House
of Representatives Papers (1960-1969)
ADMINISTRATIVE
NOTES
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
SCOPE AND CONTENT
ARRANGEMENT
SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL
NOTE
from
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (1774-present)
http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp )
DOLE, Robert Joseph, (husband of Elizabeth H. Dole), a
Representative and a Senator from Kansas; born in Russell, Kans.,
July 22, 1923; graduated, Washburn Municipal University, Topeka,
Kans., with an undergraduate and law degree in 1952, after attending
Kansas University 1941-1943 and University of Arizona 1948-1949;
during the Second World War served as a combat infantry officer
in Italy; was wounded twice and hospitalized for thirty-nine months;
awarded two Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star with an Oak Cluster
for military service; admitted to the bar and commenced the practice
of law in Russell, Kans., 1952; member, State house of representatives
1951-1953; county attorney of Russell County 1953-1961; elected
as a Republican to the Eighty-seventh Congress and to the three
succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1961-January 3, 1969); elected
to the United States Senate in 1968, reelected in 1974, 1980,
1986, and 1992, and served from January 3, 1969, to June 11, 1996,
when he resigned to campaign for the presidency; majority leader
1985-1987, 1995-1996; minority leader 1987-1995; chairman, Committee
on Finance (Ninety-seventh through Ninety-eighth Congresses),
Special Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Ninety-ninth
Congress); chairman, Republican National Committee 1971-1972;
advisor, President's Delegation to Study the Food Crisis in India
1966; advisor, U.S. Delegation to Study the Arab Refugee Problem
1967; advisor, U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization 1965, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979; member,
U.S. National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization 1970 and 1973; member, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe 1977; advisor, GATT Ministerial
Trade Conference 1982; member, National Commission on Social Security
Reform 1983; member, Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday
Commission 1984; unsuccessful Republican candidate for Vice President
of the United States in 1976; unsuccessful candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination in 1988; unsuccessful Republican nominee
for President of the United States in 1996; awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom on January 17, 1997; chairman, International
Commission on Missing Persons in the Former Yugoslavia 1997-2001;
national chairman, National World War II
BIOGRAPHICAL
NOTE - HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES YEARS
Robert
Joseph Dole, Russell County, Kansas attorney, Kansas legislator,
United States Congressman and Senator, was the first son and second
of four children of Doran and Bina Dole of Russell, Kansas. His
grandparents, Joseph and Elva Talbott and Robert and Margaret
Dole, arrived in Russell in 1870 as part of immigration from Wisconsin,
Ohio, and New York. By the time their grandson was born, Russell
was a small town of 2,000 inhabitants, home to transplanted easterners
as well as immigrants from Bohemia, Volga Russia, Germany, England,
Ireland and Wales.
1976
Announcement, Russell Kansas
Doran and
Bina Dole and their four children--older daughter Gloria, Bob,
and younger siblings Kenny and Norma Jean--lived in a small frame
house near the Union Pacific tracks. Doran Dole ran a creamery
and Bina sold sewing machines door-to-door. The family experienced
difficult financial times during the Depression years, and to
make ends meet, the Doles moved into the basement of their home
and rented out the rest of the house. Bob milked cows, delivered
handbills, shoveled snow, dug dandelions for a nickel a bushel,
and at age 12 went to work behind the counter at a drug store
soda fountain in Russell. He was a member of high school athletic
teams, editor of the school paper, and planned a career as a family
doctor.
President
Reagan confers with Senator Dole, 1985
A $300 loan
from a Russell banker allowed Dole to enroll at the University
of Kansas after his high school graduation. In September, 1941
he moved to Lawrence and continued the scramble for part-time
jobs to support himself while he studied and attended football
and basketball practices. He wrote his mother in September, 1941
"The only job that will [be] trouble will be that milk delivery
job…you get up at 5:00 am and you're not through till around
8:30 or 9:00. That makes me miss part of my Economics class which
starts at 8:30."
Senator
Dole on his last day in the Senate, 1996
One year after
Pearl Harbor, the 19-year-old Dole signed up for the Army's Enlisted
Reserve Corps. Called to active duty in June of 1943, Dole trained
at various bases around the United States for the next year, including
Camp Barkley, Texas, Camp Polk, Louisiana, Camp Breckinridge,
Kentucky, and Brooklyn College in New York City. He was admitted
to officer candidate school in 1944 and shipped to Fort Benning,
Georgia. In early December he boarded a troop ship for Italy as
a second lieutenant, and landed at Naples Harbor a few days before
Christmas. In February, 1945, Dole was sent to fill a vacancy
in Company I Third Battalion, 85th Mountain Regiment, whose members
were attempting to dislodge the German army from the Apennine
Mountains north of Florence and gain access to the mouth of the
Po Valley. He wrote his parents on March 13, 1945 "I'm a
combat soldier now folks, I guess you've been reading about the
Tenth Mountain Division in the paper the last few weeks…[When]
I'm not in my foxhole ducking German artillery I'm generally on
night patrol or trying to catch some sleep."
Two days after
the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Robert Dole's life
changed course forever. On the morning of April 14, 1945, a sniper's
shell exploded and ripped platoon leader Dole's right arm, smashing
the shoulder and scattering metal fragments along its path. Dole's
collarbone was crushed and his body paralyzed from the neck down,
and he lay wounded on the ground for ten hours before he was evacuated
to a field hospital in Pistoia, Italy and underwent emergency
surgery. The Army transferred Dole to Casablanca, Morocco, then
back to the United States, and the war in Europe ended three weeks
later. Dole began what was to become a 39-month-long series of
hospitalizations for surgeries, rehabilitation, gains and setbacks,
characteristically borne with intense determination and his self-deprecating
humor.
Dole met and
married his first wife, New Hampshire native Phyllis Holden, while
a patient at Percy Jones Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan. After
his marriage and discharge with a Bronze Star in 1948, he immediately
enrolled in the liberal arts program at the University of Arizona.
As a student, he continued to gain skill in compensating for his
arms, committing large quantities of information to memory and
utilizing both a Sound scriber recording machine and dictation
to his wife to master the material and produce written work. The
Doles relocated to Topeka, Kansas in 1949, and Dole enrolled in
the Washburn University combined bachelor's and law degree program.
Dole's political
career began when still a law student. He was elected to the Kansas
Legislature as a Republican from Russell County, defeating Democratic
incumbent Elmo Mahoney in 1950. He graduated from Washburn in
1952, and was admitted to the bar in February, 1952. The couple
returned to Russell and Dole joined attorney Eric "Doc"
Smith in a general law practice until he won the Republican nomination
for the seat of county attorney by a slim 185-vote margin. In
November, 1952 he outdistanced his Democratic opponent by 2,200
votes in the general election. Daughter Robin was born in 1954
and Dole again ran for county attorney, this time unopposed. In
1956 he defeated his opponent by 800 votes, and he won again in
1958 by 700 votes.
By 1960, Dole
was poised to file for the Congressional seat in the sixth district,
soon to be vacated by long-time Representative Wint Smith. He
used a combination of theatrics and humor to make an impression
on state Republican Party leaders. He then took his campaign on
the road, tirelessly visiting small towns with his "Dolls
for Dole" singers and "Bob-O-Links" dancers and
pouring Dole pineapple juice for voters in an attempt to differentiate
his name from one primary opponent, Philip Doyle. Forty thousand
driving miles later, he won the Republican nomination by a scant
1,000 votes, and was elected by an overwhelming majority to his
first term in the House.
Taking his
seat in the 87th Congress two weeks before John F. Kennedy's inauguration,
Dole became known as the highly visible freshman member of the
House Agriculture Committee, serving as a member during all of
his eight years in the House. He adhered to conservative Republican
tenets, voting for rural electrification, soil conservation and
lowered federal spending, and against most foreign aid and most
of the farm policies of Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman.
He held his seat in the 1962 race against incumbent Floyd Breeding,
when redistricting left Kansas with one less congressman. He won
again in 1964, despite his support of Barry Goldwater's conservative
candidacy, in a close race against Bill Bork. Dole's victory defied
the nationwide trend that November of landslide Democratic victories.
Dole's allegiance to future president Richard M. Nixon was cemented
during the 1964 campaign, when the former vice-president made
a personal appearance in Pratt, Kansas on Dole's behalf.
As a member
of the 89th Congress, Dole began his service on the House Agriculture
Committee and the House Government Operations Committee and backed
Representative Gerald Ford's successful bid for the House Minority
Leader's post. He traveled to Rome as an advisor to the United
States delegation at the 20th anniversary session of the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Evidence indicates
this trip represented Dole's first immersion in hunger and nutrition
issues, and in 1966, when Lyndon Johnson asked him to accompany
high-ranking House Agriculture Committee Democrats and Chairman
Robert Poage (D-TX) to India to determine the need for emergency
U.S. grain shipments, he became an outspoken advocate for feeding
the hungry with surplus American wheat: "We were impressed
by the severity of the drought…and the awesome prospect of
human suffering which is certain to be follow if no help is forthcoming….we
tried not to get emotional, but it…makes you sick to see
a child half-starved…get his six ounces of milo for the day."
Dole easily
defeated opponent Bernice Henkle in the November 1966 election.
He immediately stepped up his criticisms of President Johnson's
Great Society initiatives, his agriculture policy and the heightened
involvement of the United States in Vietnam: He wrote in 1988,
"My voting record faithfully reflected district sentiments-conservative
on fiscal issues and more moderate on important issues of the
day."
The opportunity
to campaign for a U.S. Senate seat came in 1968, with the retirement
of three-term Senator Frank Carlson. Dole won the Republican primary,
defeating former Governor Bill Avery, and went on to defeat Wichita
attorney William Robinson in November, beginning a 28 year career
in that body.
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