Namesake:
Senator John H. Chafee
(1922 - 1999)
John Lester Hubbard Chafee
was born Oct. 22, 1922, in Providence, Rhode Island to a
politically active family. His great-grandfather, Henry Lippitt,
was a Rhode Island governor and among his great-uncles were a
Rhode Island governor, Charles Lippitt, and United States
senator, Henry F. Lippitt.
In 1940, he graduated from Deerfield Academy in
Massachusetts. He received degrees from Yale University in 1947
and Harvard University law school in 1950. Chafee served in the
Marines during World War II, spending his 20th birthday on
Guadalcanal. In 1951, he was recalled to active service to be a
Marine rifle company commander during the Korean War.
Mr. Chafee became active in behind-the-scenes Rhode Island
politics by helping elect a mayor of Providence in the early
1950s. He successfully ran for a seat on the Rhode Island House
of Representatives in 1956 and later became the minority leader.
He was reelected in 1958 and 1960, the latter a year when many
Republicans were swept from office in his state.
Mr. Chafee was elected governor in 1962, helping create
the state's public transportation administration as well as what
was known as the Green Acres program, a conservation effort. Mr.
Chafee was head of the Republican Governors' Association in the
late 1960s.
He was appointed as Secretary of the Navy in 1969. His
tenure as Secretary was marked by a willingness to make bold
decisions and stand by them. Emblematic of this was his decision
to elevate Adm. Elmo Zumwalt as Chief of Naval Operations over
33 more senior officers, and his judicious handling of the USS
PUEBLO situation. He served as Secretary of the Navy until 1972.
Mr. Chafee, elected to the Senate in 1976, served as
chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works. He first joined the committee in 1977 and made
environmental matters a chief concern, often breaking with his
party to the delight of conservation groups.
"His fingerprints are over all the major
environmental legislation passed in the last 20 years,"
said Darrell West, a professor of political science at Brown
University who studied Rhode Island politics and interviewed Mr.
Chafee last year.
Among the bills Mr. Chafee fostered while in the minority
was the Clean Water Act of 1986, the 1990 amendments to the
Clean Air Act. He also was an architect of the Superfund program
in 1980 to clean up hazardous waste sites as well as the Oil
Pollution Act of 1990.
Frequently following a moderate path, Mr. Chafee was
pro-choice on abortion and supported the North American Free
Trade Agreement.
"John Chafee proved that politics can be an honorable
profession," President Bill Clinton said in a statement to
the Associated Press. "He embodied the decent center which
has carried America from triumph to triumph for over 200 years."
Mr. Chafee sat on the Select Committee on Intelligence and
was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee's Subcommittee on
Health Care, but his biggest imprint was on environmental
concerns.
"He was a pillar of strength defending environmental
protections against the erosion being called for by the leaders
in his own party, for example, protecting wetlands, defending
the Clean Water Act," said Brent Blackwelder, the president
of Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group.
"Whenever you needed a defender and you looked to the
Republican Party in the Senate, he was the No. 1 Republican
leader," Blackwelder added. "This prevented a world of
damage from being done, so the American public owes him debt of
gratitude."
Blackwelder also was a squash partner of Mr. Chafee's
until the senator stopped playing about seven years ago. "He
was a vigorous man," Blackwelder said.
His last major act was authoring and sponsoring the
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, which authorizes
funding for transportation programs for the next six years.
Survivors include his wife, Virginia Coates Chafee, of
McLean and Warwick, R.I.; a daughter, Georgia Nassikas of
McLean; four sons, John Jr., of Los Angeles, Lincoln, of
Warwick; Quentin of North Kingstown, R.I.; Zechariah of
Providence; three sisters; and 12 grandchildren. |
|
|
