US Sen. Robert Byrd — the self-educated son of a West Virginia coal miner who triumphed over poverty and transcended his racist beginnings to become one of the most respected and powerful men in American politics — died yesterday.
He was 92.
Elected to nine terms, Byrd was the longest-serving member of the Senate, where he was remembered as a zealous advocate for his beloved West Virginia.
He was dubbed the “king of pork” by good-government groups, who decried his unrepentant funneling of billions of dollars to his home state.
But Byrd, who served on the Senate Appropriations Committee for 50 years, including a decade as its chair, had no problem with the title, and relished bringing badly needed federal dollars to his state, one of the country’s poorest.
“I have no apology,” he once said. “When I am dead and am opened, they will find West Virginia written on my heart.”
Byrd had been in poor health for several years. He died at 3 a.m. at Inova Hospital in Virginia. He is survived by two daughters, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
His wife of nearly 69 years, Erma James, died in 2006.
Of his former high-school sweetheart, he said, “I have met queens and the wives of shahs and great women from all over the world, [but] to me now, this was the greatest woman I ever met in this world.”
William Shakespeare — whose works he was fond of quoting — couldn’t have crafted a more dramatic life story.
Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr., and his mother died of the flu when he was a year old. He was adopted by an aunt and uncle in West Virginia, who changed his name.
Despite being crowned the valedictorian of his high-school class, Byrd was unable to attend college because he couldn’t afford it.
As a young man, he joined his local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan — a move he called “the greatest mistake of my life.” He claims he joined because of the KKK’s anti-communist philosophy, but also admitted he fell prey to “that Southern atmosphere in which I grew up.”
He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1952, and six years later landed his spot in the Senate when Dwight Eisenhower was president.