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For the other similarly nicknamed Member of Congress from the same time period, see Cale Boggs.

Hale Boggs
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 2nd district
In office 1941–1943 (1st) 1947–1972 (2nd)
Preceded by	Paul H. Maloney (1st) Paul H. Maloney (2nd)
Succeeded by	Paul H. Maloney (1st) Lindy Boggs (2nd)
Personal details
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Lindy Boggs
Profession	lawyer, politician

Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr., (February 15, 1914 – Undetermined; presumably October 16, 1972) was an American Democratic politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for Louisiana. He was the House Majority Leader.

In 1972, while he was still Majority Leader, the twin engine airplane in which Boggs was traveling over a remote section of Alaska disappeared. The plane presumably crashed and was never found. Congressman Nick Begich was also presumed killed in the same accident.

Early start in politics

Born in Long Beach, Mississippi, Boggs was educated at Tulane University where he received a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1934 and a law degree in 1937. He first practiced law in New Orleans, but soon became a leader in the movement to break Huey Long's political power in the area. A Democrat, Boggs was elected to the U.S. House for the Second District and served from 1941 to 1943. At the time he was elected he was, at twenty-six, the youngest member of Congress. After an unsuccessful re-election bid in 1942, Boggs joined the United States Navy as an ensign. He served the remainder of World War II.

Political career

After the war, Boggs began his political comeback. He was again elected to Congress in 1946 and was then re-elected 13 times, once just after he disappeared, but before he was presumed dead. In 1960, the Republican Elliot Ross Buckley (June 18, 1921 – June 30, 1992) challenged Boggs but drew only 22,818 votes (22 percent) to the incumbent's 81,034 ballots (78 percent). Buckley, a native of New York City and a cousin of conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr., later served as an attorney in the United States Department of Justice in Vienna, Virginia, and as the Ronald W. Reagan-appointed chairman of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Buckley was also thereafter an elected member of the Vienna Town Council 1976–1986.

David C. Treen, a Metairie lawyer who became the first Louisiana Republican governor in 1980, challenged Boggs in 1962, 1964, and 1968. Treen built on Buckley's efforts in the first contest, and Goldwater momentum in Louisiana helped in the second race. It was in the 1968 election, however, that Treen fared the best: 77,633 votes (48.8 percent) to Boggs's 81,537 ballots (51.2 percent). Treen attributed Boggs's victory to the supporters of former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, Jr., who ran for president on the American Independent Party ticket. Treen said that Wallace supporters "became very cool to my candidacy. We couldn't really believe they would support Boggs, but several Democratic organizations did come out for Wallace and Boggs, and he received just enough Wallace votes to give him the election." Republican officials seemed convinced that fraudulent votes in some Orleans Parish precincts benefited Boggs and that Treen may have actually won the election. There were rumors of election officials who cast votes for people who did not show up at the polls and signed for them in the precinct registers.

Boggs unsuccessfully sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1951–1952. He lost out to a field of opponents, including the eventual winner, Judge Robert F. Kennon of Minden, whom Boggs supported in the runoff. Kennon "adopted" Boggs's intraparty choice for lieutenant governor, C. E. "Cap" Barham of Ruston in Lincoln Parish. In that race, one of the candidates, "Miss" Lucille May Grace, filed suit in an unsuccessful attempt to remove Boggs from the ballot on the grounds that he was either a "communist" or had been a "communist sympathizer" in his earlier years. As it turned out, Miss Grace's maneuver was arranged by Boggs's long-term political rival, Judge Leander H. Perez, the political "boss" of Plaquemines Parish.

During his tenure in Congress, Boggs was an influential player in the government. After Brown v. Board of Education he signed the Southern Manifesto condemning desegregation in the 1950s and opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yet unlike most Southern Congressmen of his era, he supported the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Open Housing Act of 1968. He was instrumental in passage of the interstate highway program in 1956 and was a member of the Warren Commission in 1963–1964.

He served as Majority Whip from 1961 to 1970 and as majority leader (from January 1971). As majority whip, he ushered much of President Johnson's Great Society legislation through Congress. Boggs is one of numerous public officials known to have drinking problems during the time.

His influence also led to charges of corruption. Controversy surrounded him, when a contractor who remodeled his home in Bethesda, Maryland, at a reduced cost sought his help for obtaining a $5 million extra payment for building a garage adjacent to the United States Capitol building.

Disappearance in Alaska

Disappearance and search

As Majority Leader, Boggs often campaigned for others. On October 16, 1972, he was aboard a twin engine Cessna 310 with Representative Nick Begich of Alaska, who was facing a possible tight race in the November 1972 general election against the Republican candidate Don Young, when it disappeared during a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. The only others on board were Begich's aide, Russell Brown, and the pilot, Don Jonz; the four were heading to a campaign fundraiser for Begich. (Begich won the 1972 election posthumously with 56 percent to Young's 44 percent, though Young would win the special election to replace Begich and has won every election to the seat since then.)

In the largest search ever mounted by the U.S. military, Coast Guard, Navy, and Air Force planes searched for the party. On November 24, 1972, after 39 days, the search was abandoned. Neither the wreckage of the plane nor the pilot's and passengers' remains were ever found. The accident prompted Congress to pass a law mandating Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) in all U.S. civil aircraft.

Both Boggs and Begich were re-elected that November. House Resolution 1 of January 3, 1973 officially recognized Boggs's presumed death and opened the way for a special election.

Speculation, suspicions, and theories

The events surrounding Boggs' death have been the subject of much speculation, suspicion, and numerous conspiracy theories. These theories often center on his involvement with the Warren Commission, but some tie his death to alleged corruption charges or his outspoken opposition to powerful Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover. Some people, including several of Begich's children, have suggested that Richard Nixon had a hand in Boggs' death in order to thwart the Watergate investigation. However, none of these theories has ever been proved, and one of Boggs' children (Roberts) has publicly stated that the rumors about Boggs' wanting to reopen the Kennedy assassination case are completely false.

Family

In 1973, Boggs' wife since 1938, Lindy, was elected to the second district seat left vacant by his death, where she served until 1991.

Hale and Lindy Boggs had three children: journalist Cokie Roberts (wife of journalist Steven V. Roberts), Tommy Boggs, a prominent Washington, D.C.-based attorney and lobbyist, and the late Barbara Boggs Sigmund, who served as mayor of Princeton, New Jersey. In 1982, Mrs. Sigmund lost a bid for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate to Frank Lautenberg.

Quote

"I wish I could stand here as a man who loves his state, born and reared in the South, who has spent every year of his life in Louisiana since he was 5 years old, and say there has not been discrimination. But, unfortunately, it is not so."

Tributes

The Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River in St. Charles Parish, is named in memory of the former congressman. The Portage Glacier visitor center, located at Portage Glacier in South Central Alaska is named the Begich-Boggs Visitor Center.

See also

• Alaska Triangle
• Lindy Boggs
• Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge
• Nick Begich
• List of people who have disappeared

Notes

1. Steven Waldman (January 1988). "Governing under the influence; Washington alcoholics: their aides protect them, the media shields them". Washington Monthly.
2. "Hale Boggs — Missing in Alaska". Famous Missing Aircraft. Check-Six. Retrieved 2007-04-15.

References

• Maney, Patrick J. "Hale Boggs: The Southerner as National Democrat" in Raymond W Smock and Susan W Hammond, eds. Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership Over Two Centuries (1998) pp 33–62.
• Strahan, Randall. "Thomas Brackett Reed and the Rise of Party Government" in Raymond W Smock and Susan W Hammond, eds. Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership Over Two Centuries (1998) pp 223–259.
• "Boggs, Thomas Hale, Sr., (1914–1972)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 2007-04-15.

External links

• Transcript, Hale Boggs Oral History Interview, 3/13/69, by T. H. Baker, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. Accessed April 3, 2005.
• "Hale Boggs — Freedom of Information Privacy Act page". Federal Bureau of Investigation.

• Hale Boggs Telex — Debunked

v t e Majority leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives
Payne Underwood Kitchin Mondell Longworth Tilson Rainey Byrns Bankhead Rayburn McCormack Halleck McCormack Halleck McCormack Albert Boggs O'Neill Wright Foley Gephardt Armey DeLay Blunt (acting) Boehner Hoyer Cantor McCarthy Hoyer Scalise

v t e Majority whips of the U.S. House of Representatives
Tawney Watson Dwight Bell Knutson Vestal McDuffie Greenwood Boland Ramspeck Sparkman Arends Priest Arends Albert Boggs O'Neill McFall Brademas Foley Coelho Gray Bonior DeLay Blunt Clyburn McCarthy Scalise Clyburn Emmer

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