Max Cleland

Max Cleland

Max Cleland and Jimmy Carter (July 1978)

Jimmy Carter and Max Cleland (November 1978)

Max Cleland (2nd from left) and Al Gore (middle) (February 2000)

Senate election in Georgia 1996 (blue counties voted for Cleland)

Joseph Maxwell "Max" Cleland (born August 24, 1942 in Atlanta , Georgia ) is an American politician . Cleland served one term as a United States Senator for the state of Georgia.

Life

Early life

Max Cleland grew up as the only child of Hughie and Juanita Kesler Cleland in Lithonia , a 3,000-person town in DeKalb County . His parents were middle-class workers in the United States. After his acquired in 1960 graduated from Lithonia High School he enrolled at Stetson University in DeLand ( Florida a) to which he in 1964 his Bachelor in Political Science acquired. After four more years of studying at Emory University in Atlanta, Cleland passed his master's degree in history in 1968 .

Shortly thereafter, in March 1968, he was drafted into the United States Army as a soldier and sent to Vietnam for the war taking place there . He passed his baptism of fire in April 1968 when he was used in the Battle of Khe Sanh . As a result, he was promoted to the rank of captain . Cleland had been in Vietnam for less than a month when, on April 8, 1968, he was ordered to take over an enemy position on a hill near Khe Sanh . Shortly after he got out of the helicopter with two of his comrades and took cover, he picked up a hand grenade that he thought had fallen out of his uniform pocket. Suddenly the military equipment exploded. Only thanks to the support of his comrades did he stay alive. Nevertheless, the injuries Cleland had suffered were so severe that both legs below the hollow of the knee and his right forearm had to be amputated in the hospital. Cleland was only 25 years old at the time. He later received the Silver Star and the Soldier Medal for his services .

Political career

After his recovery and rehabilitation, Cleland decided to try his luck in politics. As a member of the Democratic Party , he ran for a seat in the Georgia Senate in 1970 . At the age of 27, he was the youngest state senator in Georgia to date. Here he also met Jimmy Carter , with whom Cleland has been friends since then. Although this supported Cleland in 1974 in the attempt to become Lieutenant Governor of Georgia , but the elected Governor George Busbee decided against Cleland as his deputy and raised Zell Miller to the office.

When Jimmy Carter in 1976. President of the United States was elected, he appointed Cleland to head the United States Veterans Administration , a federal agency, the 1989 US President George Bush to the Department of Veterans Affairs has been upgraded. In his role in 1978, among other things, he was a military consultant for the production of the feature film Coming Home - you will return home with Jon Voight and Jane Fonda in the leading roles.

After Carter's electoral defeat in 1980, Cleland also had to leave office. He moved back to Georgia, where he successfully ran for Secretary of State in 1982, succeeding David Poythress . As Home Secretary, he was primarily responsible for the state's economic development, but was also responsible for overseeing elections. Cleland was confirmed as Secretary of State three times, in 1986, 1990 and 1994 . In 1990, he briefly considered running for governor of Georgia, but gave up that venture in favor of his third candidacy for the office of Secretary of State .

In 1996 he announced his candidacy for the office of US Senator. With a lead of almost 30,000 votes, he won the election against his Republican challenger Guy Millner and was sworn in on January 3, 1997. Cleland was considered a senator who represented both Democratic and Republican views. In 2001 he also took the view of a tax cut, as proposed by George W. Bush , but appeared to be more liberal in social policy issues. So he sided with the pro-choice movement in the USA. In 2003 he was one of 29 Senators from the Democratic Party who voted for US troops to intervene in Iraq . He later regretted his vote. The very radical campaign of his Republican opponent Saxby Chambliss and the presence of US President Bush in Georgia, who campaigned for Chambliss, were among the reasons why Cleland lost the re-election in 2002.

Late life

Cleland was appointed a member of the commission of inquiry into the 9/11 attacks in 2003. However, he resigned his mandate in December 2003, publicly accusing the White House of "undermining the work of the commission" and calling the commission of inquiry a "national scandal". Instead, he accepted a board position at the Export-Import Bank of the United States , where he worked from 2004 to 2009. US President Barack Obama named Cleland a member of the American Battle Monuments Commission in June 2009 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The New York Times: Former Senator Will Soon Quit 9/11 Panel, Leaving Gap for Victims' Advocates By PHILIP SHENON, December 5, 2003 (accessed December 15, 2013)
2. ↑ salon.com: The president ought to be ashamed , November 22, 2003 (accessed December 14, 2013)

Web links

Commons : Max Cleland  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Max Cleland in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Max Cleland in nndb (English)