Mike Gravel of Seaside, a two-term U.S. senator and two-time presidential candidate, dies at 91.

For someone whose views remained far to the left of mainstream American politics, Mike Gravel had a remarkably successful mainstream political career. He served two terms in the U.S. Senate representing Alaska, and ran twice for U.S. president, most recently in 2020. 

He died on Saturday, June 26 in his home in Seaside Highlands. He was 91. 

The Washington Post called him a "gadfly senator" in an obituary headline, and The New York Times called him "unconventional."

"Big newspapers didn’t consider Mike a serious person because he wasn’t part of the gang," says his wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel. 

But Gravel himself fully embraced his far-left posture as it related to establishment power structures, and he understood his role as a presidential candidate to be not someone who might be serious about winning, but someone who could force candidates to respond to questions about big issues—like the military-industry complex and U.S. foreign relations, the dangers of reliance on nuclear power, or the impending climate crisis—that might otherwise go unaddressed.  

In the middle of a 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate, Gravel said, “They’re still not addressing the 800-pound gorilla in the room, which is the military-industrial complex. The mainstream media, they’re the ones that control the subject matter."

Gravel staked out a reputation for himself when he attempted (unsuccessfully) to filibuster the renewal of the draft to the Vietnam War. After that, he attracted the attention of Daniel Ellsburg, who had attempted to leak the Pentagon Papers to several electeds. According to several accounts, Gravel was the only one (outside of the news media) who accepted, and he read from the Pentagon Papers directly into the congressional record during a subcommittee meeting. 

Part of Gravel's mission until the end of his life was pushing people to think about the big-picture issues and not lose perspective. And he saw some of that succeed, even in the last year of his life.

"In many respects, he was glad to see Biden pursuing a much more progressive domestic agenda," Whitney says. "But he was disappointed about additional sanctions on Iran, and that some of the people he’s picked for foreign affairs are more military in their approach, even though they’re trying to re-establish good working relationships with our allies after Trump eviscerated the relationships. There are still elements in the current administration of relying too heavily on the military and the military-industrial complex. But domestically, he'd been very pleased with Joe."

Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to French-Canadian immigrants. He went on to serve in the Army Counter Intelligence Corps, then earned a degree in economics at Columbia University, while supporting himself by driving a taxi. 

With political ambitions but few prospects, he relocated to Alaska in 1956 (three years before Alaska became a state), where he became a real estate broker and raised a family. He also successfully ran for state office, serving two terms in the Alaska House of Representatives before going on the U.S. Senate.

Gravel will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Family members expect it will be roughly a year until he is laid to rest due to a pandemic-related backlog of burials.

A celebration of life will be held on a date to be determined at Bayonet & Black Horse in Seaside, and another in Washington, D.C. on a date TBD at the Mayflower Hotel, where the Pentagon Papers were handed to him. 

Gravel died at his Seaside Highlands home from multiple myeloma. He is survived by his wife, Whitney; son, Martin Gravel; daughter, Lynne Mosier; four grandchildren and one great-grandchild; two sisters; and numerous other family members.