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Robert Carlyle Byrd (born November 20, 1917) is a West Virginia Democrat serving in the United States Senate. As of 2004, he is the longest-serving member of the U.S. Congress, having served in the United States House of Representatives from January 1953 until he entered the Senate in 1959, while current Dean of the House John Dingell has only served since December 1955. At 87, Byrd is the oldest member of Congress.
Some consider Byrd to be a "walking encyclopedia" on the history of both the American and Roman senates. He has risen to national prominence as the oldest member of the Senate (after the retirement of Strom Thurmond) and recently as being a critic of the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Biography
Byrd was born in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina in 1917. Byrd attended West Virginia public schools and was later a student at Beckley College, Concord College, Morris Harvey College, and Marshall College, all in West Virginia. He graduated from American University Law School in 1963.
Byrd was a local leader of the Ku Klux Klan for a period of time in the early 1940s, holding the title Kleagle; Klan recruiter. In a 1946 letter, he wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." However, when running for Congress in 1952, he announced, "After about a year, I became disinterested, quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization. During the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan." Still, in 1964 he opposed the Civil Rights Act and the nomination of Thurgood Marshall, a Democrat, to the United States Supreme Court in 1967. He is the only U.S. Senator to have opposed the nomination of both of the only two African-American Supreme Court justices - Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. He was also a leader in the opposition to the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice to the position of Secretary of State.
He was first elected to the Senate in 1958 and has held the position ever since. Byrd is currently the "Father of the Senate" - the Senator with the longest continuous service. As the longest-serving Democratic Senator, he has held the office of President Pro Tempore of the Senate three times, most recently from 2001-2003. He has served as a member of the Appropriations Committee since the 1950s and is chairman of the committee when the Democratic party is in the Senate majority.
Though he has become a staunch critic of the Iraq War, Byrd has taken conservative positions on several issues. He opposed President Clinton's efforts in 1993 to allow gays to serve in the military. Byrd opposes affirmative action and is only moderately pro-choice. In economic matters, Byrd is a populist. He opposes free trade and the tax cuts implemented by President George W. Bush. Byrd is also a reliable vote for preserving Social Security.
In 1965, the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program was created by Congress as a federally funded, state-administered program. It awards $1500 per year to graduating high school seniors who continue on to higher education on the basis of academic merit.
In 1976 Byrd, at the time the Senate Majority Whip, announced that he would run for President as a "favorite son" candidate, only campaigning in his home state of West Virginia. Like many Democrats, Byrd thought that perhaps if the Convention were deadlocked, he could use his delegates to hold some influence in the selection of a nominee.
Every other Democrat but George Wallace stayed off the W.Va. ballot in deference to Byrd, and even Wallace didn't campaign in the state. Byrd won by a near 9-1 margin. However, he was never a serious candidate for the nomination, and Byrd had set his sights instead on the position of Senate Majority Leader, after the retirement of Mike Mansfield. Byrd focused most of his time on campaigning for the majority leader seat, more so than for re-election to the Senate, as he was unopposed for his fourth term. By the time the vote for majority leader was at hand, he had it so wrapped up that his lone rival, Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey, withdrew before the balloting took place.
Byrd has a cameo role as a Confederate general in the Warner Brothers film Gods and Generals (2003).
Political timeline
Controversy
Involvement with the Ku Klux Klan
Byrd was a local leader of the Ku Klux Klan for a period of time in the early 1940s, holding the title Kleagle; Klan recruiter. In a 1946, three years after leaving his KKK brethren behind, in a letter, he wrote to Georgia's Grand Imperial Wizard, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." And in a 1947 letter, after Mr. Byrd had been elected to the state senate, he wrote that he would "never submit to fight beneath that banner (the American flag) with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." However, when running for Congress in 1952, he announced, "After about a year, I became disinterested, quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization. During the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan." Since those unfortunate days, Senator Byrd has often referred to his Klan membership as a mistake of his youth, less often as a moral outrage. As recently as 1997, he told an interviewer he'd encourage young people to become involved in politics, but with this warning: "Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena." In 2001, Byrd made reference to "white niggers" in a television interview.
Political moves perceived as racism
Still, in 1964 he opposed the Civil Rights Act by filibustering it for 14 straight hours. He was against U.S. President Harry S. Truman's integration of the military. He opposed the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the United States Supreme Court in 1967--he wrote to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, asking if there was information about Marshall's ties to Communists. Byrd lead the segregationist members of the Senate in opposition to Marshall's nomination.
In 1968, Senator Byrd said: "Martin Luther King fled the scene. He took to his heels and disappeared, leaving it to others to cope with the destructive forces he had helped to unleash. And I hope that well-meaning negro leaders and individuals in the negro community in Washington will now take a new look at this man who gets other people into trouble and then takes off like a scared rabbit."
1 (http://mfile.akamai.com/5020/wma/rushlimb.download.akamai.com/5020/clips/04/01/012004_15_byrd.asx)
In addition, some conservatives contend that Byrd's opposition to President George H. W. Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991 to replace Thurgood Marshall and Byrd's 2004 opposition to some of George W. Bush's judicial and Cabinet nominees who are black, notably Appeals Court nominee Janice Rogers Brown and Secretary of State nominee Condoleezza Rice, was motivated by racism--making Byrd the only Senator to oppose both African-Americans to ever serve on the Supreme Court. The Congress for Racial Equality, a civil rights organization, has stated that Byrd's hold on Rice's nomination was "racist." [1 (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/1/20/215404.shtml)]. Byrd's defenders note that both nominations were opposed on the left by many people of different ethnicities and that Byrd has not opposed other people of color that Bush has nominated in the past, such as Secretary of Education Rod Paige and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
2001 racist remark and controversy
On March 4, 2001, an interview with FOX News Sunday host Tony Snow was aired. In the interview Byrd was asked about race relations: "They are much, much better than they've ever been in my lifetime," Byrd said. "I think we talk about race too much. I think those problems are largely behind us... I just think we talk so much about it that we help to create somewhat of an illusion. I think we try to have good will. My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that." Then Byrd warned: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I'm going to use that word."
"We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."
Byrd's office later issued an apology.
"I apologize for the characterization I used on this program. The phrase dates back to my boyhood and has no place in today's society. As for my language, I had no intention of casting aspersions on anyone of another race."
American conservatives have pointed to Byrd's comments as evidence of a double standard in the treatment of Democratic and Republican political figures in regards to controversial statements about race (see Trent Lott, Rush Limbaugh). Limbaugh made this point loudly, more in reference to the Lott controversy than the one surrounding himself, when fellow Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd said in praise of Byrd, "There has never been a time in U.S. history that he would not have been right for. He would have been right for the Founding. He would have been right for the Civil War ..." Limbaugh stated that as Byrd had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, he would have undoubtedly been on the side of the Confederate States of America, and hence slavery, during the Civil War, and wondered if Dodd really thought that was a justifiable position. Again, because no general outcry in the mainstream media ensued, and the incident was hardly mentioned outside the venues of right-wing talk radio -- a silence was cited by those sources as evidence of a liberal bias in mainstream media, protecting the Democrats (Dodd and Byrd) and yet loudly attacking Republicans (Lott and Thurmond) for similar behavior.
Opposition to war in Iraq
Byrd was one of the Senate's most outspoken critics of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Bush Doctrine's support of unilateralism and preemptive warfare.
On March 19, 2003, when President George W. Bush ordered the invasion after failing to receive United Nations approval, Byrd told the Senate floor:
"Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination."
Byrd also criticized Bush for his speech declaring the "end of major combat operations" in Iraq, which Bush made on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Byrd told the Senate:
"I do question the motives of a deskbound President who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech."
On October 17, 2003 Senator Byrd delivered a now-famous speech, expressing his concerns about the future of the nation and his unequivocal antipathy to the policies of President Bush. Referencing the Hans Christian Andersen children's tale The Emperor's New Clothes, Byrd said of the president: "the emperor has no clothes." Byrd further lamented the "sheep-like" behavior of the "cowed Members of this Senate" and called on them to oppose the continuation of a "war based on falsehoods."
Byrd condemned what he saw as the stifling of dissent and the marginalization of the Legislature:
The right to ask questions, debate, and dissent is under attack. The drums of war are beaten ever louder in an attempt to drown out those who speak of our predicament in stark terms.
Even in the Senate, our history and tradition of being the world's greatest deliberative body is being snubbed. This huge spending bill -- $87 billion -- has been rushed through this chamber in just 1 month. There were just three open hearings by the Senate Appropriations Committee on $87 billion -- $87 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born -- $87 billion without a single outside witness called to challenge the administration's line.
The Senator ended his speech in a provocative fashion by repeating a famous quote from the Nuremberg Diary by G. M. Gilbert. In the following passage, Gilbert is interviewing Nazi war criminal Herman Goering:
We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
. . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
There is one difference. . . . In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Oh, that is all well and good, but voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Byrd's criticism has made him the hero of the anti-war movement who spread his speeches via e-mail.
In July 2004, Byrd released the book Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency about the Bush presidency and the war in Iraq.
Robert C. Byrd placenames
- Robert C. Byrd Drive, from Beckley to Sophia (Byrd's hometown)
- Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center of West Virginia University, Morgantown
- Robert C. Byrd Cancer Research Labratory of West Virginia University, Morgantown
- Robert C. Byrd Technology Center at Alderson-Broaddus College, Philippi
- Robert C. Byrd Hardwood Technologies Center, Princeton
- Robert C. Byrd Bridge, between Huntington and Chesapeake, Ohio
- Robert C. Byrd Addition to the Lodge at Oglebay Park, Wheeling
- Robert C. Byrd Community Center, Pine Grove
- Robert C. Byrd Expressway, U.S. 52, near Weirton
- Robert C. Byrd Institute, Charleston
- Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing; Huntington, Charleston, Bridgeport & Short Gap
- Robert C. Byrd Visitor Center at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, Harpers Ferry
- Robert C. Byrd Federal Building & Courthouse, Charleston
- Robert C. Byrd Federal Building & Courthouse, Beckley
- Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center at Marshall University, Huntington
- Robert C. Byrd National Technology Transfer Center at Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling
- Robert C. Byrd United Technical Center
- Robert C. Byrd Hilltop Office Complex, Short Gap (near Keyser)
- Robert C. Byrd Library & Robert C. Byrd Learning Resource Center at Mountain State University, Beckley
- Robert C. Byrd Rural Health Center at Marshall University, Huntington
- Robert C. Byrd Clinical Addition to Veteran's Hospital, Huntington
- Robert C. Byrd Industrial Park, Moorefield
- Robert C. Byrd Locks & Dam, Gallipolis Ferry
- Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, Green Bank
- Robert C. Byrd Science and Technology Center at Shepherd College, Shepherdstown
- Robert C. Byrd High School, Clarksburg
- Robert C. Byrd Biotechnology Science Center at Marshall University, Huntington
- Robert C. Byrd Conference Center at Davis & Elkins College, Elkins
- Robert C. Byrd Health and Wellness Center of Bethany College, Bethany
- Robert C. Byrd National Aerospace Education Center, Bridgeport
- Robert C. Byrd Appalachian Highway System
- (For Byrd's Wife) Erma Ora Byrd Center for Educational Technologies at Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling
External links
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