Riegle, Donald W., 1938-

Donald Wayne Riegle, Jr. was born 4 February 1938 in Flint, Michigan, to Donald Wayne Riegle, Sr. (1917-1992), and Dorothy Grace (Fitchett) Riegle. His father was a sales representative for and officer of a successful Flint printing company (the Riegle Press) founded in 1924 by his stepfather, John L. Riegle (1887-1983). The latter, a 1905 graduate of Central High School, was born on a farm in Davison Township, served as Genesee County Commissioner of Schools from 1914 to 1923 and wrote a memoir, Day Before Yesterday (1971). In 1928, John married Bessie (Waterman) Smith, and he later adopted Donald Wayne Smith, her son by her first husband, Roy Tenny Smith. The Riegle family came to Genesee County in the early 1860s from Clarence, Erie County, New York. Don represented the fifth generation of his family to have lived in the county. Don Riegle's mother was the daughter of a Canadian-born farmer who lived in Huron County, in the Thumb of Michigan, who later worked for AC Spark Plug in Flint. His first political inklings, therefore, were undoubtedly formed by his family background.

He was raised in the Dakota-Franklin neighborhood of Flint's blue-collar east side. His Republican father had served as city commissioner from 1950 to 1952 and mayor of Flint from 1952 to 1954 under the weak-mayor charter. One time during his father's tenure as commissioner an unknown assailant blasted a shotgun through the family's front window, indicating the danger of Flint politics. He attended the Flint Public Schools, graduating from Central High School in 1956. He then went to Flint Junior College for a year and Western Michigan University for a year, before enrolling as a business administration major in the Flint College of the University of Michigan, from which he graduated with a B.A. in 1960. Furthering his education, he went to Michigan State University, where he received an M.B.A. in finance and marketing in 1961. He then went to work for IBM, living in Brewster, New York. He entered the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University in 1964 with the intention of pursuing the D.B.A. degree, but his political activity unfortunately prevented completion of the thesis requirement.

He first married, on September 15, 1957, Nancy Brandt, of Flint, who was beginning her first year of college at the University of Wisconsin. A Chicago honeymoon was aborted by a robbery while seeing her off at the train station. Subsequently a story in the Chicago Tribune about the robbery led readers to contribute to the young couple's expensive stay at the Hilton Hotel. They had three children: Caetheirne (known as Caethe) A., born October 8, 1958; Laurie E., born December 14, 1962; and Donald Wayne III, born January 24, 1968. He married, as his second wife, Meredith Ann White, niece of Supreme Court Justice Byron White, on January 14, 1972, but they divorced in 1977. He married, on May 1978, in Reed City, Michigan, Lori L. Hansen (born November 1, 1953), a staffer in Sen. Gaylord Nelson's office. They had two daughters: Ashley Hansen, born February 1, 1985, and Allison Elizabeth, born January 20, 1992.

An opportunity to run for U.S. Congress presented itself in early 1966. Running as a Republican in the heavily Democratic 7th District, Riegle defeated incumbent John C. Mackie by a vote of 67,690 to 58,226. He soon acquired a reputation as a maverick and received criticism for not following Republican policies. In 1968, the left-leaning magazine The Nation chose him as one of the two best congressmen of the previous year. The Flint-area UAW regional council and locals took the unusual step of supporting him in 1970. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave him, in 1972, a "liberal quotient" of 94 percent. Nevertheless, he still was available to get Republican support; in 1972, for example, the Ripon Society endorsed him. In each election up to 1972, he increased his percentage of the vote. In that year his share was more than 70 percent.

In his first two Congressional terms, Riegle rapidly became known as a dove on Vietnam. In 1967, he organized a Vietnam study group with University of Michigan professors. In September 1969, he co-sponsored, with Paul McCloskey, the first measure in Congress to repeal the unofficial declaration of war (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution). This action resulted in a threat of censure. Nevertheless, President Nixon signed the repeal on December 31, 1969. Riegle continued to press Nixon on his promise to end the war, despite all his obvious actions to the contrary.

In response to a request from Doubleday editor Trevor Armbrister, Riegle consented to write a book that intended to "portray the human side of Congress honestly and to reveal its inner workings." The candor that Armbrister wanted would involve risk for anyone who might attempt such a book, yet Riegle wrote, in a narrative that takes the form of a diary, O Congress (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972). The book covers a year, from April, 1971 to March, 1972. Response to the book by reviewers and the public was generally favorable.

Riegle went to the Republican National Convention held in Miami in August, 1972, in order to speak against Nixon's bombing policy. However, he was denied access to the full platform committee and had to address a subcommittee, which, in the words of Norman Mailer, "had been scheduled late so as to keep him out of morning hearings which might get on TV prime time or newspaper deadline time." Riegle impressed the author as "young and personable with blond hair which he wore at a generous enough length to reach his collar (Mailer, St. George and the Godfather , 127-130)." During his re-election campaign, Riegle not only refused to endorse the Nixon-Agnew ticket, he actively campaigned against it.

The Congressman's criticism of Nixon's Southeast Asia policy and his actions during the 1972 campaign inevitably led to his becoming a target of the President's opprobrium. On February 27, 1973, Riegle left the Republican Party for the Democratic Party. He resigned his Appropriations Committee seat and was assigned by the Democrats to the Foreign Affairs Committee. In 1974, he ran for re-election as a Democrat and won with 67 percent of the vote. His growing stature as a maverick captured attention. In that year, Time Magazine named him one of America's top 200 leaders under the age of 45. Riegle felt a sense of vindication for his opposition to President Nixon when the Watergate scandal broke. Soon after Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Riegle gave a floor speech announcing that he was initiating formal impeachment proceedings for obstruction of justice and other criminal charges.

In 1975, Senator Philip Hart announced his retirement with the end of his term in 1976. Riegle decided to pursue this office, and won the primary against two other candidates (including an upset victory over Secretary of State Richard Austin. In 1976, the Detroit News publicized an affair he had in 1969 with an unpaid staff member, who had taped their telephone conversations, but this newspaper's attempt to influence the election failed. Senator Hart died on December 16, 1975, before the end of his term, and the Governor appointed Riegle on 30 December 1976 to fill out the remaining three days of Hart's term. In the general election, Riegle won, with 53 percent of the vote. He announced, on the first day of his term of office (January 3, 1977), that he and his wife had agreed to separate and seek a divorce.

With his business school background, Riegle was appointed in his first term to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (of which he was a member throughout his tenure), the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (serving until 1988), and the Committee on Labor and Human Resources (serving until 1984). He was a member of the Committee on the Budget from 1979 to 1994 and the Committee on Finance from 1987 to 1994.

Riegle's management and Republican Party background was unusual for a politician who enjoyed such a strong UAW backing, but this probably led him to find ways to support positions benefiting both auto industry management and labor. He led the fight for the Chrysler Corporation loan guarantee, averting a filibuster, during his first term. Industry-friendly positions on environmental and safety issues brought him criticism on the left from sources such as the New York Times and Ralph Nader, but Riegle gained a reputation as a hard-working senator supporting the needs of his constituents.

He established seven Michigan offices (Detroit, Flint, Lansing, Traverse City, Grand Rapids, Warren, and Marquette, a far larger number than most senators had, in order to maintain a better relationship with his constituents. He secured many Urban Development Action Grants before the program ended.

As a Democrat, Riegle was in the minority party during Reagan's tenure as President, and as a member of several economic committees, was a frequent critic of Reaganomics. Minority leader Robert Byrd said of him: "He's a good man to have in your front line. He knows how to mold the bullets and shoot them." Riegle was chosen to deliver the Democratic response to President Reagan's address (on October 14, 1982) on the economy.

Riegle tirelessly advocated for economic issues, especially those that might benefit Michigan. He led a successful fight against cuts in Social Security during the 1981-1982 session. He supported the position of the auto industry regarding Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards in 1991-1992. He successfully offered an amendment to a 1988 trade bill, which attempted to increase American exports. He introduced legislation in 1991 which would attempt to increase exports to Japan.

In January 1989, Riegle became chairman of the Banking Committee. During his earlier years on that committee, he had, as chairman of the Consumer Affairs Subcommittee, affected legislation on debt collection and consumers' rights in electronic banking. Now his focus would be on the savings and loan crisis. Riegle led the Senate fight that enacted the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) of 1989, which created the Resolution Trust Corporation. This and other actions successfully ended the crisis.

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics began public hearings on November 15, 1991, following an investigation that had begun two years earlier, to ask Riegle and four other senators (John McCain, John Glenn, Dennis DeConcini, and Alan Cranston) what they had done for Charlie Keating and what the bankrupt owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan had done for them. Keating's former lobbyist James J. Grogan told the committee on December 14, 1990 that Riegle had arranged a meeting on April 9, 1987 on Keating's regulatory problems, following a fundraiser that Keating had sponsored for Riegle in Detroit on March 23, 1987. Riegle later gave him back the money that had been raised. Despite Riegle's denial of any wrongdoing, the committee rebuked him and Dennis DeConcini on February 27, 1991. The committee determined an appearance of improper conduct but chose not to recommend further action against them. Later that year, the New York Times called for Riegle to step down as Banking Committee chairman, but Senator George Mitchell countered, noting that the Senate had passed a broad banking reform bill under Riegle's leadership that month.

In his last years in the Senate, Riegle spent much of his time involved in trade issues and on Clinton's health care reform efforts. The impending election, however, cast a shadow, with Republicans sensing a vulnerability that had not been there before. Thus, on September 29, 1993, Riegle announced that he would not seek re-election. He felt that without needing to campaign again, he could now devote more time to health care and oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) without being accused of any political motivation. He also cited an "increasing toll on family life."

Riegle supported labor's NAFTA position in opposition to President Clinton, bringing back the reputation he had as a maverick when he opposed President Nixon on Vietnam. He felt that he needed to support Michigan's autoworkers, and he worked toward that end. He staged a controversial anti-NAFTA rally with Ross Perot in Lansing on September 18, 1993. Ultimately, however, his effort failed, as Congress ratified NAFTA. Riegle supported the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and he cast his last vote in favor of ratification.

He led the Banking Committee to investigate the Gulf War Syndrome, and on May 25, 1994, the committee issued a report. It implied that the United States had approved certain chemicals for sale to Iraq and that these may have shared some responsibility for the causes of the Syndrome. Riegle was portrayed by Brian Denehy in a mini-series, Thanks of a Grateful Nation , about the Syndrome, appearing on the Showtime Channel and NBC in 1998 and 1999.

He was succeeded in January 1995 by Spencer Abraham, Republican. The Riegles bought a house in Traverse City that year and later built a house in Birmingham, completed in 1998. He joined Shandwick Public Affairs, a public relations firm, as executive committee chair, and began an association with the Michigan State University School of Business as adjunct professor. In 2001, he joined another public relations firm, APCO Worldwide, as chair of its government relations department.

Among the many awards he received, he said once that he was proudest of one that the Wolverine Bar Association gave him for having nominated more Federal judges of color than any other Senator. In the public arena, the Flint Jewish Federation established the Donald Riegle Community Service Award in 1990, in honor of the Senator's efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry.

From the guide to the Donald W. Riegle, Jr. papers., 1966-1994, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)