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Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii Is Dead at 88

Dec. 17, 2012 6:25pm Jason Howerton

U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye speaks at the Japanese Cultural Center, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012 in Honolulu. Credit: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the influential Democrat who broke racial barriers on Capitol Hill and played key roles in congressional investigations of the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals, died Monday. He was 88.

Inouye, a senator since January 1963, was currently the longest serving senator and was president pro tempore of the Senate, third in the line presidential succession. His office said Monday that he died of respiratory complications at a Washington-area hospital.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Inouye’s death on the Senate floor.

Inouye was a World War II hero and Medal of Honor winner who lost an arm to a German hand grenade during a battle in Italy. He became the first Japanese-American to serve in Congress, when he was elected to the House in 1959, the year Hawaii became a state. He won election to the Senate three years later and served there longer than anyone in American history except Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who died in 2010 after 51 years in the Senate.

After Byrd’s death, Inouye became president pro tem of the Senate, a largely ceremonial post that also placed him in the line of succession to the presidency, after the vice president and the speaker of the House.

Although tremendously popular in his home state, Inouye actively avoided the national spotlight until he was thrust into it. He was the keynote speaker at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and later reluctantly joined the Senate’s select committee on the Watergate scandal. The panel’s investigation led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Inouye also served as chairman of the committee that investigated the Iran-Contra arms and money affair, which rocked Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

A quiet but powerful lawmaker, Inouye ran for Senate majority leader several times without success. He gained power as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee before Republicans took control of the Senate in 1994.

When the Democrats regained control in the 2006 elections, Inouye became chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. He left that post two years later to become chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.

Inouye also chaired the Senate Indian Affairs Committee for many years. He was made an honorary member of the Navajo nation and given the name “The Leader Who Has Returned With a Plan.”

In 2000, Inouye was one of 22 Asian-American World War II veterans who belatedly received the nation’s top honor for bravery on the battlefield, the Medal of Honor. The junior senator from Hawaii at the time, Daniel Akaka, had worked for years to get officials to review records to determine if some soldiers had been denied the honor because of racial bias.

Inouye’s first political campaign in 1954 helped break the Republican Party’s political domination of Hawaii. He was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives, where he served as majority leader. He became a territorial senator in 1958.

Inouye was serving as Hawaii’s first congressman in 1962, when he ran for the Senate and won 70 percent of the vote against Republican Benjamin Dillingham II, a member of a prominent Hawaii family.

In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson urged Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had won the Democratic nomination for president, to select Inouye as his running mate. Johnson told Humphrey that Inouye’s World War II injuries would silence Humphrey’s critics on the Vietnam War.

“He answers Vietnam with that empty sleeve. He answers your problems with (Republican presidential candidate Richard) Nixon with that empty sleeve,” Johnson said.

But Inouye was not interested.

“He was content in his position as a U.S. senator representing Hawaii,” Jennifer Sabas, Inouye’s Hawaii chief of staff, said in 2008.

Inouye reluctantly joined the Watergate proceedings at the strong urging of Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield. The panel’s investigation of the role of the Nixon White House in covering up a burglary at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate in June 1972 ultimately prompted the House to initiate impeachment proceedings against Nixon, who resigned before the issue reached a vote in the House.

In one of the most memorable exchanges of the Watergate proceedings, an attorney for two of Nixon’s closest advisers, John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman, referred to Inouye as a “little Jap.”

Democrat Rep. Mazie Hirono, right, gets a kiss from U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye after Mazie won the Democratic primary nomination for a Hawaii seat in the U.S. Senate, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 in Honolulu. Credit: AP

The attorney, John J. Wilson, later apologized. Inouye accepted the apology, noting that the slur came after he had muttered “what a liar” into a microphone that he thought had been turned off following Ehrlichman’s testimony.

After the hearings, Inouye said he thought the committee’s findings “will have a lasting effect on future presidents and their advisers. It will help reform the campaign practices of the nation.”

He achieved celebrity status when he served as chairman of the congressional panel investigating the Iran-Contra affair in 1987. That committee held lengthy hearings into allegations that top Reagan administration officials had facilitated the sale of weapons to Iran, in violation of a congressional arms embargo, in hopes of winning the release of American hostages in Iran and to raise money to help support anti-communist fighters in Nicaragua.

“This was not a happy chore, but it had to be done,” Inouye said of the hearings.

The panel sharply criticized Reagan for what it considered laxity in handling his duties as president. “We were fair,” Inouye said. “Not because we wanted to be fair but because we had to be fair.”

Born Sept. 7, 1924, to immigrant parents in Honolulu, Inouye was 17 and dreaming of becoming a surgeon when Japanese planes flew over his home to bomb Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, changing the course of his life.

In 1943, Inouye volunteered for the Army and was assigned to the famed Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which earned the nickname “Go For Broke” and was one of the most decorated units of the war. Inouye rose to the rank of captain and earned the Distinguished Service Cross and Bronze Star. Many of the 22 veterans who received Medals of Honor in 2000 had been in the 442nd.

Unlike the families of many of his comrades in arms, Inouye’s wasn’t subjected to the trauma and indignity of being sent by the U.S. government during the war to internment camps for Japanese Americans.

“It was the ultimate of patriotism,” Inouye said at a 442nd reunion. “These men, who came from behind barbed wire internment camps where the Japanese-Americans were held, to volunteer to fight and give their lives. … We knew we were expendable.”

Inouye said he didn’t feel he had any choice but to go to war.

“I tried to put myself in the shoes of my neighbors who were not Japanese,” Inouye once said. “I felt that there was a need for us to demonstrate that we’re just as good as anybody else.

“The price was bloody and expensive, but I felt we succeeded,” he said.

Inouye’s dream of becoming a surgeon ended in the closing days of the war.

On April 21, 1945, he was leading a charge on a machine gun nest in Italy’s Po Valley. He was shot in the abdomen, but kept inching toward the machine gun and managed to throw two grenades before his right arm was shattered by a German grenade. Even then, he continued to direct his platoon.

“By his gallant, aggressive tactics and by his indomitable leadership, Second Lieutenant Inouye enabled his platoon to advance through formidable resistance,” his Medal of Honor citation said.

He spent the next 20 months in military hospitals. During his convalescence, Inouye met Bob Dole, the future majority leader of the Senate and 1996 Republican presidential candidate, who also was recovering from severe war injuries. The two later served together in the Senate for decades.

Despite his military service and honors, Inouye returned to an often-hostile America. On his way home from the war, he often recounted, he entered a San Francisco barbershop only to be told, “We don’t cut Jap hair.”

He returned to Hawaii and received a bachelor’s degree in government and economics from the University of Hawaii in 1950. He graduated from George Washington University’s law school in 1952.

Inouye proposed to Margaret Shinobu Awamura on their second date, and they married in 1949. Their only child, Daniel Jr., was born in 1964. When his wife died in 2006, Inouye said, “It was a most special blessing to have had Maggie in my life for 58 years.”

He remarried in 2008, to Irene Hirano, a Los Angeles community leader.

Inouye shunned the trappings of Washington’s elite, rising to go to work in a car pool and leaving the telephone number of his Bethesda, Md., home in the phone book.

He took pride in handling even the smallest requests from his constituents.

He said he once was awakened at 2 a.m. by a telephone call from a Hawaii family asking for help in getting a soldier home for a family emergency. Inouye said he immediately called the Pentagon, and 30 minutes later the soldier had his orders to return home.

“That’s a special type of satisfaction that I can enjoy that none of you can,” he said.

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Comments (50)

whoanelly
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 4:33am
Ok he was a medal of honor recipient and for that he deserves some respect. However, that aside, what has he done that was in contravention to something even more important than the MoH? That being the Constitution of The United States? Did he vote for the Patriot Act? Did he vote for Obama care? Did he vote for gun control previously? Did he vote to bail out banks, GM, Chrysler? Did he vote to give funding to Solyndra and other green companies? Did he vote for welfare entitlements? Did he vote to raise the debt ceiling? Did he refrain from voting for a budget? Was he part of the governments out of control spending? If the answer to these questions are yes, even if not all, then he lost any respect for anything other than the actions he took to received the MoH. BTW, we know he earned that fighting in the 442d, which was made up of all Americans of Japanese Ancestry, would he have risked his life to save whitey if he would have been allowed into a mixed unit? IDK, but it makes you wonder.

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valleyfever
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 1:10am
Thank you for your service Sir. May you rest in peace.

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flatlandbroncofan
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 12:17am
Just another good Liberal. And you know that the only good Liberal is a …..

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- aproudinfidel
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 12:36am
  You are a moron. This man won the Medal of Honor. RIP senator, you are a real American hero. Screw you flatland.
  
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liljoe62
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 12:03am
In the end, his politics ARENT what made him, his military service did! Show some RESPECT for the hero, dont diss him for his party! No I didnt agree with his POLITICAL stances, but a PATRIOT he was! And should be THANKED NOT with insults, but reverence!

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- aproudinfidel
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 12:37am
  Well said from a conservative.
  
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Cape_Lookout_RW_Extremist
Posted on December 18, 2012 at 12:01am
well if you can’t cay anything good you shouldn’t say anything at all…so I won’t

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autofixer
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 10:49pm
http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/2799/inouye-daniel-k.php

Thanks for your WWII service Senator. After that…not so much.

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- savagenatn
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 11:57pm
  agreed…I honor the man for his bravery during the war, but his politics stink to high heaven
  
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bhosux
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 10:32pm
How much will it cost for the citizens of Hawaii to bury him?

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Marine25
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 10:16pm
No respect, dignity or patriotism left here at the Blaze. You are no better than the punks that spit on our boys returning from Vietnam.

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- DeOppressoLiber
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 10:56pm
  Lets clue some of you people in on history. I know just because you do not like someone you have the right to shoot your mouth off with out looking anything up, while sitting in front of a machine that give you access to a lot of information.
  
  100Bn and 442 RGT CBT TM stats:
  About 14,000 served
  9,486 Purple Hearts
  21 MOH
  52 DSC
  560 Silver Stars
  4,000 Bronze Stars (back in the day of “Its a Star so it is for Valor, not an Atta Boy”)
  8 Presidential Unit Citations (Highest unit award for any Branch)
  
  And their families where imprisoned by the government while they served.
  
  MOH winner in the 100th Bn and 442 Regimental Combat Team. The most decorated US Army unit ever. Saved the Lost Battalion of the Texas Division in WWII. They through these guys into a meat grinder to save part of the Texas Army as it was known. It lost 800 men in 5 days to save a 200+ men.
  
  Please lets have some respect, I did not agree with his politics but will give the Hero all the respect he deserves.
  
  Old Guard knock this one out of the ball park. Put him in the Punch Bowl under some palm trees, I am sure he would enjoy that.
  
  To all the men of the One Puka Puka and the Four Four Duce
  
  “GO FOR BROKE” Thank you for your Service and Devotion to Duty.
  
  Report this comment
- Dismayed Veteran
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 10:55am
  Marine25/DeoppressorLibre
  
  His charactor defines the man. Senator Inouye was a true patriot. He did the unnatural action of a soldier. He advanced into the face of enemy fire. He led his men even when wounded. I could care less about the fact he was a Democrat. He was part of the Greatest Generation. All the twisted crap that spews from the haters on this posting only diminish them not Inouye.
  
  Thank you both for your service and your postings.
  
  Report this comment
drs1969
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:20pm
A poster child for term limits.

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- 19RANDY59
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:30pm
  Yea, I wonder how many conservative voices in his constituency were silenced over the years????
  
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- DMENTED
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 5:42am
  I wonder how far he had his dirty little fingers in the birth certificate affair? I figure up to his shoulders…
  
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- HI_Don
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 7:43pm
  @DMENTED – no, that was Abercrombie, not Inouye.
  
  As many have said here, I didn’t agree with his politics, but I deeply respect the man. I have actually met Mr. Inouye, and he is probably the very last of the American Democrats. He believed deeply in this country and respected the rights of others who did also even if the manner in which he showed that patriotism was different. He believed in more social measures, but he was no communist or socialist like many Dems are today. He learned to play the Washington system, when he felt his state had an important need, he did not hesitate to find a way to get it approved, and so he became known as one of the kings of pork. He stuffed his “projects” into any bill he knew would be on a fast track for approval, so he was very effective. Unfortunately when every senator does that, we become 16 T in debt, so no I didn’t agree with how he got stuff done. That said, he never did any of it I know of with anything other than a complete belief it was for his constituents. The guy did not live high on the hog, didn’t make huge profits for his service (unlike Harry Reid and Kerry and the like) and often sided with Republicans because it was the right thing to do. You won’t find any speeches he gave where he defamed or misled folks on facts just to get a political advantage. He lived a life of respect. I voted against him every election, but at least you could respect him.
  
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Isis79
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:05pm
Career politicians are what is wrong with our political system, it becomes more about them and staying in power than doing what is right for the American people. I really have no opinion on Mr. Inouye other than he was obviously in power for too long. Presidents should get one six year term, senators one and representatives three which means the longest any could serve is six years. America is broke, broken and divided like never before and it is going to get a lot worse before it ever gets better if it ever will at all.

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- rickc34
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:20pm
  Stepped into eternity and to his final destination, which one smoking or non-smoking? How did he use the power he was given? Did he lie cheat and steal ?
  
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Advection
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:01pm
The guy died in office, having occupied a US Senate seat just a few weeks shy of 50 years. Should we really celebrate people who hold federal power that long? Would the Founding Fathers have?

Here is what the world looked like in 1962, the year he was elected: JFK nearly blows up the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Mercury astronaut, John Glenn, becomes the first American to orbit the Earth in “Friendship 7″. The first business mainframe computer was sold. Walter Cronkite became anchor of the CBS Evening News. Zenith markets its first color TV. Rosie O’Donnell was born, and Eleanor Roosevelt (b.1884) died.

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/05/50-years-ago-the-world-in-1962/100296/

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ktmrider1
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:57pm
good riddence all the left wing loons need to die off and make america a great nation again

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LameLiberals
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:25pm
Obama generated hatred for the left onto the right. It works both ways. This guy was a liberal so I could care less. . It is too bad he didn’t die before the election – one less Obama vote although ACORN affiliates would ensure a dead man voted anyway.

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Uechi
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:24pm
Thank your for your service in WW2 after that I’ll censor my comments in respect for his family.

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TIME_2_END_THE_PAUL_CAMPAIGN_IN_12
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:14pm
Go in peace Medal of Honor recipient…

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kaimana
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:10pm
Senator Inouye was a patriot and probably the only democrat I truly respect. The rest of the elitist, lying sob’s that populate the democratic party can all go to hell.

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- 19RANDY59
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:22pm
  that’s what all the other dems say about their rep. You’re all either fools or free loaders. In which case your reps exactly reflect their constituency.
  
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stopprintn
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:06pm
Hey Grim Reaper, let me put a bug in yer ear……Ginsburg

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- AngryK9
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:22pm
  How about Pelosi, Reid and maybe even Obama. And that useless turd John Boehner.
  
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AngryK9
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:00pm
Now that’s a good demorcrat.

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GoodStuff
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 7:50pm
RIP…but what in the hell is an 88 year old doing in the Senate?

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- TrueSoundsOfLiberty
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 3:41am
  I dunno, maybe you should ask Strom Thurmond
  
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Excomunicatedmarine
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 7:36pm
One hell of a guy. Can’t say I saw everything his way, especially the last 10 years or so, but what a man. God bless you Daniel, we will all remember you. Aloha no

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- 19RANDY59
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:33pm
  I’m sure everyone he did favors for, will miss him
  
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- spirited
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 10:08pm
  Amen…
  
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Unix
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 7:15pm
We will not touch upon that in this forum…

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- neidermeyer
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:00pm
  Why not? And who made you moderator?
  
  He was a commie footsoldier in the war against our values. The fact that he did some positive things 65 years ago is for the most part irrelevant.
  
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- 19RANDY59
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:28pm
  Who says he did anything positive 65 years ago. He was probably a liability to his outfit, rather than an asset. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to share a fox hole with a back stabbing Libturd. Just like Kerry
  
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- Unix
  Posted on December 18, 2012 at 12:20pm
  I was referring to a congressional hearing when Ollie North was questioned about Iran-Contra, I quoted Inouye, that is all.
  
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progressiveslayer
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 7:13pm
He was a senator since 1963 and therein lies the problem,they get in power and they can’t let it go,all that money and power is too intoxicating so they stay in power until they die of old age,disgusting. You might say vote em out that’s the term limit,I used to be naive to then I grew up and saw how the real world works. Lifetime politicians are what’s wrong with DC,fix that and we’ll be better off.

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- Advection
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:09pm
  A few years ago, I saw them push an old geezer down the chamber floor in a wheelchair. I think he was wearing an oxygen mask. They cheered. I couldn’t believe it.
  
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- progressiveslayer
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 10:44pm
  I think you’re referring to Strom Thurmond and it was like a weekend at Bernie’s a macabre affair indeed.
  
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- Advection
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 11:51pm
  @PROHRESSIVESLAYER,
  
  That was it!
  
  We seriously need term limits. These people have become like Dukes and Earls. They’ve just dispensed with the titles.
  
  Report this comment
Teufel Hunden
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 7:09pm
I distinctly remember the way he treated Col. North during the Iran-Contra hearings, and now that Ol’ Dan is gone, drinks are on me in this establishment! Semper fi Ollie!

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Diane TX
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 7:07pm
Well, just this past Friday -

An anonymous Democratic senator attacked Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye in an interview with the Hill Friday, claiming that the 88-year old Inouye, who is currently hospitalized with respiratory complications, is an ineffective committee leader and has stayed in the Senate for “too long.

“I love Inouye. He’s just been sort of not there in terms of running the committee,” said one of the 16 Democrats on the Senate Committee on Appropriations. “We get shunted to the side, we don’t get our bills out, we’re not forceful about it. I guess that argues for term limits. Sometimes people stay just too long.”
—————————————————————————————————————————
I guess that anonymous Democratic senator got his wish.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/17/dem-senators-attack-their-ailing-colleague/

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DougHuffman
Posted on December 17, 2012 at 6:57pm
Hmm, no mention of Hawaiian politics. No mention of the RKABA in Hawaii or for Ohana kama’aina or for the mega-buck$$ thrown at Quixotic windmills and their stand-by GE gas-turbine generators. Hawaii politics is bucked-up to the max.

Hawaiʻi should be the first successful secession.

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- Eye Kant Serf
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 8:25pm
  From your keyboard to God’s ears.
  
  Inouye built the State of Hawai’i then kept the pork rolling in ever since. Without his influence, that gravy train is going to end.
  
  It’s time for the Hawaiian Islands to fend for themselves. It was a nation before — albeit a monarchy with a parliament — it’s time they became an independent constitutional republic. Washington, D.C. is 5000 miles away, for Pete’s sake. With that distance, Afghanistan might as well be a state of the union.
  
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- drs1969
  Posted on December 17, 2012 at 9:24pm
  We can only hope. In 1991, I was in Hawaii and saw an old beat-up car w/ a bumper sticker that said “Impeach Scrooge Bush”.
  ‘Freeloading’ ought to be their state motto.
  
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