Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Daniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan (March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was a four-term U.S. Senator, ambassador, administration official, and academic. He was first elected to the United States Senate in 1976 by the citizens of New York as the nominee of the Democratic Party and re-elected three times, in 1982, 1988, and 1994. He declined to run for re-election in 2000 and was succeeded by Democrat Hillary Clinton. Clinton began her campaign for the Senate at Moynihan's farm in upstate New York. Moynihan supported her bid for his Senate seat.

Public service

Prior to his years in the Senate, Moynihan was a member of four successive presidential administrations, beginning with the administration of John F. Kennedy, and continuing through the administrations of Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford.

Related Topics:
Senate - Presidential - John F. Kennedy - Lyndon B. Johnson - Richard Nixon - Gerald Ford

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Moynihan was an Undersecretary of Labor for policy in the Kennedy administration, and in the early part of the Johnson administration. In that capacity, he did not have operational responsibilities, allowing him to devote all of his time to trying to formulate national policy for what would become the War on Poverty. He had a small staff including Paul Barton, Ellen Broderick, and Ralph Nader who at 29 years of age, hitchhiked to Washington, D.C. and got a job working for Moynihan in 1963.

Related Topics:
Undersecretary of Labor - War on Poverty - Paul Barton - Ellen Broderick - Ralph Nader

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They took inspiration from the book Slavery written by Stanley Elkins. Elkins essentially contended that slavery had made the blacks dependent on the dominant society, and that that dependence still existed a century later. This was the beginning of much of the philosophy that the government must go beyond simply ensuring that members of minority races have the same rights as everyone else, and in fact give minority members benefits that others did not get on the grounds that those benefits were necessary to counteract that lingering effects of past actions. Moynihan found data at the Labor Department that showed that even as fewer people were unemployed, more people were joining the welfare rolls. These recipients were families with children, but only one parent (almost invariably the mother). The laws at that time permitted such families to receive welfare payments in certain parts of the United States. Moynihan's report was seen by people on the left as "Blaming the Victim", a slogan coined by William Ryan. He was also seen as propogating the views of racists, because much of the press coverage of his reports focused on the discussion of children being born out of wedlock. Despite Moynihan's warnings, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program had the "Man out of the house rule". Critics said that the nation was paying poor women to throw their husbands out of the house. Moynihan supported Richard Nixon's idea of a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI).

Related Topics:
Stanley Elkins - United States - William Ryan - Aid to Families with Dependent Children - Richard Nixon

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By 1964, Monynihan was supporting Robert F. Kennedy, (the brother of the assassinated president who had appointed him). For this reason he was not favored by then president Johnson. He left the Johnson administration in 1965. He ran for but did not win the presidency of the New York City Council. He then became an academic, but continued to write about the problems of the poor in the cities of the North Eastern part of the United States. With turmoil and riots in the United States he wrote that the next administration would have to be able to unite the nation again. Connecting with President elect Richard Nixon in 1968 he joined Nixon's White House Staff as an urban affairs advisor. He was very influential at that time, as one of the few people in Nixon's inner circle who had done academic research related to social policies. He later served as the ambassador to India from 1973 to 1975, and as the United States Representative to the United Nations, serving a rotation as President of the United Nations Security Council in 1976. He remained a member of the Democratic Party, although he feared that the party had moved too far to the left at that time.

Related Topics:
1964 - Robert F. Kennedy - New York City Council - United States - Riots - President elect - Richard Nixon - 1968 - White House Staff - India - 1973 - 1975 - United States Representative - United Nations - United Nations Security Council - 1976 - Democratic Party

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He once wrote in a memo to President Nixon that "the issue of race could benefit from a period of benign neglect". He argued that Nixon's conservative's tactics were playing into the hands of the radicals, but he regreted that he was misinterpreted as advocating that the government should neglect minorities.

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In 1976, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating Representative Bella Abzug in the Democratic primary, and Conservative Party incumbent James Buckley in the general election.

Related Topics:
Bella Abzug - Conservative Party - James Buckley

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