Colby-Sawyer College to Host Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel
EVENT CHANGE: Senator Gravel has had to cancel his visit due to illness. At present there are no plans to reschedule the event. We regret any inconvenience caused by this event cancellation.
NEW LONDON, N.H. — Presidential candidate Mike Gravel, former Democratic senator of Alaska, will visit Colby-Sawyer College to speak with college and community members about his campaign for the nation's highest office.
Senator Gravel will make his presentation on Tuesday, Dec. 18, at 4 p.m. in Wheeler Hall at the Ware Campus Center. The event is open to the community, and admission is free.
Senator Gravel, who joined the presidential race in April 2006, served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1966 and was then elected to two terms in the U.S. Senate, representing Alaska from 1969 to 1981. He served on the Finance, Interior, and Environment and Public Works committees, chairing the Energy, Water Resources, Buildings and Grounds, and the Environmental Pollution subcommittees. During the environmental watershed decade of the 1970s, he co-sponsored or co-authored significant Senate legislation dealing with air, water, waste and energy.
In 1971, as a freshman legislator critical of the Vietnam War and of government secrecy, Senator Gravel used his position to release the Pentagon Papers and facilitated their publication as The Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon Papers, Beacon Press (1971). This publication occasioned litigation, Gravel v. U.S. Government, resulting in a landmark Supreme Court decision relative to the Speech and Debate Clause of the United States Constitution, establishing the precedent that members of Congress cannot be bound by the official secrets of any presidential administration.
Senator Gravel waged a successful lone filibuster for five months, which he maintains effectively brought about an end to the military draft in the United States. He also maintains that he forced an end to the undersea testing of obsolete nuclear warheads in the earthquake-prone area of Amchitka Island, Alaska, which could have compromised the food chain of the North Pacific and initiated the national and global critique of nuclear power generation.
Despite opposition from both government entities and the oil industry, Senator Gravel introduced the amendment in 1973 to authorize the construction of the Alaska oil pipeline, building support and allies to secure passage of the amendment by a single vote. In addition to providing jobs and a wide array of economic benefits to citizens of Alaska, the pipeline has been responsible for providing 20 percent of the United States' oil supply over the last generation.
Senator Gravel was born in Springfield, Mass., to French Canadian immigrants. He attended French-speaking Catholic schools, and as a teenager, when he wasn't working with his father and brothers in the house painting and construction business, he volunteered in local Springfield politics, developing an avid interest in governance and government.
In the early 1950s, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as adjutant in the Communications Intelligence Service and as a special agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps in Germany and France. After graduating with a B.S. in economics from Columbia University, Mike Gravel moved to Alaska, where he built a real estate business.
Senator Gravel's business activities have encompassed real estate, finance and energy. He also worked as a cab driver in New York City, as a clerk on Wall Street, and as a brakeman on the Alaska Railroad. Senator Gravel was the founding president of the Democracy Foundation, Philadelphia II, and Direct Democracy—nonprofit corporations dedicated to the establishment of direct democracy in the United States through the enactment by American voters of a federal ballot initiative called the National Initiative. The National Initiative seeks to permit citizens to vote for or against policy issues that affect their lives.
Senator Gravel lectures and writes about governance, capitalism, Social Security, tax reform, energy, environmental issues and democracy. He is the author of Jobs and More Jobs and Citizen Power and holds four honorary degrees in law and public affairs. Senator Gravel is married to Whitney Stewart Gravel and has two grown children: Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier. The Gravels have four grandchildren: Renee, Alex, Madison and Mackenzie.
For more information on the Gravel campaign, visit www.gravel2008.us.
Colby-Sawyer, founded in 1837, is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in the scenic Lake Sunapee Region of central New Hampshire. Students from 40 states and 11 foreign countries learn in small classes through a select array of programs that integrate the liberal arts and sciences with pre-professional experience. Visit us on the World Wide Web at www.colby-sawyer.edu.
Colby-Sawyer College, 541 Main Street, New London, N.H. 03257 (603) 526-3000.
