Former Florida senator dies; Bob Graham was a critic of the Iraq War

Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Former U.S. Senator and two-term Florida Gov. Bob Graham, who gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee after the 2001 terrorist attacks and as an early critic of the Iraq War, has died. He was 87.

Graham's family announced the death on Tuesday in an announcement published on X by his daughter Gwen Graham.

“We are deeply saddened to report the passing of a visionary leader, a dedicated public servant and, more importantly, a loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather,” the family said.

Graham, who served three terms within the Senate, unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, emphasizing his opposition to the Iraq invasion.

But his candidacy was delayed by heart surgery in January 2003, and he never managed to achieve enough traction with voters to catch up, so he dropped out in October. He didn’t seek re-election in 2004 and was replaced by Republican Mel Martinez.

Graham was a person with many flaws. He perfected the political ploy “work days” of spending a day doing various jobs, from horse stable guard to FBI agent, and kept a meticulous diary by which he noted almost everyone he spoke to, every thing he did ate, the TV shows he watched, and even his golf scores.

Graham said the notebooks were a piece tool for him and he was reluctant to explain his emotions or personal feelings in them.

“I check them for calls to make, memos to dictate, meetings to follow up on and things people are promising,” he said.

Graham was among the many early opponents of the Iraq war, saying it diverted America's focus from fighting terrorism, with a concentrate on Afghanistan. He also criticized President George W. Bush for not having an occupation plan for Iraq after the U.S. military overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Graham said Bush dragged the United States into the war by exaggerating claims concerning the danger posed by Iraq's weapons of destruction, which were never found. He said Bush falsified intelligence data and argued that this was more serious than the sexual misconduct problems that led the House of Representatives to question President Bill Clinton within the late Nineteen Nineties. This led him to launch his temporary, failed presidential run.

“The quagmire in Iraq is a distraction created by the Bush administration, and only the Bush administration,” Graham said in 2003.

During his 18 years in Washington, Graham worked well with colleagues of each parties, particularly with Republican Connie Mack of Florida during their 12 years together within the Senate.

There was hardly anyone higher as a politician. Florida voters hardly saw him as the rich, Harvard-educated lawyer he was.

Graham's political profession spanned five many years, starting along with his election to the Florida House of Representatives in 1966.

He won a state Senate seat in 1970 and was elected governor in 1978. In 1982 he was re-elected. Four years later, he won the primary of three terms within the U.S. Senate, ousting Republican incumbent Paula Hawkins.

Graham continued to be popular with Florida voters – winning re-election by wide margins in 1992 and 1998, when he won 63 of 67 districts. In that last election, he defeated Charlie Crist, who later served as Republican governor from 2007 to 2011.

“He blew me away, and as the campaign progressed I learned even more about why that is,” Crist said Tuesday night. “I learned to respect him even more than I already did and to love him for the good, decent man he was.”

Crist, who has since switched parties and most recently served as a U.S. representative, said Graham had an influence on him.

“When he was governor, I always felt like he was trying to govern for the people of Florida — in no way political or partisan — and I took that to heart and tried to emulate it a little bit,” Crist says said.

House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi called Graham “a patriotic American” and thanked him for his “outstanding public service.” She highlighted his work investigating 9/11 and said he had “courageously opposed entering the war in Iraq.”

“He brought his love for his family and his state of Florida to the Senate, where he served with great dignity and courage,” she said in an announcement Tuesday.

Even in Washington, Graham never took his eyes off the state and the leadership in Tallahassee.

When Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican-controlled Legislature abolished the Board of Regents in 2001, Graham saw it as a move to politicize the state university system. He led a successful petition campaign the following yr for a state constitutional amendment that established the Board of Governors to assume the role of regents.

Daniel Robert Graham was born November 9, 1936, in Coral Gables, where his father, Ernest “Cap” Graham, had moved from South Dakota and began a big dairy business. As a teen, young Bob milked cows, built fences and shoveled manure. One of his half-brothers, Phillip Graham, was editor of the Washington Post and Newsweek until he committed suicide in 1963, only a yr after Bob Graham graduated from Harvard Law.

Graham was student body president at Miami Senior High School and attended the University of Florida, graduating in 1959.

In 1966, he was elected to the Florida legislature, where he focused totally on education and health care issues.

Graham got off to a rocky start as Florida's chief executive and was named “governor.” Jello” for some early indecision. By overcoming several serious crises, he has shattered this label.

As governor, he also signed quite a few death warrants, founded the Save the Manatee Club with entertainer Jimmy Buffett, and led efforts to ascertain several environmental programs.

Graham pushed through a bond program to buy beaches and barrier islands threatened by development and launched the Save Our Everglades program to guard the state's water supplies, wetlands and endangered species.

“That was an important a part of my development as a public servant, learning on a really human level what the people of Florida expect, what they need, what their ambitions are, after which attempting to interpret that and translate that into policy “Improve your life,” Graham said in 2004 as he left his last job as a Christmas gift wrapper.

After leaving public life in 2005, Graham spent much of his time at a public policy center named after him on the University of Florida, pushing the Legislature to require more civics instruction within the state's public schools.

Graham was considered one of five members chosen by President Barack Obama in June 2010 for an independent commission to research an enormous BP oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico that threatened marine life and beaches in several southeastern Gulf states.