Adlai Stevenson III

Adlai Ewing Stevenson III (October 10, 1930 – September 6, 2021) was an American attorney and politician of the Democratic Party who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1970 to 1981.

A member of the prominent Stevenson family, he also served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Treasurer.

Stevenson was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1952, served in Korea and was discharged from active duty in 1954.

He received a law degree in 1957 from Harvard Law School.

In 1957, Stevenson went to work as a clerk for a Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and worked there until 1958 when he joined the law firm of Brown and Platt.

He continued to serve in the Marine Reserves and was discharged in 1961 as a captain.

Stevenson was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in the 1964 Illinois House of Representatives election, which was held at-large due to the state's failure to redistrict.

He served in the Illinois House from 1965 to 1967.

During his time in the state house, he won a Best Legislator award from the Independent Voters of Illinois.

He condemned Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Indochina policies and the violent police tactics at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, renewed his attacks on Republican President Richard M. Nixon’s prosecution of the war.

In 1969, Stevenson was elected treasurer of Illinois.

As state treasurer, he quadrupled earnings on the investment of State funds while cutting the budget each year.

Following the death of incumbent U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, who died in 1969, Stevenson ran for his seat.

He faced former state representative Ralph Tyler Smith in the general election, who was appointed to the seat by governor Richard B. Ogilvie.

Stevenson defeated Smith in a 1970 special election by a 58% to 42% margin to fill Dirksen's unexpired term.

Stevenson was sworn in as senator on November 17, 1970.

Stevenson opposed the Vietnam War.

He also conducted the first in-depth congressional study of terrorism as chairman of the Subcommittee on the Collection and Production of Intelligence, leading to introduction of the Comprehensive Counter Terrorism Act of 1971.

He warned of "spectacular acts of disruption and destruction" and an amendment that proposed reducing assistance for Israel by $200 million.

His amendment received seven votes.

In 1974, Stevenson ran for re-election, and faced Republican George Burditt in the general election.

He defeated Burditt by a large margin of nearly 800,000 votes.

In the Senate, Stevenson served on the Commerce Committee (Chairman of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space), Banking Committee (Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Finance) and Intelligence Committee (Chairman, Subcommittee on the Collection and Production of Intelligence).

He was the first Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee charged with implementing a code of ethics he helped draft.

He also introduced legislation requiring an end to all foreign aid to South Vietnam by June 30, 1975.

Stevenson was highly critical of Republican President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

He called on Nixon to answer for the integrity of the country’s leaders.

“All of us — Republicans and Democrats — have an interest in clearing the record,” he said a year before Nixon resigned in disgrace.

“The faith of the people in their system and their leaders — a faith that has already been shaken enough — is at stake.”

Stevenson was encouraged to run for president in 1976, which was fueled by Richard J. Daley of Chicago, who resented the senator’s liberal reforms, but who recognized Stevenson as being a vote-getter.

The senator declined to campaign, but as the nominating process got underway, Daley forces ran him as a favorite son candidate.

Despite this, former Gov. Jimmy Carter of Georgia locked up the nomination before the 1976 Democratic National Convention, in New York.

Stevenson authored the International Banking Act of 1978, the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 and its companion, the Bayh–Dole Act, to foster cooperative research, organize national laboratories for technology utilization and commercialization, and permit private sector interests in government-funded research.

He was the first chairman of the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics charged with implementing a code of ethics he helped draft.

Stevenson was also chairman of a special Senate committee that reorganized the Senate and served on the United States Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

He unsuccessfully ran for governor of Illinois in 1982 and 1986.

He had been awarded Japan’s Order of the Sacred Treasure with gold and silver stars and was an honorary Professor of Renmin University, China.

Adlai Stevenson III was born in Chicago, the son of Ellen Borden and two time Democratic Party presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II.

He attended Milton Academy in Massachusetts, Harrow School in England, and Harvard College.

Stevenson was also chairman of a Special Senate Committee which led the first major reorganization of the Senate since its Committee system was formed in the early 19th Century.