Former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, the unsuccessful candidate of the Republican Party in the 1996 presidential election in the United States, died on December 5, in Russell, the locality of Kansas where he was born on July 22, 1923. Aged of 98 years old, he had announced at the beginning of the year suffering from lung cancer.
A former war-wounded man – he had never fully recovered the use of his right arm – a notable among the notables of American politics, he will have “Faithfully served his country” for nearly eighty years, said the foundation created by his wife, Elizabeth Dole, former minister and senator from North Carolina, now 85. The flags were half-masted at the Capitol where the body of the double holder of the Purple Heart military medal was to be on display on December 9.
Robert Joseph Dole had grown up in the agricultural belt of the Midwest during the depression of the 1930s. His father worked in a dairy and then a grain elevator, his mother sold sewing machines. Athlete, accomplished basketball player – he was 1.88 meters tall – he entered the University of Kansas with the intention of preparing for medical studies. But in 1942, his life changed when he joined the army. Deployed in Italy, he was seriously wounded on April 14, 1945 during the fighting of the 10th Mountain Division in the Apennines, southwest of Bologna.
In consensus with the Democrats
Paralyzed below the cervical vertebrae, unable to move, he will remain in rehabilitation for more than three years in a military hospital (he will meet his first wife, Phyllis Holden, an occupational therapist). All his life, the miraculous elder defended the disabled. Along with Democrat Ted Kennedy, he was the architect of the 1990 law “Americans with disabilities”, which imposes suitable infrastructure in public housing.
A law graduate, thanks to the scholarship offered to veterans, Bob Dole entered politics through the back door, that of the Kansas assembly. In 1960, he arrived in Washington for a national career which saw him climb all the ranks: member of the House of Representatives for eight years, then of the Senate, for twenty-seven years. He held the most important positions there: chairman of the finance committee, “Minority leader” from 1987 to 1995 when the Republicans were in the opposition, then leader of the party which became the majority from 1995 to 1996. He attracted the consideration of All-Washington for his pragmatism and his efforts to seek consensus with the Democrats.
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