Another Time, Another Politics

Abstract

He was known to friends as the Guv. A child of the American heartland and center of isolationism, he was from the beginning a student and citizen of the world. He had lived through the horrors of World War I, precipitated by the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s reaction to a Serb nationalist’s act of terrorism. A boy correspondent for the Bloomington Pantagraph, the family owned central Illinois newspaper, he had seen starving street children in Russia, innocent victims of civil war. He had pondered the military cemeteries in Europe, and, a Princetonian, he was influenced by Woodrow Wilson’s internationalism, which postulated self-determination and a League of Nations to resolve disputes peacefully and end war for all time.

Adlai E. Stevenson III is the eldest son of former Governor Stevenson. A former U.S. Senator from Illinois, he is now Board Chairman of SC&M Investment Management Co., an investment banking firm in Chicago. After he graduated from Harvard College in 1952, he served as a Marine Corps tank platoon commander in Korea. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1957. In 1958, he joined the Chicago-based law firm of Mayer, Brown, and Platt, becoming a partner in 1966. With record-breaking margins, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1965–67 and as Illinois State Treasurer in 1967–70 and U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1970 to 1981. In the Senate, Stevenson was the first Chairman of the Ethics Committee and the Chairman of the Special Committee for Senate reorganization in 1976–77. Membership on the Senate Commerce and Banking Committees led to special responsibilities for energy, science, technology, space, international trade, the monetary system, and international finance. He also was a member of the Majority’s Policy Committee and principal author of the International Banking Act, the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act, the Bayh-Dole Act, Export Administration Act amendments and the Export Trading Company Act. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Collection and Production of Intelligence, he conducted numerous investigations and the first in-depth congressional study of terrorism and introduced the Comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Act of 1979.

After retiring from the Senate, Stevenson engaged in close races for the Illinois governorship in 1982 and 1986. He has visited more than eighty foreign countries. His private career as lawyer, investment banker, and public policy expert has focused on international matters, especially in finance and East Asia. He is a director and past President of the U.S. Committee of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council and has been a leader in the Japan America Society of Chicago, U.S. Midwest Japan Association, U.S.-Korea Wisemen Council, Pacific Basin Council, Advisory Board of the Korea Economic Institute, U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and the Council on Foreign Relations, also other civic and business organizations. He manages a farm and continues to travel overseas and do research, lecturing widely, authoring numerous articles and receiving several honorary degrees and awards, including Japan’s Order of the Sacred Treasure with gold and silver star. He is an Honorary Pprofessor of Renmin University, Beijing, PRC. Stevenson and his wife, Nancy, have two sons, two daughters, and five grandchildren. Their home is in Hanover, Illinois, and they maintain a residence in Chicago.