Senator from Wisconsin who served from 28 August 1957 to 3 January
1989.
He graduated from Yale University and Harvard Business School. He
served with military intelligence in World War II. After the war he
moved to Wisconsin to begin his career in politics.
Became a household name for his monthly "Golden Fleece Awards" started
in 1975 to highlight the biggest or most ridiculous or most ironic
example of government waste. The ceremony as such was a speech on the
Senate floor.
He was first elected to the US Senate in 1957, to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Joseph McCarthy, the Republican senator who was infamous for his communist witch hunts.
In Congress, he had a strong independent streak. He introduced amendments without consulting Democratic party leaders, and even criticized the dictates of then-Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson.
In over two decades, he never traveled abroad on Senate business, and
he returned more than $900,000 of his office allowances to the US
Treasury.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 434-436. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.