Celebrity Deathwatch: Alan Cranston, Fmr U.S. Senator, 86

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/31/cranston.obit/index.html

Former senator Cranston dies in California

December 31, 2000
Web posted at: 9:43 p.m. EST (0243 GMT)

>From staff and wire reports

LOS ALTOS HILLS, California (CNN) -- Former Sen. Alan Cranston of
California, who ended a 24-year Senate career in 1993, died Sunday at 86.

Cranston died at his home in Los Altos at 11 a.m. PT (2 p.m. ET), said Roy
Greenaway, his former chief of staff. The cause of death was not immediately
known; it came as a surprise, Greenaway said.

Cranston is survived by his son, Kim, of Los Altos Hills. Another son died
20 years ago in a car accident, Greenaway told CNN.

Worked for arms control
After Cranston's retirement from Congress, the Democrat largely dropped out
of public view. But he continued to champion the cause of nuclear arms
control, which had been the centerpiece of his political career for five
decades.

In 1996, he became chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation USA, a San
Francisco-based think tank founded by former Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev to promote world peace and nuclear disarmament.

Cranston, who ran for president in 1984, cited only his diagnosis of
prostate cancer when he announced in 1990 that he would not seek a fifth
Senate term.

However, his public approval rating at that time had plunged to a record low
due to the savings and loan scandal and Cranston's relationship with Lincoln
Savings & Loan President Charles Keating, who had just been indicted on
securities fraud charges. Keating eventually spent nearly five years in
prison before his conviction was overturned.

Investigation results in reprimand
A later Senate Ethics Committee investigation led to a formal reprimand of
Cranston and lesser sanctions against four other senators, known as "the
Keating Five," for intervening with federal regulators on behalf of Keating.

Cranston, who received nearly $1.2 million in political funds from Keating,
initially insisted that he had been "politically stupid" but ethically
correct to intervene with federal agencies on Keating's behalf.

He ultimately agreed to a finding that he had "engaged in an impermissible
pattern of conduct in which fund raising and official activities were
substantially linked in connection with Mr. Keating and Lincoln." Cranston
remained defiant, however.

In his final response to the reprimand on the Senate floor in 1991, Cranston
declared that his actions "were not fundamentally different from the actions
of many other senators."

The remark clouded the former majority whip's relationship with his Senate
colleagues. Cranston's reputation as a champion of liberal activism and
progressive reform never recovered from the scandal.

In a 1996 interview, Cranston said: "I don't feel any need for redemption."

He said, "I'm satisfied with what I did in the Senate. I don't look back. I
look forward."

In a reflective 1985 speech, Cranston said he originally ran for the Senate
"because there I can work on the issues of war and peace, and the
environment, and justice, and opportunity."

The Senate, he said, is "where I kept the commitment I made in my 1968
campaign and get us out of the tragic war in Vietnam; where one act of mine
helped keep us out of war in Angola ... one step I took, followed by many
more, did much to prevent war in Angola, ... where I'm doing the utmost to
dispel the threat of nuclear war that hangs over our children, darkening
their days and filling their nights with fear."

Cranston was a former foreign correspondent who served two terms as
California state controller before he was elected to the U.S. Senate on his
second try in 1968. In 1977, he became assistant majority leader, or whip.

Presidential run stalled
In 1983, at the age of 68, Cranston announced his candidacy for president,
declaring that his age would be an advantage because, he said, the American
people "want wisdom, maturity, proven capability" in the White House.

Cranston announced that ending the arms race would be the "paramount goal"
of his campaign. But his campaign never attracted significant support, and
he withdrew from the race for the Democratic nomination, later won by Walter
Mondale.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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