Robert B. Duncan

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Robert Blackford Duncan (b. December 4, 1920) was a Democratic U.S. congressman from Oregon.

Duncan was born in Normal, Illinois and attended public schools in Bloomington. He graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1942, and in 1948 received his law degree from the University of Michigan. During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine and United States Naval Air Force from 1942 to 1945.

In 1956, he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives, and served three terms and was elected Speaker of the Oregon House by his colleagues. In 1962, he was elected to Congress as a Democrat based in Medford.

In 1966, he was the Democratic candidate for United States Senate for retiring Senator Maurine B. Neuberger's seat. While Duncan strongly supported President Johnson's Vietnam war policies, his Republican opponent, Mark O. Hatfield, was skeptical of the administration's conduct of the war. This factor, along with Hatfield's statewide popularity as Governor of Oregon, gave Hatfield a narrow victory.^[1]

In 1968, Duncan challenged incumbent Senator Wayne Morse in the Democratic Senate primary. Again, Duncan's war views played a role. Though initially far ahead of the anti-war maverick Morse, Morse closed the gap at the end and won a narrow victory, aided by the beginning of the Paris Peace Accords, which brought the possibility of the end of the war.^[2] Morse went on to lose in the general election to Bob Packwood.

Duncan returned to his Portland law practice, but after Edith Green retired from Congress, Duncan was elected to her seat in 1974 and returned to the House, this time representing the 3rd district in Portland. He served three terms, and was upset in the 1980 Democratic primary by Ron Wyden.

[edit] References

[edit] External Links

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• The Political Graveyard
  

Preceded by Edwin Russell Durno	U.S. Representative of Oregon's 4th Congressional District 1963-1967	Succeeded by John R. Dellenback
Preceded by Edith Green	U.S. Representative of Oregon's 3rd Congressional District 1975-1981	Succeeded by Ron Wyden