston’s seat in 1992. “My heartgoes out to his family.”
Withdrew Amid Scandal
Cranston’s announcement in 1990 that he would not seek a fifthSenate term cited only his recent diagnosis of prostate cancer.
But his public approval rating among California voters at thattime had plunged to a record low due to the savings and loanscandal and Cranston’s relationship with Lincoln Savings & LoanPresident Charles Keating, who had just been indicted on securitiesfraud charges which would send Keating to prison for nearly fiveyears until his convictions were overturned.
A later Senate Ethics Committee investigation would lead toformal reprimand of Cranston and lesser sanctions against fourother senators, known with Cranston as “the Keating Five,” forintervening with federal regulators on behalf of Keating.
Cranston, who received nearly $1.2 million in political fundsfrom Keating, initially insisted that he had been “politicallystupid” but ethically correct to intervene with federal agencieson Keating’s behalf.
Ultimately, Cranston agreed to a finding that he had “engagedin an impermissible pattern of conduct in which fund raising andofficial activities were substantially linked in connection withMr. Keating and Lincoln.”
Remained Defiant
But while Cranston accepted the verdict of improper conduct, heremained defiant up to his final response to the reprimand on theSenate floor in 1991, declaring that his actions “were notfundamentally different from the actions of many other senators.”
Those remarks left a cloud over the relations between the formermajority whip and No. 2 Senate Democrat with colleagues whocomplained that Cranston had smeared every member of the Senatewith his grudging acceptance of the reprimand.
While Cranston later reported full recovery from the cancer hecited in his decision not to seek re-election in 1992, hisreputation as a lifelong champion of liberal activism andprogressive reform never recovered from the savings and loanscandal.
Cranston remained unapologetic about the Keating affair after heleft Senate.
“I don’t feel any need for redemption,” he said in a 1996interview. “I’m satisfied with what I did in the Senate. I don’tlook back. I look forward.”
‘Peace, … the Environment and Justice’
In a reflective 1985 speech, Cranston said he originally ran forthe Senate “because there I can work on the issues of war andpeace, and the environment, and justice, and opportunity.”
The Senate, he said, is “where I kept the commitment I made inmy 1968 campaign and get us out of the tragic war in Vietnam; whereone act of mine helped keep us out of war in Angola … one step Itook, followed by many more, did much to prevent war in Angola, …where I’m doing the utmost to dispel the threat of nuclear war thathangs over our children, darkening their days and filling theirnights with fear.”
A former foreign correspondent, Cranston served two terms asCalifornia state controller and was elected to the U.S. Senate onhis second try in 1968.
Lost First Senate Bid
In his first Senate bid in 1964, the lean, sparse-haired stateofficial lost a primary battle to the more glamorous PierreSalinger, who had become a national figure as President Kennedy’spress secretary.
Salinger lost to the actor George Murphy in the generalelection. Four years later, California Democrats chose Cranston astheir nominee and he defeated Max Rafferty, a conservative stateschool superintendent who had upset the moderate incumbent, ThomasKuchel, in the Republican primary.
Cranston, whose Washington experience went back to a lobbyingstint for an anti-discrimination group in 1939, learned the ropesof the Senate quickly and was chosen in 1977 as assistant majorityleader, or whip.
Ran For President
In 1983, at the age of 68, Cranston announced his candidacy forpresident, declaring that his age would be an advantage because, hesaid, the American people “want wisdom, maturity, provencapability” in the White House.
Cranston, a principal sponsor of a Senate resolution calling fora mutual and verifiable freeze of U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals,announced that ending the arms race would be the “paramount goal”of his campaign.
But Cranston’s campaign never attracted significant support, andhe withdrew from the race for the Democratic nomination, later wonby Walter Mondale, after placing fifth in the Iowa caucuses andseventh in the New Hampshire primary.
Early in his Senate career, Cranston earned a reputation foruncanny skill in determining how senators would vote on an issue.
He “runs around with a pencil and a computer—which is hismind—and keeps a complete record on everyone’s past votingrecord, future voting record, and apparently even their innermostthoughts,” an admiring Sen. Dale McGee, D-Wyo., once said.
Native of California
Cranston was born into a prosperous family in Palo Alto, Calif.,on June 19, 1914, and he originally planned on a career injournalism.
After graduation from Stanford University in 1936, he landed ajob with International News Service, reporting from London, Romeand Ethiopia.
Although he left journalism in 1938, Cranston maintained hisinterest in the profession. In 1973, at the height of the Watergateexposures that drove President Nixon from office, he introducedlegislation to guarantee newsmen the right to keep their informantsconfidential.
After resigning from International News Service, Cranston editedthe first unexpurgated English translation of Adolf Hitler’s “MeinKampf” to be published in the United States. Hitler successfullysued for copyright violation, and for decades later Cranston’sresume proudly included the fact that he had been sued by theGerman dictator.
In 1939, Cranston became a lobbyist for the Common Council forAmerican unity, an organization opposing discrimination against theforeign born.
Authored Play, Book
The same year, he and his friend, cartoonist Lee Falk, wrote aplay, “The Big Story,” based on his newspaper experiences. It wastried out in New Jersey but never reached Broadway.
During World War II, Cranston worked for the Office of Facts andFigures and the Office of War Information until 1944, when heenlisted in the Army as a private. He was assigned to the ArmyServices Forces to lecture on war aims.
After the war, he wrote a book, “The Killing of the Peace,”about the Senate struggle over the League of Nations in theaftermath of World War I.
In 1947, Cranston became head of a Palo Alto real estate firmfounded by his father, and in 1949 he became president of UnitedWorld Federalists, an organization advocating world government.
When he announced his presidential candidacy more than 30 yearslater, Cranston said he no longer believed that world governmentwas “a practical solution to problems in the form in which theynow exist.”
After working in Democrat Adlai Stevenson’s presidentialcampaign in California in 1952, Cranston became president of theCalifornia Democratic Council, an outgrowth of Democratic clubsthat supported Stevenson.
He was elected California state controller, the official whosigns checks to pay the state’s bills, in 1958. He was re-electedin 1962, but lost his third-term bid in the 1966 Republicanlandslide that swept Ronald Reagan into the governorship.
To Senate in 1968
In 1968, Cranston received 52 percent of the votes in his Senatecampaign against Rafferty, who had eliminated liberal Sen. ThomasKuchel in the GOP primary. Cranston was re-elected 1974, 1980 and1986, defeating conservative Republicans H.L. Richardson and taxrevolt leader Paul Gann and moderate Congressman Ed Zschau.
Cranston married the former Geneva McMath in 1940. They weredivorced in 1977. One of their two sons, Kim, played key roles inCranston’s presidential campaign and in running a controversialvote registration program funded by Keating’s contributions. Theirother son, Robin, was killed in a traffic accident at age 33 in1980.
In 1978, Cranston married the former Norma Weintraub, who hadbeen active in California Democratic politics. They divorced in May1989.