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61 ■ The Clarion-Ledger/Jackson Daily News ■ Sunday, January 8, 1989
The senator was critically wounded by two muggers in Washington in 1973
■	From 51
Thomas Dodd had diverted campaign contributions to his personal use. Sten-nis’ committee concluded its work by censuring Dodd.
After the probe ended, Republican Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon told one interviewer: “Some of us freshmen were sitting around once during the Dodd hearings and we agreed that if we found ourselves charged with some terrible crime and if we could pick our judge we’d pick John Stennis to judge us.”
Senator shot
Stennis’ career and his life almost ended abruptly in 1973 when he was critically wounded by gunshots from two young muggers outside his Washington home. The senator was shot in the left side and in the thigh after his assailants took his wallet, a gold pocket watch, his Phi Beta Kappa key and a quarter.
For five weeks, the 71-year-old Stennis slipped in and out of consciousness at Walter Reed Army Hospital.
“I remember I dreamed one night in the hospital that I saw the headline of a newspaper and it read: ‘Stennis Dies In His Sleep,’ ” he recalled. “I remember I said to myself, ‘Well, so that’s the way it turned out.’ ”
But the wiry Stennis survived the crisis and soon was on the way to recovery.
Longtime administrative assistant Eph Cresswell said that once Stennis got off the critical list, the senator began working out of his hospital bed.
“We had a miniature office at Walter Reed,” Cresswell said. “I would carry work out there in the morning, and he would give instructions and I’d bring them back in the afternoon.”
After Stennis returned to the Senate, rumors of an impending retirement surfaced, but the senator used his wry down-home sense of humor to quell the talk.
“One just doesn’t go through what I
have to recover and then retire,” he said.
It was a weaker Stennis — physically and politically — who returned to the Senate.
Liberal Sen. Edmund Muskie, a Maine Democrat, scored a victory over Stennis on a major military procurement bill in 1975, and a group of younger liberals on his Armed Services Committee ran over him on several key issues.
The onset of the Reagan revolution in 1980 gave the Republicans control of the White House and the Senate, forcing Stennis out as Armed Services chairman.
Stennis faced his first serious political challenger in 1982 from well-financed Republican Haley Barbour of Yazoo City.
The campaign focused primarily on age
—	whether Stennis at 81 was too old or Barbour at 34 was too young.
It was a new experience for Stennis, having to stump the state drumming up support. He had to rely on television commercials to get out his message, an experience that left him with a bad taste.
“He didn’t understand the importance of the modem television era and had a little disdain for it,” said Raymond Strother, Stennis campaign consultant.
Stennis recalls that there was a suggestion from one of his aides that he not use the phrase “plowing a straight furrow to the end of my row” in his campaign.
“They said nobody knows what that means and you won’t get re-elected,” Stennis said.
“I said, ‘Well, I don’t have to be elected. Those words are going to stay in,’ ” Stennis said.
Stennis defeated Barbour with 65 percent of the vote, carrying all but Rankin and Yazoo counties.
Tragedies mount 1
Tragedy continued to dog the senator. In 1983, “Miss Coy,” his wife of 54 years, died. That same year he underwent car-
Tom Roster/The Clarion-Ledger/Jackson Daily News
Members of the media question Sen. John C. Stennis after his endorsement of Wayne Dowdy during his 1988 campaign for Stennis’ Senate seat. Republican Trent Lott defeated Dowdy.
diovascular surgery and suffered a bout with pneumonia. A year later, doctors removed his cancerous left leg, sentencing him to a wheelchair.
The resilient Stennis kept returning to the Senate and, when the Democrats regained control of the Senate in 1986, he took over as chairman of the Appropriations Committee and was elected president pro tem, making him third in line to the presidency.
With his health problems and his age working against him, Stennis announced his retirement on Oct. 19, 1987, shortly after routine prostate surgery in Washington.
“I am forced to recognize that another six-year term in the Senate would require me to promise to continue my work here through age 93,” the 87-year-old Stennis saidjnannouncine his decision.
“Common sense dictates that I cannot be confident of being physically able to continue to give my best effort through another six-year term. My doctors confirm my judgment.
“My heart says ‘yes,’ run again, but my best judgment says ‘no.’ ”
Stennis, in a recent interview, added, “Energy, you just don’t have enough of it to run a day’s time.”
Although he said he will miss public life, Stennis noted, “I can do other things. I don’t have any plans to practice law. I just know I’m going to stir around. That’s a good old country expression: ‘He knows howto stir.’
“I’ll get around and find some things to do. You see, you need something to do as long as you are able to do it.”
His colleagues and friends say Stennis’ legacy will be the standard by which other senators are judged.
“I keep telling people they better know him and they better talk to him, because histoiy is going to be very kind to Sen. Stennis,” said 3rd District U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery.
Bill Simpson added, “He’ll be remembered for having been one of the watches on the waters of freedom.”
Remembrances from:
Robert Byrd
Sen. John Stennis’s retirement announcement is tantamount to the proclamation of the end of an era. In his 40 years in the United States Senate, John Stennis was the center of, or a vital participant in, some of the most momentous decisions and legislative efforts in modern American history. John Stennis brought to his office an un- Byrd equaled sense of personal integrity and responsible patriotism. Again and again, Sen. Stennis’ voice and opinion were major influences on helping his colleagues make their own decisions, recognizing as they did his wisdom, decency and practical experience. Certainly all Americans owe Sen. Stennis a special appreciation for the multiple occasions in which he assisted our country to navigate through turbulent channels.
I have counted Sen. Stennis as one of my warmest friends and colleagues. I know that I speak for all of our Senate family in saying Sen. Stennis’ contributions to our day-to-day work will be missed, and he will depart from our midst at the end of his term with the unparalleled esteem and admiration of all who have known him and benefit-ted from his friendship.
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Robert Byrd has represented West Virginia as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate since 1959.
Remembrances from:
Richard Nixon
I have had the privilege of knowing John Stennis from the time he came to Washington 41 years ago.
We served together in the House and he was one of the most respected members of the Senate during the eight years I presided over that body as vice president and the 5’/2 years I served as president. He was a Democrat and I was a Republican but on critical foreign Nixon policy issues, which were my primary interest during my years in Washington, I cannot think of a single major issue on which we disagreed.
We were both part of the bipartisan majority that supported President Truman’s budget request for financing the Marshall Plan. President Eisenhower once told me that he could always count on John Stennis for support on critical foreign policy issues, i found that to be true during my service as president as well.
What particularly impresses me about him is that in addition to his other outstanding qualities, he is one of a select few of senators that a president can confide in without being concerned that the substance of the conversation would be revealed to the press. In 1969, for example, when the communist Vietnamese troops were making hit and run attacks on our forces in Vietnam from their sanctuaries in Cambodia, the
Jpint Chiefs of Staff strongly urged that I authorize bombing their staging areas in order to prevent the loss of lives of America’s fighting men. For the operation to be successful, it had to be secret. On the other hand, I felt that it was essential that we inform two senior members of the United States Senate of our plans. The ones I chose were Sens. Richard Russell and John Stennis.
I chose them because they were highly respected by their colleagues, both Democrat and Republican, because as members of the Armed Services Committee they knew what the stakes were, and above all because I knew that they would keep our plans secret even if they happened to disagree with them. In fact, both strongly supported my decision. The raids were successful and hundreds of American lives were saved as a result.
In these days when it has virtually become a badge of honor for a member of the House or Senate to leak confidential information to the press, John Stennis and Dick Russell were men who stood for the old values and whose word was always their bond.
John Stennis has set an example of statesmanship above partisanship which should be an inspiration for all who serve in the House and Senate in the years ahead.
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Richard M. Nixon served as U.S. president from 1969 to 1974.