Senator Henry Mark Jackson

Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson (May 31, 1912 – September 1, 1983) was a U.S. Congressman and Senator from the state of Washington from 1941 until his death. Jackson was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and 1976.

As a Cold War anti-Communist Democrat, Jackson's political philosophies and positions have been cited as an influence on a number of key figures associated with neoconservatism, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. The Henry Jackson Society is named in his honor.

Personal life and early career

Born in Everett, Washington, Jackson went on to graduate with a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of Washington, where he joined the Delta Chi fraternity. In 1935 (the year of his law school graduation) he was admitted to the bar and began to practice law in Everett. He found immediate success, and won election to become the prosecuting attorney for Snohomish County from 1938 to 1940, where he made a name for himself prosecuting bootleggers and gamblers.

In 1961, Jackson, called by Time the Senate's "most eligible bachelor,"married Helen Hardin, a 28-year old Senate receptionist, but Jackson didn't move out of his childhood home where he lived with his unmarried sisters for several years. The Jacksons had two children, Anna Marie Laurence and Peter Jackson; Peter is currently a speechwriter for Governor Christine Gregoire.

Jackson was nicknamed "Scoop" by his sister in his childhood, after a comic strip character that he is said to have resembled.

Legislative career

Jackson successfully ran for Congress as a Democrat in 1940 and took his seat in the House of Representatives with the 77th Congress on January 3, 1941. From that date forward, Jackson did not lose a congressional election.

Jackson joined the Army when the United States entered World War II, but left when Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all Congressmen to return home or resign their seats. As a representative, he visited the Buchenwald concentration camp a few days after its liberation in 1945. He attended the International Maritime Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1945 with the American delegation, and was elected president of the same conference in 1946, when it was held in Seattle, Washington. From 1945 to 1947 Jackson was also the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs. In the 1952 election, Jackson relinquished his seat in the House for a run at one of Washington's Senate seats. Jackson won that election, soundly defeating Republican Senator Harry P. Cain, and remained a Senator for over thirty years. Jackson died in office in 1983 after winning re-election for the fifth time in 1982.

Though Jackson opposed the excesses of Joe McCarthy (who had traveled to Washington State to campaign against him in 1952), he also criticized Dwight Eisenhower for not spending enough on national defense, and called for more inter-continental ballistic missiles in the national arsenal. Jackson's support for nuclear weapons resulted in a primary challenge from the left in 1958, when he handily defeated Seattle peace activist Alice Franklin Bryant before winning re-election with 67 percent of the vote—a total he topped the next four times he ran for re-election.

Scoop Jackson boasted one of the strongest records on civil rights during the civil rights movement. Scoop Jackson supported the 1957 Civil Rights Act, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In April 1968, responding to the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Jackson gave a speech in which he talked about the legacy and injustice of inequality.

In 1963, Jackson was made chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, which became the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1977, a position he held until 1981. In the 1970s, Jackson joined with fellow senators Ernest Hollings and Edward Kennedy in a press conference to oppose President Gerald Ford's request that Congress end Richard Nixon's price controls on domestic oil, which had helped to cause the gasoline lines during the 1973 Oil Crisis.

Jackson authored the National Environmental Policy Act and was a leader of the fight for statehood for Alaska and Hawaii. In 1974, Jackson sponsored the Jackson-Vanik amendment in the Senate (with Charles Vanik sponsoring it in the House) which denied normal trade relations to certain countries with non-market economies that restricted the freedom of emigration. The amendment was intended to help refugees, particularly minorities, specifically Jews, to emigrate from the Soviet Bloc. Jackson and his assistant, Richard Perle, also lobbied personally for some people who were affected by this law—among them Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky. Jackson also led the opposition within the Democratic Party against the SALT II treaty, and was one of the leading proponents of increased foreign aid to Israel.

For decades, Democrats who supported a strong international presence for the United States have been called "Scoop Jackson Democrats", the term even being used to describe contemporary Democrats such as Joe Lieberman and R. James Woolsey, Jr.

Jackson served almost his entire Senate tenure concurrently with his good friend and Democratic colleague Warren G. Magnuson. "Scoop" and "Maggie"—as they affectionately called each other—were one of the most effective delegations in the history of the United States Senate in terms of "bringing home the bacon" for their home state. Washington State received nearly one sixth of public works appropriations, even though it ranked 23rd in population.

National prominence and presidential campaigns

Jackson was not only successful as a politician in Washington State, but also found recognition on the national level, rising to the position of chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1960 after being considered for the vice presidential ticket spot that eventually went to fellow Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Jackson ran for president twice; his campaigns were noted for the hostile reception they received from the left wing of the Democratic Party. Jackson's one-on-one campaigning skills, so successful in Washington state, did not translate as well on the national stage, and even his supporters admitted he suffered from a certain lack of charisma.

Legacy

Jackson died suddenly at the age of 71 in Everett of an aortic aneurysm, shortly after giving a news conference condemning the Soviet attack on Korean Air Lines Flight 007. News reports showed video of Jackson in which he was seen reflexively massaging the left side of his chest while talking, and speculated that this was his reaction to an early symptom of his coming fatal attack.

He was greatly mourned; Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan stated "Henry Jackson is proof of the old belief in the Judaic tradition that at any moment in history goodness in the world is preserved by the deeds of 36 just men who do not know that this is the role the Lord has given them. Henry Jackson was one of those men." Jackson is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Everett.

Posthumous honors

*Jackson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1984; Ronald Reagan called him "one of the greatest lawmakers of our century,"[20] and stated:"Scoop Jackson was convinced that there's no place for partisanship in foreign and defense policy. He used to say, 'In matters of national security, the best politics is no politics.' His sense of bipartisanship was not only natural and complete; it was courageous. He wanted to be President, but I think he must have known that his outspoken ideas on the security of the Nation would deprive him of the chance to be his party's nominee in 1972 and '76. Still, he would not cut his convictions to fit the prevailing style. I'm deeply proud, as he would have been, to have Jackson Democrats serve in my administration. I'm proud that some of them have found a home here."

*In 1983, he was awarded Delta Chi of the Year.

With his death in office, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was initially renamed Henry M. Jackson International Airport, but political resistance to the change led to this being reversed in favor of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It wasn't that the public didn't want to honor the late Senator, but rather leaders in both Seattle and Tacoma (Tacoma, in particular), fearing the loss of convention business, demanded that their cities name be included in the name of the airport. The airport lies between the two cities in the municipality of SeaTac.

*One of Jackson's last acts as Senator was to sponsor legislation creating what became the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, which was named after him after his death.

*The Jackson family created the Henry M. Jackson Foundation to give grants to nonprofits and educational institutions. Board members have included Richard Perle, Tom Foley, and Jeane Kirkpatrick.

*The University of Washington has named the Jackson School of International Studies in his honor. However, students objecting to Jackson's hawkish views on the Cold War in the mid-1980s caused the university to move a bust of the senator to the end of an abandoned corridor until it was restored to a more prominent place outside the Jackson School in 2006.

*The US Navy submarine Henry M. Jackson was also named after him, in recognition of his longtime support of the nation's military.

*In 1994, the Everett School District completed construction of Henry M. Jackson High School in Mill Creek, Washington.

*The Henry M. Jackson Wilderness Area was created in his honor by the 1984 Washington Wilderness Act.

*The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, with the cooperation of the Jackson family, awards a Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson Distinguished Service Award to individuals for their career dedication to U.S. national security. Jackson won the first award in 1982, and it was named after him after his death. Winners include Max Cleland, Joe Lieberman, Dick Cheney, Jane Harman, and Paul Wolfowitz.

*In 2005, the Henry Jackson Society was formed at the University of Cambridge, England. The non-partisan British group is dedicated to "pursuit of a robust foreign policy ... based on clear universal principles such as the global promotion of the rule of law, liberal democracy, civil rights, environmental responsibility and the market economy" as part of "Henry Jackson's legacy."