The third term begins...

After his 1972 reelection victory over John Chafee, Pell returned to Washington with an ambitious agenda, and his new look. The look symbolized a new period in his life, the subject (among others) of Chapter Six, which I am now writing.
Here is a photo of Pell in the fall of 1973.

Celebration at the Pell Center

Last night, family and friends of Claiborne Pell joined Pell Grant recipients at Salve Regina University's Pell Center for a celebration of the grant program and the winner of the first Legacy Award: Rochelle Denisha Gregory, who told her extraordinarily compelling story. A documentary film crew including producer Elyse Katz was on hand; Elyse, director Steve Feinberg and Pell grandson Clay are making a film about the success of the Pell Grants (I am serving as consultant). A great evening in Newport.
Pictured are: Nuala on the "set," actually a reconstruction of Pell's hideaway office (note the painting of Nuala and Claiborne on the wall); Clay, daughter Dallas, granddaughter Tripler, Nuala and former Congressman Louis Stokes, who served 30 years with Pell; Elyse, Dallas and others on the set; a view of Nuala before the camera, Steve back to me; and Rochelle at the podium.

Nuala on the campaign trail

Have finally finished Chapter 5, likely to be the longest chapter. The focus is the Pell Grants, Pell's opposition to the Vietnam War, and his tough 1972 reelection race against John Chafee. He won, of course, with a strategy that called on his wife to again hit the trail, as she had so effectively in 1960 (the 1966 race was a blowout). Nuala impressed the people (and media) that she met during speeches and door-to-door campaigning. Here she is leaving a house in October 1972. Note the Pell literature in her hand. And that white picket fence is so '50s (and early '70s).

Pell Grants; a 'Titanic Struggle'

The year 1972 was one of the busiest for Pell. It was the year he finally realized his ambition of a college-aid program that would come to be called the Pell Grants, an ambition accomplished in the thick of angry debate over busing; the year he began as a huge underdog for reelection against John Chafee, a campaign The Providence Journal rightly caleld a "Titanic Struggle"; and the year his mother died. I am writing all this now in the longest chapter yet of the bio.
When the year was over, Pell grew a mustache. Here's a shot of him wearing it. A very different look for A Very Different Senator.
And also, a flyer from the 1972 campaign. A very clever pun of a slogan, "Pell: When you stop to think."

Against the Vietnam War

Pell was a leading critic of the Vietnam War, and his open break with LBJ in a 1967 major Senate speech made headlines everywhere -- and drew a deluge of letters, some supporting him and others slamming him as an unpatriotic pinko-Commie. And then came his secret mission to Paris, which I am writing now...
Pell's vocal opposition brought him into direct conflict with LBJ, whose otherwise brilliant legacy (on domestic issues) was forever tarnished by his escalation of the war. Here is Pell in 1967, posing with a painting of our first president.

Wins again!

Pell won his first reelection, against Ruth Briggs, in 1966 with almost 70 percent of the vote. Here he is reading the Providence Evening Bulletin on Nov. 9, the day after the election.
Trivia point: I remember the Evening Bulletin well, since I wrote for it back in the days when the Projo had two editions. In fact, I wrote the very last deadline story for the Bulletin, in 1992, about a small fire.

National Endowment for the Arts

What a trip through history this week of writing has been -- the Berlin and Cuban Crises, the Cold War, JFK's assassination (on Pell's 45th birthday), all of which is grim. Fallout shelters and duck-and-cover, which I remember from when I was a kid, were very unsettling. And then there was the Vietnam War.
But the '60s were also a time of great hope, especially as the decade wore on. Pell played a large role in that -- he was an optimist by nature -- and one of his lasting contributions to the greatness of what the human spirit can be was in his critical role in establishing the National Endowment for the Arts, and also the Humanities. Am writing that passage now, and came across this great quote from LBJ at the 1965 swearing-in of the members of the new National Council on the Arts:
“I believe that a world of creation and thought is at the very core of civilization and that our civilization will largely survive in the works of our creations. That quality, as I have said many times before, confirms the faith that our common hope may be much more enduring than our conflicting hostilities, and I want that each hour of the things that we do will be enduring. Right now, the men of affairs are struggling to catch up with the insights of great art. The stakes may very well be the survival of our entire society.”
The photo is Pell with the president at about that time.