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Ronald Vernie Dellums (born November 24, 1935), U.S. Democratic Party politician, was a U.S. Representative from California from 1971 until 1999. He was a proponent of reducing military spending, and an advocate of peace and social justice during his time in Congress. Dellums was the first African American elected to Congress from Northern California. In 2000, he published his memoirs Lying Down With the Lions.
In October 2005, reportedly after weeks of deliberation and speculation, Dellums announced that he would run for mayor of Oakland. The current mayor, former California Governor Jerry Brown, is term-limited and currently running for California Attorney General.
Early life
Dellums was born in Oakland. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1954 to 1956, where he was not recommended to Officer Candidates School, due to his race.
Dellums later received his A.A. degree from the Oakland City College in 1958, his B.A. from the San Francisco State University in 1960, and his M.S.W. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1962. He became a psychiatric social worker and political activist in the African American community beginning in the 1960s. He also taught at the San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley.
Dellums was a prominent member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.
Political career
Dellums was elected to the Berkeley city council, and served from 1967 to 1970. He also was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1970 after being recruited by anti-Vietnam War activists to run against the incumbent, Jeffery Cohelan, a white liberal close to organized labor who had not opposed the war early enough to please local activists. Dellums defeated Cohelan in the Democratic Primary and won the general election, serving without interruption for 27 years.
His liberal politics earned him a place on Richard M. Nixon's Enemies List, where his notation stated Dellums "had extensive EMK-Tunney support in his election bid."
Vietnam war crimes hearings
In January, 1971, just weeks into his first term, Dellums set up a Vietnam war crimes exhibit in an annex to his Congressional office. The exhibit featured four, large posters depicting atrocities committed by American soldiers embellished with red paint. This was followed shortly thereafter by a series of hearings on "war crimes" in Vietnam, which began April 25. Dellums had called for trials, but Congress chose not to endorse these proceedings. As such, the hearings were ad hoc and only informational in nature. As a condition of room use, press and camera presence were not permitted, but the proceedings were transcribed. A small number of other anti-Vietnam War congresspeople also took part in the hearings.
The transcripts describe details of the U.S. military's conduct in Vietnam. Some tactics were gruesome, such as the severing of ears from corpses to verify body count, abbreviated as "BC". Others involved the seemingly indiscriminate killing of civilians. Soldiers testified to ordering artillery strikes on villages which did not appear to have any military presence. "Wasting" and "blowing away" were introduced as euphemisms for killing, and soldiers used racist terms such as "gooks," "dinks" and "slant eyes" when referring to the Vietnamese.
Witnesses described that legal, by-the-book instruction was augmented by more questionable training by non-commissioned officers as to how soldiers should conduct themselves. One witness testified about "free-fire zones," areas as large as 80 square miles in which soldiers were free to shoot any Vietnamese they encountered after curfew without first making sure they were hostile. The exaggeration of body count, torture, murder and general abuse of civilians and the psychology and motivations of soldiers and officers were discussed at length.
Many of the details were grotesque and morally abhorrent and not previously unknown to the U.S. government or public. Several investigations into war crimes already had been conducted, including the Winter Soldier Investigation, in early 1971. The Fulbright Hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at which John Kerry testified, had begun a few days earlier. Additionally, incidents such as the My Lai massacre had been reported in the mainstream media. The Dellums hearings have been criticized for focusing on only U.S. officers, disregarding acts committed by others involved in the conflict.
Later in his tenure, Dellums would take a less aggressive stance.
Fight against apartheid
In 1972, Dellums began his campaign to end the oppressive, brutal, racially segregated "apartheid" policies of South Africa. At the time, the U.S. government officially regarded South Africa as an ally in the Cold War, eyeing the Soviet- and Cuban-backed liberation struggles in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau against Portugal with concern.
Fourteen years later, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Dellums's anti-apartheid legislation, calling for a trade embargo against South Africa and immediate divestment by American corporations. The bill finally agreed to by both houses of Congress, The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 was significantly watered down from Dellums' original language and had broad bipartisan support. It called for sanctions against South Africa and stated preconditions for lifting the sanctions, including the release of all political prisoners. Ronald Reagan called for a policy of "constructive engagement" and vetoed the bill. His veto was overriden; it was the first override in the 20th century of a foreign-policy veto.
By this time, many U.S. cities and universities, under pressure from the African-American community, already had begun a process of divestment from companies with South African operations. Japan and European nations soon also applied sanctions to South Africa. The South African government made gestures towards ending apartheid throughout the 1980s, and in 1990, South African president FW de Klerk announced that he would repeal discriminatory laws, lift the ban on opposition parties and free political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, thus ending apartheid.
Dellums' fight against apartheid in South Africa was the subject of a Disney Channel made-for-TV movie, "The Color of Friendship," released in 2000.
Arms control
Throughout his career Dellums led campaigns against expensive defense projects, saying that the funds would be better spent on peaceful purposes, especially in U.S. cities. Programs he opposed in particular included the Pershing and MX missiles, and the B-2 Spirit (popularly known as the "stealth bomber"). Dellums was commited to defense spending reductions and did not oppose the closing of the Alameda Naval Weapons Station, a base in his own district.
Opposition to the MX missile
The MX missile was a "third-generation" inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). One of its advantages over earlier missiles was its greater survivability. Unlike previous missiles, the MX was mobile. The design was for fifty missiles to be placed on trains that would be shuttled between numerous hiding sheds around a railroad loop located in remote Utah. Another advantage was that the MX was a MIRVed missile - each missile had up to ten nuclear warheads.
Dellums argued that constructing the MX would only propel the ongoing arms race and cause the Soviet Union to construct more weapons. He also argued that the issue of survivability of existing missiles was a red herring; the Soviet Union could not expect a first strike to go unpunished - U.S. nuclear-equipped submarines, bombers and cruise missiles would inflict devastating damage even if all American ICBMs were disabled. As part of the campaign, Dellums met with the Mormon church in Utah.
The MX project was eventually cancelled and the last missile decommissioned in 2005 as part of the START II treaty.
Opposition to the B-2 Stealth Bomber
The B-2 Spirit (popularly known as the "stealth bomber") is a nuclear bomber. It was a major technological step forward over the existing B-1 Lancer and B-52 Stratofortress, featuring "stealth" technology that made it far less visible to radar. However, it was designed during for Cold War scenarios that were less relevant following the collapse of the Soviet Union and, at over 2 billion USD per plane, was enormously expensive. Dellums opposed the B-2 project and worked to prevent procurement beyond 21 planes. Seven secretaries of defense, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Casper Weinberger, signed a letter urging Congress to buy more B-2s, citing the difficulty in assembling a similar engineering team in the future should the B-2 be cancelled. In the end, no more planes were purchased.
U.S. House Committee positions
Dellums served as chairman of the House Committee on the District of Columbia and the House Armed Services Committee. Dellums' rise to the Chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee was a result of a seniority system. He lost his Chairmanship after the Republican Party won control of the House as a result of the 1994 elections.
Dellums also served on the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Select Committee to Investigate the Intelligence Community.
In 1971, he was a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Dellums' last election
Dellums easily won his next eleven elections. In his last House election race, in 1996, Dellums bested his opponent, Republican Deborah Wright, by a 77%-18% margin. The 9th District traditionally voted heavily Democratic. Dellums' successor, Barbara Lee won the 2000 election by an even larger, 85%-9% margin.
Voting record
Dellums voting records were "almost without exception straight As" from groups such as the Sierra Club, the National Organization for Women and the AFL-CIO. He received 100% on consumer group Public Citizen's scorecard .
In contrast, he received an 'F' from NumbersUSA, a group dedicated to limiting immigration, and a score of 7 out of a possible 100 from the League of Private Property Owners, a property rights organization .
Family life
Dellums has been married twice. He married his second wife, attorney Leola "Roscoe" Higgs, in 1961. The two divorced in 1998.
Dellums has seven children: Joshua, Alexander, Kimiko, Erik, Piper, Brandy, and Michael. Erik is a successful character actor, among whose credits include television police dramas such as New York Undercover, Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire. Piper is an author and television producer whose personal story about a white South African girl coming to live with the Dellums family in the 1970s was the basis for the Disney made-for-television movie The Color of Friendship. The film won two Emmy Awards. Michael, the product of Dellums's first marriage, was born when the couple was undergoing a divorce and was raised by his mother. He is currently serving a prison term for a drug-related murder.
Grenada and Cuba controversies
In 1982 Dellums took a controversial trip to the socialist nation of Grenada. Grenada was building an airport that U.S. administration officials claimed could be used for Soviet military aircraft. Dellums travelled to Grenada on his own fact-finding mission and described his findings before Congress:
...based on my personal observations, discussion and analysis of the new international airport under construction in Grenada, it is my conclusion that this project is specifically now and has always been for the purpose of economic development and is not for military use…. It is my thought that it is absurd, patronizing and totally unwarranted for the United States Government to charge that this airport poses a military threat to the United States’ national security.
After a U.S. Marine invasion of the island, a letter from Dellums' chief of staff, Carlottia Scott to the Grenadian dictator Maurice Bishop was recovered, describing Dellums' feelings towards Bishop and, presumably, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Ron has become truly committed to Grenada, and has some positive political thinking to share with you…. He’s really hooked on you and Grenada and doesn’t want anything to happen to building the Revolution and making it strong. He really admires you as a person and even more so as a leader with courage and foresight, principles and integrity…. The only other person that I know of that he expresses such admiration for is Fidel.
In 1985, ethics charges were filed against Dellums in the House of Representatives for his trip to Grenada, unsucessfully. Dellums was criticized for his support of Fidel Castro and was called a "Castroite congressman" by the conservative press.
Criticisms of post-Congressional work
Shortly after leaving office, Dellums began consulting for an international health-care company, Healthcare Management International aimed at starting HMOs in third-world countries. The move was seen as controversial by some as the company stood to profit from Dellums' continuing advocacy of aid for Africa.
Dellums also continued to work in Washington, D.C., as a lobbyist for clients such as the East Bay Peralta Community College District and AC Transit, the organization that runs bus service in much of Dellums' old district. Others of his clients are more controversial.
- Dellums' company is paid $4500 per month by the San Francisco International Airport in its attempts to build an additional runway, which has been vigorously opposed by environmental groups.
- His company is paid $1500 per day by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laborotory, to engage in community relations. The lab generates and stores radioactive waste and has long had a contentious relationship with its residential neighbors and the city government.
- Dellums also works for Bristol-Meyers Squib, a large, multinational for-profit pharmaceutical corporation. While in office, Dellums had railed against the profits of such companies.
Some of his former supporters have been disappointed with Dellums' new role. Columnist Doug Ireland says that "Ron has gone bad...He talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk anymore."
When running for mayor of Oakland, Dellums listed his most recent profession as "retired Congressman" rather than "lobbyist" in election filing forms When assistant City Clerk Marjo Keller informed the Dellums campaign that this description was unacceptable, the campaign elected to leave the occupation field blank.
Legacy
Dellums was one of the earliest advocates of federal sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa, first introducing a bill for sanctions in 1971 and fighting for it for years until its eventual passage in 1986. As the first African-American member and eventual chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he led successful fights against defense projects like the MX and Pershing missiles.
Dellums resigned from Congress on February 6, 1998, saying that he intended to focus on his personal life. Rather than finish his term, Dellums resigned early; his former staff member State Sen. Barbara Lee was elected to replace him in a costly, low-turnout special election.
Congressional tribute
Upon his resignation, several members of Congress, including Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, William Coyne, Nick Rahall, Ike Skelton, Juanita Millender-McDonald and Tom DeLay gave speeches on the floor of the House in honor of Dellums. Millender-McDonald described Dellums as a "distinguished, principled educated man." Her tribute went on:
Congressman Ron Dellums is revered on both sides of this aisle because of his integrity and his commitment to progressive ideas. He was always on the cutting edge of the issues. California will miss him in the ninth district, but the State has been enriched by Ron Dellums. While he towers above most of us physically, this attribute is matched by his intellect, faith in the process and optimism for peaceful resolution of conflict.
Congressman Danny Davis of Illinois described Dellums:
A creative, piercing, probing, incisive, thought-provoking, inspiring, charismatic, careful, considerate and deliberative mind. The mind to stand up when others sit down. The mind to act when others refuse to act. The mind to stand even when you stand alone, battered, bruised and scorned, but still standing. Standing on principle, standing tall and standing for the people.
Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay described Dellums as "...one of the most giving, open and stalwart, a real stalwart man when he was Chairman"
We are losing one of its finest Members, a Member that I have great respect for, because he always did his homework, was so articulate and eloquent on this floor.
He always got my attention when he stood up and took the microphone. He would stop every Member in their tracks to hear what he had to say, and there are very few Members that have served in this body that can claim the respect that both sides of the aisle had for the gentleman from California. And the incredible reputation that the gentleman from California has brought to this House; he has elevated this House. He has elevated the distinction of this House by serving here, and this House will greatly miss him when he leaves.