[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 44 (Tuesday, April 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3331-S3333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONDOLENCES OF THE SENATE ON THE DEATH OF FORMER SENATOR TERRY SANFORD

  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of S. Res. 211, which I submitted earlier and 
is at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 211) expressing the condolences of 
     the Senate on the death of the Honorable Terry Sanford, 
     former United States Senator from North Carolina.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the immediate 
consideration of the resolution?
  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
resolution.
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, I note that all 100 Senators have 
joined me as cosponsors of this resolution.
  This resolution is to honor a truly great American and a great North 
Carolinian, former Senator Terry Sanford, a man I knew since I was 
about 18, 19 years old. In fact, I joined him in managing the campaign 
for a candidate for Governor, a man named Kerr Scott, and with that 
election we changed the direction of politics in North Carolina.
  We had a long friendship. As I say, it began with that campaign, and 
we went through many political campaigns together. He had a remarkable 
life. He managed two or three senatorial campaigns on which I had the 
pleasure of working with him.
  Prior to that, Terry Sanford graduated from the University of North 
Carolina in the late thirties. During World War II, he was an FBI agent 
in the early part of the war, in the very beginning, but being an FBI 
agent was not exciting enough for Terry Sanford. He chose to join the 
82nd Airborne and became an officer and a paratrooper. He was involved 
in five different battles during World War II, and he won the Bronze 
Star and the Purple Heart.
  Terry Sanford was always a paratrooper. He was ready to go for it. He 
was ready to jump into the middle of whatever might be happening.
  As I mentioned earlier, he managed and ran some political campaigns, 
but he was also a State legislator and took great interest when he was 
a State legislator in developing the Port of Wilmington, NC, and 
established the ports authority for North Carolina.
  He ran for Governor and won. He was Governor from 1961 through 1965, 
and never did a man have greater vision for a State than Terry Sanford 
had for our State. He was a leader in education, but not just education 
in the sense of teaching young people to read and write and the 
fundamentals of education. He certainly did that and promoted that. But 
far more, he promoted a school of excellence for those children who 
were far more gifted. Then he established a school of the arts, which 
now exists in Winston-Salem, NC, and is one of the foremost training 
and teaching institutions in the country for young people who are 
entering the arts from dancing to moviemaking. This school is there 
because of him.
  Although he did not technically start the community college system, 
he did more than any Governor we have had since or before to promote 
the community college system in North Carolina with 59 campuses. He 
really brought it to fruition.
  Again, although he did not start, technically, the Research Triangle 
Park, he and his administration were deeply involved in bringing it 
about and setting it on the path it has taken.
  I mentioned he was a lawyer for many, many years and started a couple 
of very prestigious law firms. After his tenure as Governor, he became 
president of Duke University and served there for some 15 years. It was 
a great school, a great university when he went there, but the changes, 
the improvements, the expenditures, the endowment, the doubling of the 
medical center all transpired and took place under the leadership of 
Terry Sanford as president of Duke. It became an internationally 
recognized university under his tenure.
  He came to the U.S. Senate and left an admirable record here with 
many initiatives that he sought and worked toward. One of them is 
something we are still working on today, and that is to ensure the 
future and fiscal stability of Social Security.
  Senator Sanford was married to Margaret Rose, his wife of 55 years. 
They had two children, Terry, Jr., and a daughter Betsy.
  North Carolina and the Nation are better places today for all of us 
to live in because of men like Terry Sanford and because of Terry 
Sanford and his vision and tenacity to carry it forward. The country 
will miss him, the State will miss him and I will miss him as a friend.
  Mr. President, I believe I said this, but I will note that all 100 
Senators have joined me in cosponsoring this resolution.
  Are there any other Senators wishing to speak?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I yield the remainder of my time.

[[Page S3332]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join in expressing my sadness over the 
death of our former colleague, Senator Terry Sanford, and I commend the 
Senator from North Carolina for his eloquent statement. Senator Sanford 
was an extraordinary leader of many talents. He was an outstanding 
Member of this body, an outstanding educator, and an outstanding 
Governor of North Carolina.
  Many of us had the privilege of serving with him in the Senate and of 
knowing him personally. We admired his great ability, his unusual 
eloquence, and his abiding commitment to the people of North Carolina 
and the nation.
  In a sense, I inherited Terry Sanford from President Kennedy. He was 
one of the first Southern leaders to endorse my brother for President 
in the 1960 campaign. My brother had visited North Carolina as a 
Senator, and had been very impressed by Terry Sanford. I know the very 
high regard that my brother had for him as a voice of the New South, as 
a champion of education, and as a leader who understood the importance 
of bringing people together.
  In July 1960, at a critical moment leading up to the Democratic 
Convention in Los Angeles, Terry Sanford endorsed my brother and then 
seconded my brother's nomination for President. It made an enormous 
difference. In a very real sense, Governor Sanford helped to lay the 
foundation for my brother's New Frontier.
  Later, after serving with great distinction as Governor, Terry 
Sanford became a President himself--of Duke University, where he served 
for 16 years, and won world-wide renown as one of the pre-eminent 
educators of the century.
  He won election to the United States Senate in 1986. All of us on 
both sides of the aisle held him in great respect--and in great 
affection as well. In so many ways, Terry Sanford was a Senator's 
Senator. He was fair-minded and warm-hearted, and he knew the issues 
well. Above all, he impressed us with the power of his commitment, the 
eloquence of his words, the remarkable moral authority of his 
leadership, and his dedication to excellence in all aspects of public 
service. We admired him for his statesmanship, and we loved him for his 
friendship. We will miss him very much. He was truly a profile in 
courage for our time.
  I ask unanimous consent that an article from the New York Times of 
April 19 on Senator Sanford may be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 19, 1998]

        Terry Sanford, Pace-Setting Governor in 60's, Dies at 80

                            (By David Stout)

       Washington.--Terry Sanford, who lowered racial barriers as 
     Governor of North Carolina in the 1960's, setting the style 
     for a new kind of Southern politician, and later became a 
     United States Senator and Presidential candidate, died today 
     at his home in Durham, N.C. He was 80.
       The cause was complications from cancer, said Duke 
     University, where Mr. Sanford was treated and where he was 
     president from 1969 to 1985.
       Until his cancer was diagnosed in December. Mr. Sanford had 
     taught government and public policy at Duke and practiced 
     law. He was president of the university, in Durham, after 
     serving as Governor and before his term in the Senate. Mr. 
     Sanford was at various times a lawyer, a member of the North 
     Carolina State Senate, from 1953 to 1955, and, in the early 
     1940's, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
       Mr. Sanford was Governor from 1961 to 1965, a time when 
     civil rights demonstrations were frequently met with 
     violence. In a speech on Jan. 18, 1963, he called for an end 
     to job discrimination against blacks and announced the 
     creation of a biracial panel, the North Carolina Good 
     Neighbor Council, to work toward that end.
       ``Despite great progress, the Negro's opportunity to obtain 
     a good job has not been achieved in most places across the 
     country,'' Mr. Sanford said. Opening more opportunities would 
     be good for the state's economy, he said, but there was a far 
     more compelling reason. ``We will do it because it is honest 
     and fair for us to give all men and women their best chance 
     in life,'' he said.
       By today's standards, those words seem unremarkable. But in 
     January 1963, when Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama 
     delivered his ``segregation forever'' inaugural address, Mr. 
     Sanford's stand for civil rights was seen as particularly 
     courageous for a governor from the old Confederacy.
       Mr. Sanford established himself as one of the most liberal 
     Southern governors--too liberal, in the eyes of some 
     constituents--as he named black people to high state 
     positions, pushed state lawmakers to raise more money for 
     schools and started a state anti-poverty program that was a 
     forerunner to President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.
       In some ways, Mr. Sanford was a contradictory politician. 
     He seemed to have good timing but bad luck. He had shrewd 
     instincts, yet he seemed to lack burning desire. His changes 
     of mind and heart confounded ally and rival alike.
       Mr. Sanford was an early supporter of John F. Kennedy's 
     quest for the Presidency, and so enjoyed easy access to the 
     White House in the early 1960's. The President's personal 
     secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, later wrote in a book that 
     President Kennedy had told her he was thinking of Mr. Sanford 
     as his running mate for 1964.
       His own liberal programs notwithstanding, Mr. Sanford 
     preached the virtues of ``state responsibility,'' if not 
     states' rights, as an antidote to creeping ``big Federal 
     Government.'' Under state law, Mr. Sanford could not succeed 
     himself as Governor.
       He tried for the White House in 1972 and in 1976, while he 
     was president of Duke University, offering himself as a 
     candidate for those disenchanted with the political system 
     and those who were part of it.
       Mr. Sanford, who had declared his support for school 
     integration, was beaten in the 1972 North Carolina Democratic 
     Primary by Governor Wallace of Alabama. That humiliating loss 
     in his home state effectively ended his candidacy.
       Four years later, Mr. Sanford ran for President again but 
     dropped out early. He said he had found it impossible to gain 
     enough news coverage and to raise enough money, and that he 
     was sick of campaigning.
       In 1986, having left Duke, Mr. Sanford ran for the Senate. 
     When President Ronald Reagan made several appearances on 
     behalf of his opponent, Mr. Sanford knew better than to 
     criticize a President. So he suggested instead that North 
     Carolina did not need a ``go-along Senator.'' Mr. Sanford won 
     a narrow victory.
       In the Senate, Mr. Sanford gained a reputation for 
     intelligence, personal decency and, in one celebrated 
     instance, indecision. In 1987, after President Reagan had 
     vetoed an $87.9 billion highway bill, Mr. Sanford changed 
     his mind three times: first voting simply ``present'' on a 
     vote to override the veto, then voting to sustain the veto 
     and finally, under tremendous pressure from other 
     Democrats, switching again and voting to override it. His 
     vote made the count 67 to 33, the precise margin required 
     to override.
       ``Nobody in the Senate thinks I caved in,'' he said later.
       In fact, his colleagues on both sides of the aisle were 
     saddened at seeing him buckle.
       ``He's a gentleman,'' said Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, 
     Republican of New York. ``Maybe that's his problem. He's such 
     a beautiful man.''
       In 1992, Mr. Sanford appeared at first to be in good 
     position for reelection, but he was hospitalized with a heart 
     problem during the campaign. His opponent, Lauch Faircloth, a 
     former Democrat and one-time friend, tried to tar him with 
     the brush of liberalism. And Mr. Faircloth deftly made an 
     issue of Mr. Sanford's health by publicly wishing him a 
     speedy recovery.
       Mr. Faircloth's narrow victory ended Mr. Sanford's 
     political life, one that had begun when he was 11: in a 1928 
     parade in his hometown, Laurinburg, N.C., Terry Sanford 
     carried a sign for Alfred E. Smith, the Democratic 
     Presidential candidate.
       Terry Sanford was born on Aug. 20, 1917. His father was a 
     merchant and his mother a schoolteacher.
       He graduated from the University of North Carolina at 
     Chapel Hill in 1939. After a brief stint in the F.B.I., he 
     joined the Army in 1942. That year, he married Margaret 
     Knight of Hopkinsville, Ky.
       Besides his wife, he is survived by a son, Terry Jr., of 
     Durham; a daughter, Elizabeth, of Hillsborough; two sisters, 
     Mary Glenn Rose of Pennsylvania, and Helen Wilhelm of Bern, 
     Switzerland, and two grandchildren.
       As an Army private, Mr. Sanford served as a paratrooper, 
     taking part in the invasion of Southern France and later in 
     the Battle of the Bulge, for which he received the Bronze 
     Star and a Purple Heart.
       After the war, mustering out as a first lieutenant, he 
     received his law degree from the University of North Carolina 
     at Chapel Hill and became active in the North Carolina 
     Democratic Party.
       Whether working for himself or on behalf of other 
     Democrats, he was known as a tireless campaigner, and a cool 
     one. While he was running for governor, the pilot of his 
     small plane seriously misjudged a short landing strip and 
     came within inches of touching down in a cornfield.
       Unruffled, Mr. Sanford stepped out and, grinning, helped 
     several ashen reporters down the steps.
       ``Start picking corn, boys,'' he said before walking away.

  Mr. BAUCUS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  The Chair would note there are just 32 seconds or so remaining before 
the vote.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I want to join my friends and colleagues in paying 
tribute to Terry Sanford. I did not serve on

[[Page S3333]]

any committee with Terry, but in the few years that we served together, 
he immediately struck me as a wonderful man, a good man, with a ready 
smile, a very thoughtful, very wise, very good, very deep person, the 
kind of Senator that not only North Carolina, I know, is very proud of, 
but the kind of Senator that I think most Americans would want their 
Senator to be.
  I cannot, as I am standing here thinking of Terry Sanford, think of 
another person whom I respected more and loved more and appreciated 
more, going through all the history, Research Triangle of North 
Carolina, the Governor, president of Duke University. But the main 
point I want to make is, working with Terry personally, and talking 
with him, and working through issues, he was a man who will be very 
difficult to replace. And, as I said, I can think of no Senator whom I 
would hold in higher esteem or regard than Terry Sanford.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the resolution and preamble 
offered by the Senator from North Carolina are agreed to.
  The resolution (S. Res. 211) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  The resolution, with its preamble, is as follows:

                              S. Res. 211

       Whereas Terry Sanford served his country with distinction 
     and honor for all of his adult life;
       Whereas Terry Sanford served his country in World War II, 
     where he saw action in 5 European campaigns and was awarded a 
     Bronze Star and a Purple Heart;
       Whereas as Governor of North Carolina from 1961-1965, Terry 
     Sanford was a leader in education and racial tolerance and 
     was named by Harvard University as 1 of the top 10 Governors 
     of the 20th Century;
       Whereas as President of Duke University, Terry Sanford made 
     the University into a national leader in higher education 
     that is today recognized as 1 of the finest universities in 
     the United States; and
       Whereas Terry Sanford served with honor in the United 
     States Senate from 1987 to 1993 and championed the solvency 
     of the social security system: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) has heard with profound sorrow the announcement of the 
     death of the Honorable Terry Sanford and expresses its 
     condolences to the Sanford family, especially Margaret Rose, 
     his wife of over 55 years; and
       (2) expresses its profound gratitude to the Honorable Terry 
     Sanford and his family for the service that he rendered to 
     his country.

     SEC. 2. TRANSMITTAL.

       The Secretary of the Senate shall transmit an enrolled copy 
     of this resolution to the family of the Honorable Terry 
     Sanford.

  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. The preamble and resolution have been agreed to?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I move to reconsider the vote and move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

                          ____________________