[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 139 (Monday, September 19, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5712-S5715]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   REMEMBERING SENATOR CHARLES PERCY

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I rise today with a deep sense of 
honor and a deep sense of sadness to speak about the late Senator 
Charles Harting Percy of Illinois who passed away this past Saturday, 
with his family surrounding him.
  Before I begin, though, I also wish to speak about two other losses 
to the Senate family. One, of course, is Kara Kennedy, the beloved 
daughter of Senator Ted Kennedy, as well as Eleanor Mondale, the 
beloved daughter of Vice President and Senator Fritz Mondale. Each of 
these two wonderful people died at the age of 51 and it is 
incomprehensible. It is terrible. They were far too young to be taken 
from us. The Percy and Rockefeller family love flows to their families.
  Senator Chuck Percy was blessed to live a long and accomplished life. 
He lived to be 91 years old. Many of my colleagues know Senator Percy 
was a distinguished Republican Member of the Senate for 18 years, from 
1967 to 1984, which is the year I came to the Senate. He was chairman, 
as people know, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a man 
with an absolutely vast talent that he poured into every aspect of his 
public service as well as his private business career. He was 
extraordinary in that way. He had brains. He had vision. He had 
stamina. He had energy. He was incredibly athletic. He could do 
anything for any amount of time and under all of this was built this 
incredible discipline that made him do it all.
  Most importantly to this Senator, Chuck Percy was my father-in-law 
for more than four decades, since I was lucky enough to marry his 
unique and beautiful daughter, Sharon Percy, who, I might say, has many 
of the characteristics, nature and habits of Senator Percy. It just 
worked out that way. She has those characteristics. He extended to me 
in every way the great gift of joining the family he nurtured, watched 
over, cared for, and protected all of his life, and for that, 
obviously, I am forever grateful.
  I wish to share a few remembrances of Senator Percy with my 
colleagues because many here didn't know him--a few did, but most did 
not; with the people of Illinois, and with all of the family and 
friends who are hurting from the news of his loss.
  Chuck Percy was absolutely unshakeable in his belief in the future. 
He believed in our country and he believed in our ability to make this 
world a better place, if we would only put our minds and will and 
discipline to it. He was a believer. He always saw not through a glass 
darkly but through a glass brightly. It was his nature. He was guided 
more by what was right than by party label.
  Interestingly, in a press interview in 2008, then-Senator Barack 
Obama noted that his hope was that more Republicans would look at 
members of their party for inspiration and then compare them to Abraham 
Lincoln and Chuck Percy, two ``pretty good Republicans,'' he said.
  What made Chuck so magnetic and so successful was his determination 
to share his optimism, to share his sense of promise with everyone 
around him, even at a very young age.
  Chuck Percy began his business career not at Bell & Howell, where in 
fact at the age of 29 he became the youngest CEO and president of a 
major American company, but in fact he did it years earlier at the age 
of 4. His family was impoverished. They had been devastated by the 
Great Depression. They faced bankruptcy. They shifted from place to 
place in some of the most difficult parts of Chicago. So Chuck Percy at 
the age of 4 wanted to help, and he knew how to help: the 
entrepreneurial instinct. He took cookies, baked presumably at home, 
and sold them on the streets of Chicago for a very little amount of 
money, but he made money from that which he then turned over to the 
family.
  He helped his impoverished family weather the Great Depression and 
pushed himself, by force of will, to get an education, all the way 
through the University of Chicago, on scholarship.
  Before his business career took off, as did many men of his 
generation, Chuck Percy went off to war serving his country for 3 years 
as a naval officer during World War II. Upon returning home, he 
rejoined Bell & Howell and led that company from 1949 to 1964 through 
an astounding thirty-two fold increase in the expansion of sales, in 
what were then cutting-edge film products.
  He launched his political career in large part to get back into 
public service because he missed it. He yearned for it. One could argue 
that business might have been his real calling, or maybe public service 
was, but to him he was interested in everything and wanted to do 
everything. So he had a chance to get back into public service, but he 
had no grand ambition. He simply wanted to find ways to challenge 
himself and to help make the country better.
  Chuck Percy had a seriousness of purpose. As a young man he resolved 
to read all of the great books of his generation and generations that 
preceded his, the master works, as well as the Constitution, the Bill 
of Rights, the Federalist Papers. He not only read them, but he 
discussed them all with his professor. It was a stunning emphasis to 
drive himself to increase his knowledge to the highest level possible.
  But Chuck also had a sense of fun and of sport. He loved to be 
active. He loved to ski, among other things. As fate would have it, he 
was skiing in Idaho when then-President Eisenhower called him in 1959 
to see if he could be persuaded to work on a project to reinvigorate 
the Republican Party by leading a commission on national goals. It was 
an ambitious task and rife with political risk for Chuck, but Chuck 
didn't hesitate. His work helped pave the way for his election, in 
fact, to the Senate in 1966.
  But even more than that, his report served as a template for the 
reflection and soul searching that went on in this country ahead of 
that 1976 bicentennial. He cared about the 200th anniversary of 
America. Everybody did, but he really did, and he wanted to know what 
we could do better, what we could do more of, and that is what he used 
that commission for. He wanted America to be a better nation.
  As a Senator, Chuck Percy took a strong interest in the economy and 
international affairs. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee 
he traveled the globe, going to countries whose names were hardly known 
at a time when very few Senators were even traveling at all. He could 
do that as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, but he wanted 
to do that and he was good at it. He would get into the tiniest track 
of a small village to try and meet people, maybe even breaking cultural 
habits by trying to shake hands with people who were not allowed to 
shake hands because they were considered too impoverished. Nothing 
discouraged him, and he wanted to make himself a better person and a 
better Senator.
  Chuck was on a trip to inspect the battlefields of Vietnam, even 
though he was very skeptical of that war. He was on a helicopter when 
his aircraft took fire from the Vietcong in a hamlet about 90 miles 
north of Saigon.
  The helicopter lifted off for safety, but left Chuck with four other 
men and two guns between them to huddle against the ground as mortar 
shells exploded 15 feet away and small arms fire whizzed overhead. 
Additional U.S. helicopters soon arrived and rescued the men, and the 
story went on. He was fearless.
  When he came to the Senate, Chuck took on the culture of the Senate. 
He didn't like a lot of what he saw. I am looking, as I speak now, at 
Senate pages. He thought there was no reason why girls could not be 
Senate pages as easily as boys, but that was the custom then. Girls 
were not deemed to be able to do the work. There was an attitude here 
in the Senate then that the opportunity of being a page was suited for 
boys, and during the debate, interestingly, some Senators worried about 
girl pages not being able to carry copies of the Congressional Record 
to the Senate desks.
  He cosponsored the Equal Rights Amendment and spent the better part 
of his career arguing that women should have the same opportunities as 
men. Senator Percy knew firsthand from the remarkable women in his own 
life, his own family, and the remarkable women in his office that women 
can do anything men can do, and perhaps better. In fact, Senator Percy 
was furious when he found out that textbooks paid for by the Federal 
Government included sentences such as ``girls

[[Page S5713]]

should be nurses and secretaries, while boys should be doctors and 
businessmen.''
  Chuck Percy also cared deeply about helping less fortunate Americans. 
People think of him as always having been very rich. No. He was very 
poor and his family was even poorer. He struggled for a long time. He 
is rightly credited for authoring and pushing the first-ever 
legislation to create opportunities for home ownership for low-income 
Americans.
  He focused on older Americans. He wrote a book back in 1974 about the 
daunting process of growing old in America. This is back in 1974, 9 
years after Medicare, and the shameful living conditions and hospital 
conditions the elder poor had to face. His book was a call to action 
and a moral imperative to restore dignity to aging.
  Chuck favored open government and sunshine laws at a time when it was 
not popular. He felt strongly that in a democracy, the military 
establishment should be held accountable and answer specifically to 
civilian leaders.
  He also opposed, for the most part, war and took many positions that 
undoubtedly hurt him within his party.
  But, in fact, he defied party labels, describing himself as 
``fervently moderate.'' So aggressively did he seek out evenhandedness 
that it was known by those who knew him that at his dinner parties at 
his house, they were always equally divided between Democrats and 
Republicans; specifically, one Republican, one Democrat, and different 
parts of the government and business. It was a matter of principle to 
him.
  He wanted to hear all sides, though he was absolutely resolute when 
he made up his mind. One of the things I thought was most captivating 
about Chuck was the fervor with which he held his beliefs.
  Senator Percy's desire to be President came to be well known--and he 
wrote about it publicly--but the timing was never quite right so that 
did not happen.
  He lost his race for a fourth Senate term in 1984, just when this 
Senator was coming into the Senate, and it was one of several very 
difficult times Chuck Percy faced in his life with courage and with 
grace.
  Early in his life, his family was literally penniless when his father 
lost his job and all their savings. Then later, at the midpoint of his 
career, he lost a beloved daughter, Sharon's twin sister Valerie, in an 
unspeakable and lethal crime that still tears at the soul of our 
family. Then, in his final years, he was struck down by Alzheimer's for 
a decade or more. There is no cure for Alzheimer's. The end was fated.
  He was never downcast. He was always--until he no longer could--
trying to read, walk, play tennis, have meals outdoors, and do 
something. But it was through the whole of his dynamic and full life 
that Chuck Percy steadily became the great man whom I have been 
privileged to know, admire, and love deeply.
  Chuck warmed to a challenge. He leaned into life in every way--
insisting for himself, his children, and his grandchildren that the 
best part of living consists of learning, improving, and trying to do 
better each day. His energy and his focus on this process, fueled in 
part by Christian Science, was amazing and unmatched, as far as I am 
concerned.
  He was an incomparable father to Sharon and to her siblings. He lived 
what he believed--very simple--never wavered in his unconditional 
support and love, and sought and created truth.
  America benefitted greatly from his life and from his service. The 
entire Percy and Rockefeller families have been incredibly and 
indelibly shaped by his legacy and by his love.
  I ask unanimous consent that a statement from the Percy and 
Rockefeller families be printed in the Congressional Record. Mr. 
President, I yield the floor.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  Statement From the Percy and Rockefeller Families on the Passing of 
                        Senator Charles H. Percy

       It is with a profound sense of personal loss that the 
     family of former Senator Charles H. Percy announces his death 
     on Saturday, September 17, 2011, at the age of 91.
       He loomed as large in his private life as he did in his 
     public one.
       His determination--to overcome odds, to help others, to 
     persuade decision-makers to actions he believed were 
     important--showed us how much can be achieved through the 
     inspiration of a single man.
       The energy and enthusiasm he brought to everything in his 
     many-faceted life encouraged us to rise early and to embrace 
     each day's opportunities for work and fun until late at 
     night, and buoyed us up when we flagged. His courage in the 
     face of devastating adversity made us braver and taught us 
     resilience. His insistence on a balanced perspective in his 
     public life, (calling himself ``fervently moderate''), helped 
     us understand it is both possible and preferable to live in a 
     world without partisanship.
       He led by example with his self-confidence, relishing the 
     company of people who challenged and informed his thinking, 
     including his outstanding business and Senate staff. He 
     provoked animated discussions around the dinner table and 
     roared with laughter at Capitol Steps skits at his expense. 
     His voice was strong and deep, and it filled and warmed a 
     room.
       He taught us humility and respectfulness as, win or lose, 
     he would show up at the Chicago Loop the day after each 
     election to thank the voters. He taught us generosity, as he 
     tried to help others as he'd been helped along the way. He 
     taught us how powerful unconditional love can be.
       He went through life with his arms flung wide. He welcomed 
     all who wanted to accompany him on his journey, celebrated 
     the victories with them, and supported and comforted them 
     through his own difficult times.
       He unreservedly believed he would be joining the loved ones 
     who had gone before him, and in the face of such conviction 
     we cannot but believe he is having the joyous reunion he had 
     longed for.
       We also believe he would want to thank extended family, 
     friends, colleagues, and compatriots for so enriching his 
     life. We will all miss him.
       The family will be holding a private service. In lieu of 
     flowers, contributions may be made in the name of Charles H. 
     Percy to The Friends of Georgetown Waterfront Park (P.O. Box 
     3653, Washington, D.C. 20027) or WETA (3939 Campbell Avenue, 
     Arlington, VA 22206).

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first, let me extend my sympathy to my 
colleague, Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia, son-in-law of the late 
Senator Chuck Percy, and, of course, his wife, Senator Percy's 
daughter, Sharon. They are great friends, and I know this loss, though 
they all found it inevitable, still brings pain to their lives. I hope 
the reflections of so many people in the greatness of Chuck Percy and 
his contribution to Illinois and to America will help to, in some ways, 
alleviate the pain they are going through.
  I join my colleague, Senator Kirk, today in paying tribute to our 
fallen colleague and friend, Senator Charles Percy, who died on 
Saturday. He served Illinois and our Nation for 18 years here in the 
Senate.
  Although he ran against the two men who were my greatest political 
inspirations--Senator Paul Douglas and Senator Paul Simon--I always 
regarded Senator Percy as a friend and as an honest and honorable 
representative of our State of Illinois.
  It is a little known fact about Chuck Percy that he was nearsighted 
in one eye and farsighted in the other. That unusual vision was a good 
metaphor for his politics as well. He described himself as ``fervently 
moderate.'' A progressive Republican, he said he was ``a conservative 
on money issues but a liberal on people issues.'' He used the word 
``liberal'' in the days when you could get away with it.
  Charles Harting Percy was born in 1919 in Pensacola, FL. His family 
moved to Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood when he was a baby. His 
father worked as a bank clerk. His mother taught violin for 25 cents a 
lesson. The bank at which his father worked failed in the Depression 
and the Percy family was forced into bankruptcy and onto relief.
  Chuck Percy got his first job at the age of 5, selling magazines, to 
help his family along. He sold his mother's homemade cookies door to 
door, rose at 3:30 in the morning to deliver newspapers and parked cars 
and worked as a janitor--all while he was in high school.
  He worked his way through the University of Chicago on a half-tuition 
scholarship. Along the way, he had an economics professor, Dr. Paul 
Douglas.
  In 1936, while Chuck Percy was still in college, his Sunday school 
teacher encouraged him to enter a training program at the man's 
company. The company was Bell & Howell, near Skokie, IL, a very small 
manufacturer, at the time, of home movie cameras.
  After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in 
economics,

[[Page S5714]]

Chuck Percy went to work full time at Bell & Howell. At 23, he was 
elected to the board of directors. At age 29, he was named Bell & 
Howell president and chief executive officer, the youngest person to 
head a major American corporation up to that time.
  In 14 years, under Chuck Percy's leadership, Bell & Howell extended 
its reach in the consumer electronics market. Its number of employees 
increased twelvefold, and its annual sales climbed from $13 million to 
$160 million.
  In 1964, Chuck Percy was a delegate to the Republican National 
Convention. It was the same year he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of 
Illinois against Otto Kerner.
  Two years later, Chuck Percy challenged that former University of 
Chicago professor, Paul Douglas, for his seat in the Senate. I knew all 
about that campaign. It was my first. I was a college student and an 
intern to Senator Douglas and went back to work on his campaign in 
Illinois when Chuck Percy challenged him.
  In the final weeks of that campaign, I was with Senator Douglas in my 
hometown of East St. Louis, IL. He was staying at the Holiday Inn, and 
he received word, early in the morning, that Chuck Percy's daughter, 
Valerie, had been murdered in their home.
  Senator Douglas--I remember this to this day--saw a church across the 
street from that Holiday Inn--it was Saint Henry Catholic Church--and 
though Douglas was a Quaker and later a Unitarian, he said: I am going 
to that church to pray. He went in and he prayed for the Percy family. 
He walked out the door and he said, in quiet tones to his staff: This 
campaign is over until Chuck Percy announces it will resume, and we 
will say nothing about this tragedy other than to express our sympathy 
to his family. What a different day in American politics.
  Both candidates declared a halt to the campaign. It lasted nearly 1 
month. It was the month of September. That decision showed a humanity 
and a respect which is missing on too many occasions from today's 
politics.
  Chuck Percy went on to win that campaign. In the Senate, he backed 
consumer protection and environmental efforts and supported 
international nuclear nonproliferation. When you listen to his agenda 
of priorities, you find it hard to place it in today's very 
conservative Republican agenda.
  A Navy veteran, he was an outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam. 
It was an act of political courage that earned him a place on Richard 
Nixon's infamous enemies list.
  He was the first Senator to call for an independent prosecutor to 
investigate Watergate.
  In 1970, he joined the Foreign Relations Committee. One decade later, 
when he rose to chair that committee, he explained his views on foreign 
policy this way:

       I don't want foreign policy developed just by one party and 
     ride roughshod over the other party. I'd much more value a 
     bill that has bipartisan support. That's what this committee 
     achieved in World War II, achieved in the Marshall Plan.

  Chuck Percy was reelected to the Senate in 1972 by more than 1 
million votes, the largest plurality of any Senate candidate in the 
Nation that year. He won a third term in 1978.
  Running for a fourth term in 1984, he was challenged in a bitter 
primary by an archconservative--a man whose money came from out of 
State and was never traced. Although he won that primary, he would go 
on to lose the general election to my friend, Senator Paul Simon, who 
won with 50.1 percent of the vote.
  That same year, Senator Percy's son-in-law, our colleague, Senator 
Rockefeller, was elected to the Senate from West Virginia.
  After leaving the Senate, Senator Percy said his proudest 
accomplishment in office had been pushing for more opportunity for 
women in the Federal Government. His lasting legacy goes way beyond 
that.
  In 1970, it was Senator Chuck Percy who persuaded Richard Nixon to 
nominate one of Senator Percy's former classmates for a spot on the 
Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Five years later, that former 
University of Chicago classmate, John Paul Stevens, was elevated to the 
U.S. Supreme Court, where he served with distinction until his 
retirement last year.
  I can recall when Senator Percy was in office. I had backed his 
opponent, Senator Douglas, whom he defeated in 1966. I contacted his 
office. I was a student at Georgetown Law School. We had a group of 
Democrats, and I thought: I will just take a flier here. Let me call 
his office and see if he will meet with us. Of course, he said yes. The 
next thing you know, 10 Georgetown University Law Center young 
Democrats were sitting in Chuck Percy's office. He knew it, and we had 
a good time, a good exchange. That is the kind of person he was. That 
is the kind of politics he practiced. That is a reminder of what life 
was like not that long ago.
  After leaving office, Senator Percy became an international relations 
and trade consultant and board chairman of an organization that 
administers education and cultural exchange programs.
  Two years ago, his daughter, Sharon Percy Rockefeller, announced that 
her father had Alzheimer's. Senator Percy had been struggling with the 
disease for more than a decade.
  Even out of office, he would call me from time to time, usually with 
a request about Washington, DC. Illinois was his love and the Chicago 
area always his hometown. But he had a passion and love for Washington 
too and he worked hard to make this a better city.
  I wish to offer my deepest condolences to Senator Percy's wife of 
more than 60 years, Loraine, to Sharon and Jay Rockefeller and all the 
Percy children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
  I feel honored to have been schooled in politics in Illinois during 
this era, to have known such extraordinary men when I was just a 
youngster, a college student starting out. Knowing all of them and 
watching them in public service gave me an impression and an ideal of 
what this job should be all about.
  When I heard of Senator Percy's death--I know his family had 
anticipated it--it brought back many memories of the fine contribution 
he made to Illinois and to the Nation. We are lucky to have had men 
like him, successful in so many ways, devoting a major part of their 
lives to public service. We are also fortunate they did it with such a 
feeling of responsibility, not only to their State and Nation but also 
to be public servants in the best sense of the word, working with 
everyone to try to find solutions to problems. It is a lesson we need 
to relearn today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to suspend the time 
limitation and continue for 8 minutes to eulogize Senator Percy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, I rise along with my colleague from 
Illinois, our senior Senator, Mr. Durbin, and, of course, Senator 
Rockefeller, related to the Percy family, to eulogize Senator Percy, 
whom he we lost on Saturday--a great and one of the most successful 
Illinois Senators.
  Senator Percy dedicated much of his life to serving our Nation, first 
in the U.S. Navy and then for 18 years in the Senate.
  I think I am the only Member of the Senate who actually voted for 
Senator Percy and volunteered in his campaign, along with my mom, when 
I was only 12 years old. Senator Percy, we knew, was a focused and 
disciplined leader, who succeeded at nearly everything he put his mind 
to.
  He graduated from my alma mater, New Trier High School, and also 
lived in Kenilworth, IL, my hometown. He later, after graduating from 
New Trier, went to the University of Chicago. After getting a 
bachelor's degree in economics, he joined a small camera company called 
Bell & Howell.
  He then led Bell & Howell, starting at the age of only 29, into 
making military cameras and movie projectors and then a new product 
called microfilm. As the leader of Bell & Howell, he was one of our 
greatest job engines of the State of Illinois. Employment grew 12 times 
under his leadership and earnings 32 times. But Charles Percy wanted to 
do more for his country.
  As we heard, at the request of President Eisenhower, he helped write 
``Better Decisions For America'' as part of

[[Page S5715]]

the Republican platform of 1960. Charles Percy ran for Governor in 
1964, but he lost that election. In the not-so-proud tradition of 
Illinois, that Governor then went to jail and Percy became seen as a 
corruption fighter in our State. Just 2 years after that defeat, 
Charles Percy was elected by the people of Illinois to represent them 
in the Senate, defeating Paul Douglas.
  During that campaign, his daughter Valerie was murdered in my 
hometown and his hometown, Kenilworth--one of our town's only murders. 
It was through this tragedy that we saw so clearly Charles Percy's 
quiet dignity.
  In the Senate, Chuck Percy was first known as a proponent of a 
foundation to back home ownership for low-income families. He was the 
toast of this town in the 1960s, described by the New York Times as 
``the hottest political article in the Republican Party.'' He even led 
in polls for the 1968 Republican nomination for President.
  Senator Percy, though, was at heart an independent who took on 
corruption in his own State, and especially his own party. He moved the 
first resolution calling for an independent prosecutor on the Watergate 
scandal. The New York Times reported:

       Nixon fumed to his cabinet that he would do all he could to 
     make sure that Mr. Percy, who already voted against two Nixon 
     nominees for the Supreme Court, would never become President.

  Senator Percy fought corruption wherever he saw it. In 1977, he took 
on White House Budget Director Bert Lance for backdating checks to gain 
tax deductions. Lance later resigned.
  Senator Percy was best known for his work as chair of the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee during historic times, when the United 
States recovered its nerve and stared down the Soviet Union, and it won 
the Cold War outright.
  He was a gentle man, disciplined in swimming every day, and a devout 
Christian Scientist who read the Bible each evening.
  Senator Percy was a strong, honest, and principled man whose 
integrity remained uncompromised in his nearly 20 years in the Senate. 
He believed that accountability, checks and balances, and transparency 
should be the driving forces of government.
  We will miss his moderate, fiscally conservative brand of politics. 
His legacy is one of genteel, thoughtful leadership, and his fight 
against corruption in Illinois is sorely missed today.
  I send my sincere condolences to Senator Percy's wife Loraine and his 
children, Sharon, Roger, Gail, and Mark, and their spouses--including 
our colleague Senator Rockefeller--and to the grandchildren, great-
grandchildren, and many friends and family who will mark his passing at 
the funeral on Wednesday.
  Senator Percy was one of the best-remembered Illinois Senators. He 
represents a tradition, in some sense followed by me. As a former 
volunteer for his campaign and one who voted for him, we mark his loss 
today.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________