Henry M. Jackson

Jackson was born in the home of his parents, Marine (Anderson) and Peter Jackson, in Everett, Washington on May 31, 1912. His mother and father were both immigrants from Norway.[3] Peter Jackson was born Peter Gresseth, and changed his name when he immigrated. He met Marine at the Lutheran church in Everett, where they were married in 1897. Henry was the fifth and youngest of the Jackson children; he was nicknamed "Scoop" by his sister in his childhood after a comic strip character that he was said to have resembled.

He went on to graduate with a B.A. degree from Stanford University and a J.D. degree from the University of Washington School of Law, where he joined the Delta Chi fraternity.

In 1935, the year of his law school graduation, he was admitted to the bar and began to practice law in Everett. He found immediate success and was elected to become the prosecuting attorney for Snohomish County from 1938 to 1940, where he made a name for himself prosecuting bootleggers and gamblers.

In 1961, Jackson, called by Time the Senate's "most eligible bachelor,"[4] married Helen Hardin, a 28-year-old Senate receptionist, but Jackson did not move out of his childhood home, where he lived with his unmarried sisters for several years. The Jacksons had two children, Anna Marie Laurence and Peter Jackson. Peter went on to serve as a speechwriter for Governor Christine Gregoire.

Jackson successfully ran for Congress as a Democrat in 1940 and took his seat in the House of Representatives with the 77th Congress on January 3, 1941. From then on, Jackson did not lose any congressional elections.

Jackson joined the Army when the United States entered World War II but left when Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all representatives to return home or resign their seats. He visited the Buchenwald concentration camp a few days after its liberation in 1945. He attended the International Maritime Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1945 with the American delegation, and he was elected president of the same conference in 1946, when it was held in Seattle. From 1945 to 1947, Jackson was also the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs.

In the 1952 election, Jackson relinquished his seat in the House for a run for one of Washington's Senate seats. Jackson soundly defeated Republican Senator Harry P. Cain and remained a senator for over thirty years. He was Washington's first U.S. Senator to be born in the state. Jackson died in office in 1983 after winning re-election for the fifth time in 1982.

Though Jackson opposed the excesses of Joe McCarthy, who had traveled to Washington state to campaign against him, he also criticized Dwight Eisenhower for not spending enough on national defense. Jackson called for more inter-continental ballistic missiles in the national arsenal, and his support for nuclear weapons resulted in a primary challenge from the left in 1958, when he handily defeated Seattle peace activist Alice Franklin Bryant before winning re-election with 67 percent of the vote, which he topped the next four times he ran for re-election.[1][5]

During the 1960 Democratic presidential primary, Jackson was the first choice of fellow Senator John F. Kennedy for a running mate, though JFK became convinced that a Southerner would better balance the ticket.[6] Lyndon B. Johnson was later selected.

Jackson boasted one of the strongest records on civil rights during the civil rights movement.[7][8] He supported the 1957 and the 1964 Civil Rights Acts.

On July 22, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Water Resources Planning Act into law, noting Jackson as one of the Congress members to "have made a very invaluable and very farsighted contribution to America's future."[9]

In April 1968, responding to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson gave a speech about the legacy and injustice of inequality.[10]

In 1963, Jackson was made chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, which became the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1977, a position he held until 1981. In the 1970s, Jackson joined with fellow senators Ernest Hollings and Edward Kennedy in a press conference to oppose President Gerald Ford's request for Congress to end Richard Nixon's price controls on domestic oil, which had provoked oil companies into withholding gasoline during the 1973 Oil Crisis.[11][12]

Kaufman writes that after 1968, Jackson "emerged as an intellectual and political leader in the perennial struggle of U.S. foreign policy to reconcile ideals with self-interest."[6]

Jackson authored the National Environmental Policy Act, which has been called one of the most influential environmental laws in history. It helped to stimulate similar laws and the principle of publicly analyzed environmental impact in other states and in much of the world.[13] Jackson was also a leader of the fight for statehood for Alaska and Hawaii. In 1974, Jackson sponsored the Jackson-Vanik amendment in the Senate (with Charles Vanik sponsoring it in the House), which denied normal trade relations to certain countries with non-market economies that restricted the freedom of emigration. The amendment was intended to help refugees, particularly minorities, specifically Jews, to emigrate from the Soviet Bloc. Jackson and his assistant, Richard Perle, also lobbied personally for some people who were affected by this law such as Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky.

In March 1975, Jackson released a statement in which he expressed the view that it was paramount the Franklin Peroff case be found out to be either "an aberration or was symptomatic of much greater problem" within the Drug Enforcement Administration.[14]

In June 1975, Jackson stated that if accounts about the conduct of former director of the Drug Enforcement Agency John R. Bartels Jr. were correct then his actions amounted to obstruction of justice and that evidence disclosed "in the last two days would indicate that there was a conscious, premeditated plan involving misconduct at the highest levels of the D.E.A."[15]

In July 1977, the Senate approved a funding for the experimental nuclear reactor compromise proposal by Jackson and Idaho Senator Frank Church. While the initial version by President Carter sought a decrease in funding from 150 million to 33 million, the Jackson and Church measure halved the funding to 75 million.[16]

In October 1979, the Senate voted in favor of President Carter's energy mobilization board plan, Jackson labeling the plan the "centerpiece" of Carter's program that was essential to guaranteeing the effectiveness of the rest of the legislation and was noted for successfully persuading colleagues to reject amendments to the plan.[17] Later that month, after the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted in favor of the Alaska public lands legislation, President Jimmy Carter issued a statement thanking Jackson and other members for supporting the legislation.[18]

President Jimmy Carter with Jackson

Jackson also led the opposition within the Democratic Party against the SALT II treaty and was one of the leading proponents of increased foreign aid to Israel.

For decades, Democrats who support a strong international presence for the United States have been called "Scoop Jackson Democrats," and the term is still used to describe contemporary Democrats such as Joe Lieberman and R. James Woolsey, Jr.[19][20]

Jackson served for all but the last three years of his Senate tenure with Democratic colleague and friend Warren G. Magnuson. As a result, he spent 28 years as the state's junior Senator, even though he had more seniority than all but a few of his colleagues. "Scoop" and "Maggie," as they affectionately called each other, gave Washington clout in national politics well beyond its population. They were one of the most effective delegations in the history of the Senate in terms of "bringing home the bacon" for their home state. Washington received nearly a sixth of public works appropriations but ranked only 23rd in population.[21]

Jackson not only was successful as a politician in Washington state but also found recognition on the national level, rising to the position of chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1960 after he was considered for the vice presidential ticket spot that eventually went to fellow Senator Lyndon Johnson.

Jackson ran for president twice, and both campaigns were noted for the hostile reception they received from the left wing of the Democratic Party. Jackson's one-on-one campaigning skills, which were so successful in Washington state, did not translate as well to the national stage. Even his supporters admitted that he suffered from a certain lack of charisma.[1][26][27]

Jackson's home on Grand Avenue in Everett

On September 1, 1983, Jackson died suddenly in Everett of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 71, shortly after giving a news conference condemning the Soviet attack on Korean Air Lines Flight 007. News reports showed video footage in which he was seen reflexively massaging the left side of his chest while talking, and speculated that it was his reaction to an early symptom of the fatal attack.

Jackson's death was greatly mourned. New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan stated "Henry Jackson is proof of the old belief in the Judaic tradition that at any moment in history goodness in the world is preserved by the deeds of 36 just men who do not know that this is the role the Lord has given them. Henry Jackson was one of those men." Jackson is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Everett.

• Jackson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984. Ronald Reagan called him "one of the greatest lawmakers of our century,"[30] and stated:

Scoop Jackson was convinced that there's no place for partisanship in foreign and defense policy. He used to say, 'In matters of national security, the best politics is no politics.' His sense of bipartisanship was not only natural and complete; it was courageous. He wanted to be President, but I think he must have known that his outspoken ideas on the security of the Nation would deprive him of the chance to be his party's nominee in 1972 and '76. Still, he would not cut his convictions to fit the prevailing style. I'm deeply proud, as he would have been, to have Jackson Democrats serve in my administration. I'm proud that some of them have found a home here.

• In 1983, Jackson was awarded Delta Chi of the Year.
• One of Jackson's last acts as Senator was to sponsor legislation [31]creating what became the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, which was named after him after his death.
• Jackson's extended community of staff, colleagues and family members created the Henry M. Jackson Foundation from public monies and private donations to give grants to nonprofits and educational institutions. Its board members have included Richard Perle, Tom Foley, and Jeane Kirkpatrick.[32][33]
• On March 28, 1981, Jackson gave the principal address at the christening of the USS Bremerton (SSN 698). The Bremerton was the second ship to have the name, preceded by the USS Bremerton (CA 130). It was christened by Mrs. Henry M. Jackson on July 22, 1978. The USS Bremerton (SSN 698) was mentioned in the classic Tom Clancy novel, The Hunt for Red October.
• The University of Washington has named the Jackson School of International Studies in his honor. However, students objecting to Jackson's hawkish views on the Cold War in the mid-1980s caused the university to move a bust of the senator to the end of an abandoned corridor until it was restored to a more prominent place outside the Jackson School in 2006.[24]
• The U.S. Navy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine Henry M. Jackson was also named after him, in recognition of his longtime support of the nation's military. It is the only Ohio-class submarine not named after a U.S. state.
• In 1983, the Snohomish County Public Utility District began operation of the Henry M. Jackson Hydroelectric Project outside Sultan, Washington.
• In 1994, the Everett School District completed construction of Henry M. Jackson High School in Mill Creek, Washington.
• The Henry M. Jackson Wilderness Area was created in his honor by the 1984 Washington Wilderness Act.
• The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, with the cooperation of the Jackson family, awards a Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson Distinguished Service Award to individuals for their career dedication to U.S. national security. Jackson won the first award in 1982, and it was named after him after his death. Winners include Max Cleland, Joe Lieberman, Dick Cheney, Jane Harman, and Paul Wolfowitz.[34]

• Henry M. Jackson High School
• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–1999)
• United States congressional delegations from Washington

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• Henry M. Jackson Collection – University of Washington Digital Collection
• United States Congress. "Henry M. Jackson (id: J000013)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Henry M. Jackson at Find a Grave
• 1972 presidential campaign brochure, at 4president.org
• Henry M Jackson Papers, at the University of Washington
• Bust of Henry Jackson, at the U.S. Senate
• Henry M Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine
• Henry M Jackson Foundation
• The Henry Jackson Society, at the University of Cambridge
• Henry M. Jackson—A Life in Politics, biography
• Henry M. Jackson, late a senator
• Appearances on C-SPAN