Estes Kefauver

Estes Kefauver

Carey Estes Kefauver (* 26 July 1903 in Madisonville , Monroe County , Tennessee ; † 10. August 1963 in Bethesda , Maryland ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party . He represented the state of Tennessee in both houses of Congress .

Early years

Estes Kefauver came from a pastor's family. He studied law at the University of Tennessee until 1924 and received his doctorate in 1927 from Yale University . He had already been admitted to the bar in 1926. He then worked as a lawyer in Chattanooga for several years . Shortly before the start of World War II , he was elected to the United States House of Representatives , to which he was a representative of the third electoral district of Tennessee from 1939 to 1949.

politics

Kefauver entered the United States Senate in 1949 . He made himself known when he opposed private interest groups and denounced their influence on legislation. Among other things, this ended the influence of Edward Crump on Tennessee politics, who had exerted a great deal of influence on the state's governors in the previous decades . From here, Kefauver developed a critique of the connections between gangsterism and politics. This also led to the fact that the Senate set up a committee of inquiry in April 1950 and placed it at its head. In the course of the Kefauver Hearings , Kefauver, members and legal advisors of this committee traveled through the USA for a year. After completing her investigation, Kefauver submitted a sensational report to the Senate at the end of April 1951 with a number of proposals for combating crime. Through his initiative, several criminals were arrested who had so far escaped unmolested, such as the famous Frank Costello . It was also the first Senate investigation to be televised, and Kefauver became the first political television star. On the one hand, he gained popularity through his investigations, but on the other hand aroused lively opposition even within his own party, to which his radical attitude in domestic political controversies contributed, for example in the dispute over the support of farmers by the state and over equality of races. In 1956 he was one of only three (Democratic) senators from the eleven states involved who did not sign the so-called Southern Manifesto - a letter of protest against racial integration; 19 others had signed.

Presidential candidacy

Nevertheless, Kefauver was defeated in the running for the presidential candidacy of Adlai Stevenson at the Democratic Party Congress in 1952 only in the third ballot. He also had hopes of being run as a Democratic presidential candidate in the next election in 1956 . In fact, in March 1956, he won a surprisingly smooth victory over Adlai Stevenson in the Minnesota Democratic primary . He had good initial successes in other states as well, but was then defeated again by Stevenson in Florida and California . He was then nominated as the Democratic Party candidate for the post of Vice President. The two were not elected, however, because Dwight D. Eisenhower was re-elected. However, Kefauver was re-elected to the Senate, where he fought tirelessly for the “Atlantic community” until his death. He continued to deal with corruption in Hollywood and in the unions.

Campaign against Bettie Page

Kefauver led a year-long campaign against the well-known model Bettie Page in the 1950s . Kefauver finally forced their producer Irving Klaw to destroy all of Page's negatives and film materials during the so-called Kefauver hearings . This approach contributed to the end of her career.

family

Kefauver was married to Nancy Pigott and had two sons and two daughters. He is co-author of the book “20 ​​th. Century Congress ". At the age of 60, Kefauver died on August 10, 1963 at Bethesda Naval Hospital after a heart attack.

Movie

• In the 1951 film The Tiger , Kefauver speaks the introduction.
• 1999: In the film Meyer Lansky - American Roulette , Francis Guinan plays Senator Estes Kefauver, who summons the Kosher Nostra head Meyer Lansky to his committee.
• 2005: In The Notorious Bettie Page, the main character gets caught in the crosshairs of a Senate committee headed by Estes Kefauver. He is played by David Strathairn in this film .

literature

• Estes C. Kefauver , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 43/1963 of October 14, 1963, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Estes Kefauver  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Estes Kefauver in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• University of Tennessee Press
• Encyclopedia about people from Tennessee with picture
• Estes Kefauver in the nndb (English)
• The Columbia Encyclopedia

Individual evidence

1. ^ End of career of Bettie Page Sex and Hopp einestages.spiegel.de , accessed on November 8, 2013