| Allard Lowenstein | |
|---|---|
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 5th district |
|
| In office January 3, 1969 – January 3, 1971 |
|
| Preceded by | Herbert Tenzer |
| Succeeded by | Norman F. Lent |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 16, 1929 Newark, New Jersey |
| Died | March 14, 1980 (aged 51) New York City |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Jennifer Lyman |
| Children | Frank, Thomas, Katherine |
Allard Kenneth Lowenstein, (January 16, 1929 – March 14, 1980[1][2]), 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.,[3] actor Warren Beatty,[4] White House Counsel under President Obama Gregory Craig[5] and songwriter Harry Chapin.[6]
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Lowenstein was a graduate of Horace Mann School in New York City[7] and of the University of North Carolina.[2] As an undergraduate, he was president of the National Student Association and the Dialectic Society.[2] Lowenstein received a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1954.[2]
After completing his law degree Lowenstein became a college professor and administrator, holding posts at Stanford University, North Carolina State University, and City College of New York.[8]
In 1949 Lowenstein worked as a special assistant on the staff of Senator Frank Porter Graham[9] and he was a foreign policy assistant on Senator Hubert H. Humphrey's staff in 1959.[10]
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.
In 1960 Lowenstein was a Delegate to the Democratic national convention.[8]
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. When Kennedy declined, Lowenstein, a Delegate to the Democratic national convention, threw his support behind Eugene McCarthy, to whom he remained loyal even after Kennedy's late entry into the race (before Johnson bowed out).[11][12]
Lowenstein was himself elected to Congress in 1968, but was defeated in a modified district in 1970 by New York State Senator Norman F. Lent by 9,300 votes. Long Island's generally liberal Five Towns had been removed from the district, and the far more conservative Massapequa had been added. Lowenstein captured 46% of the vote in the new district.
The 1970 election was viewed nationwide as a referendum on President Richard Nixon's conduct of the Vietnam War.[13] 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.
Lowenstein was one of the most vocal critics of the unwillingness of Los Angeles and Federal authorities to reopen the investigation into the June 6, 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Lowenstein's one hour appearance on the PBS television show Firing Line in 1975, where he was interviewed by conservative William F. Buckley Jr., was one of the first times the American public were shown that many elements of ballistic and forensic evidence were radically at odds with eyewitness testimony and the assumption that Sirhan Sirhan alone had shot Senator Kennedy.
President Carter appointed Lowenstein as United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and thus 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.[14] 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 (née Lyman, now Littlefield) from 1966 to 1977 and the two had three children: Frank Graham, Thomas Kennedy, and Katharine Eleanor.
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 Kate) would go on to work in the death penalty abolition movement. Kate Lowenstein served as the Executive Director of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation.[15]
A veteran of the United States Army, Lowenstein is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.[1]
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 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 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. Lowenstein's papers are held as a special collection of the Long Beach (New York) Public Library and offer much material relative to his activities and his times.
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Herbert Tenzer |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 5th congressional district 1969–1971 |
Succeeded by Norman F. Lent |
