Claiborne Pell

The senator who brought college to millions

Claiborne Pell

1918–2009

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Claiborne Pell, who has died of Parkinson’s disease at 90, was among Rhode Island’s leading political lights. A Democratic senator for 36 years, seven as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he opposed the Vietnam War, supported nuclear-arms reductions, and opposed military intervention in Latin America and Lebanon. But his crowning achievement was sponsorship of legislation creating his namesake federal education grants, which since 1972 have helped some 54 million middle- and lower-income Americans attend college.

Pell’s patrician family “had lived in New York since colonial times, and its holdings once embraced much of Westchester County and the Bronx,” said The Washington Post. “Five of his forebears, including his father, served in Congress.” A graduate of Princeton, Pell joined the Foreign Service and “participated in the 1945 San Francisco conference that drafted the United Nations charter.” An investment banker for much of the 1950s, he eventually became involved in Democratic politics and ran for the Senate in 1960, winning in large part due to his ties to John F. Kennedy.

“Pell was one of the strangest birds in American politics,” said the Providence Journal-Bulletin. He jogged in tweed sport coats and pushed for congressional investigations into ESP and UFOs. He was also known for his wry sense of humor. “When one foe called him ‘a cream puff,’ Pell trumpeted the endorsement of the bakers union.” During his final campaign, in 1990, when asked “what legislation he had authored that specifically helped his constituents,” he famously replied, “I couldn’t give you a specific answer. My memory’s not as good as it should be.” Pell defeated his opponent in a 2–1 landslide.