Allard K. Lowenstein

Allard Kenneth Lowenstein, (January 16, 1929 – March 14, 1980 Lowenstein's gravestone, Arlington National Cemetery; [http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/aklowen.jpgphoto online] on the cemetery's official website. Accessed online 28 October 2006.] [http://www.law.yale.edu/intellectuallife/lowensteinbio.htm Biography of Allard K. Lowenstein] , Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Law Clinic, Yale University. Accessed online 28 October 2006.] ), was a liberal Democratic politician, a one-term congressman representing the 5th District in Nassau County, New York from 1969 until 1971. His work on civil rights and the antiwar movement has been cited as an inspiration by public figures including Congressmen John Kerry, Donald W. Riegle, Jr., Barney Frank, California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., ["Allard Lowenstein on Firing Line: A Retrospective", [http://hoohila.stanford.edu/firingline/programView.php?programID=843 summary] on the site of the Hoover Institution Archives: Firing Line Television Program, Stanford University, accessed 28 October 2006.] actor Warren Beatty, [ [http://www.janrainwater.com/htdocs/Beatty.htm Warren Beatty Speech] Upon Being Honored by Southern California Americans for Democratic Action at the Eleanor Roosevelt Annual Awards Dinner, Beverly Hilton Hotel, September 29, 1999. Accessed 28 October 2006.] and songwriter Harry Chapin. [ [http://www.harrychapin.com/board/messages/3164.shtml Re: song title] , posting on Harry Chapin Archive forum. Accessed online 28 October 2006.]

Political activism

Lowenstein was a graduate of Horace Mann School in New York CityFact|date=February 2007 and of the University of North Carolina. As an undergraduate, he was president of the National Student Association. Lowenstein received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1954.

In 1959, Lowenstein made a clandestine tour of South-West Africa, now Namibia. While he was there, he collected testimony against the South African controlled government (South-West Africa was a United Nations Trust Territory). After his return, he spent a year promoting his findings to various student organizations, then wrote a book, "A Brutal Mandate", with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he had worked in 1957 at the American Association for the United Nations.

Along with Curtis Gans in 1967, and later that fall joined by Wisconsin's Midge Miller, Lowenstein started the Dump Johnson movement and approached Robert F. Kennedy about challenging President Johnson in the 1968 Democratic primaries. Lowenstein was himself elected to Congress in 1968, but was defeated in 1970 by New York State Senator Norman F. Lent by 9,300 votes. The 1970 election was viewed nationwide as a referendum on President Richard Nixon's conduct of the Vietnam War. [William Chafe, author of "Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein and the Struggle to Save American Liberalism", interviewed January 30, 1994 on C-SPAN's "Booknotes". [http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1185 Transcript online] accessed online 28 October 2006.] Lowenstein ran anyway in a new district in 1970, capturing a respectable 46% of the vote. In 1971, Lowenstein became head of the Americans for Democratic Action, and also spearheaded the Dump Nixon movement, earning himself a place on Nixon's Enemies List. In 1972, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Brooklyn against Congressman John J. Rooney, a conservative Democrat. Rooney narrowly won the primary, but Lowenstein continued in the race on the Liberal Party line, finishing with 28% of the vote. After an abortive 1974 U.S. Senate bid, Lowenstein unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Republican Congressman John Wydler in 1974 and 1976.

President Carter appointed Lowenstein to head the United States delegation to the thirty-third regular annual session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1977. Lowenstein served with the rank of ambassador from August 1977 to June 1978 in the capacity of alternate United States Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations. In 1978 he resigned to run for Congress again, narrowly losing the Democratic primary.

Lowenstein was married to Jennifer Lowenstein (nee Lyman, now Littlefield) from 1966 to 1977 and the two had three children: Frank Graham, Thomas Kennedy, and Katharine Eleanor.

Death

Lowenstein was murdered in his Manhattan office on March 14, 1980, at age 51 by a deranged gunman, Dennis Sweeney.

Lowenstein was well known for his ability to attract energetic young volunteers for his political causes. In the mid-1960s, he briefly served as dean of Stern Hall, then a men's dormitory at Stanford University, during which time he met and befriended undergraduate students David Harris and Sweeney. Over a decade later, in 1980, Lowenstein was shot in New York City by Sweeney, now mentally ill and convinced that Lowenstein was plotting against him; Sweeney subsequently turned himself in to the police. Lowenstein, Sweeney, and the shooting are discussed in Harris's autobiographical book "Dreams Die Hard" as well as in Richard Cummings's biography of Lowenstein, "The Pied Piper."

Sweeney was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to full-time psychiatric treatment for schizophrenia. By 1992, Sweeney was on 16-hour-a-day furloughs. Members of the Lowenstein family, who had opposed prosecutorial plans to seek a sentence of death for Sweeney, expressed grave concern about the supervision Sweeney would receive and anger that a murderer was being given such privileges. Later, two of Lowenstein's children (Thomas and Katharine) would go on to work in the death penalty abolition movement.

Lowenstein is the last current or former United States congressman to be murdered.

A veteran of the United States Army, Lowenstein is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

The one time Long Island congressman had a scholarship set up- the Allard K. Lowenstein Civil Rights Scholarship- in his name by Hofstra University in 2007.

Yale Law School also has several programs named in honor of Lowenstein. The [http://www.yale.edu/lowenstein Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Project] was founded in 1981 shortly after Lowenstein's death to honor his contributions to the field of human rights and provide law students with a vehicle to continue his work. The [http://www.law.yale.edu/intellectuallife/lowensteinclinic.htm Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic] , an outgrowth of the Project, is a clinical course in which law students participate in legal and advocacy research and writing projects for academic credit.

Notes and references

ee also

*List of assassinated American politicians

Further reading

* Douglas Lowenstein, "Lowenstein: Acts of Courage and Belief" (1983), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-154742-4. Edited by Lowenstein's nephew the book documents Lowenstein's life and times. It contains articles written by and about Lowenstein, as well as speeches he delivered and appearances he made.
* Cummings, Richard, "The Pied Piper-Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream" (1985) Grove Press /Atlantic ISBN 0-394-53848-X. InPrint.com (2000) ISBN 0-9673514-1-3 Updated and revised paperback edition (2002)
* William H. Chafe, "Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein and the Struggle to Save American Liberalism" (Basic Books, 1993). ISBN 0-465-04985-0.
* David Harris, "Dreams Die Hard: Three Men's Journey Through the Sixties" (New York: St. Martin's/Marek, 1982). ISBN 0-312-21962-8