Title: Byrd, Harry F. Jr.
Source: The Office of Harry F. Byrd
Jr.
More informationHarry F.
Byrd Jr. represented Virginia in the United States
Senate from 1965 to 1983 after serving seventeen
years in the Senate of Virginia. A member of one
of Virginia's most powerful political families,
Byrd took over the Senate seat from his father in
1965. Byrd, however, was also something of a
dissident, quitting the Democratic Party in 1970
to run as an Independent. In addition to his
career in politics, Byrd followed his father into
journalism as well, serving as editor and
publisher of the Winchester
Star from 1935 to 1981 and as publisher of
the Harrisonburg Daily
News-Record from 1939 to 2001.
Title: The Byrd Family
Source: Special Collections,
University of Virginia
More informationHarry Flood
Byrd Jr. was born in
Winchester, one of four children of Harry F.
Byrd Sr. (1887–1966) and Anne Douglas
Beverley Byrd. Harry Jr. attended
Virginia Military Institute
and the
University
of Virginia. During World War II he attained
the rank of lieutenant commander in the United
States Navy Reserve. In 1941 he married Gretchen
Thomson, who died in 1989. The marriage produced
two sons, Harry F. III and Thomas T., and one
daughter, Beverley.
Byrd and his father shared a passion for journalism and politics, the basis of a close bond between them. As editor and publisher of the family newspapers and as a member of the state senate, he was a conservative Democrat like his father and a loyal member of the Byrd Organization. His principal accomplishment while serving in the Virginia General Assembly was the Byrd Tax Credit Act of 1950, a controversial measure that called for an automatic refund to taxpayers if the state's revenues surpassed budget estimates by a certain percentage. Byrd publicly supported Virginia's program of Massive Resistance to school desegregation with which his father was closely associated; he privately thought the legislation unwise, however.
Title: "Senator Byrd for
Virginia" (poster)
Source: Special Collections,
University of Virginia
More informationIn 1965
Virginia governor Albertis S. Harrison Jr.
appointed Byrd to complete the U.S. Senate term of
his father, who had resigned due to illness.
Challenged by a progressive former state
legislator, Armistead Boothe, in the 1966
Democratic primary, Byrd won a narrow victory by
8,225 votes. Within the Democratic Party the power
of the Byrd Organization had eroded as African
Americans, labor union members, and newcomers to
the state became politically active. Four years
later Byrd decided not to subject himself to the
uncertainties of the primary. In March 1970 he
announced that he would seek reelection as an
Independent. Publicly he declared that he was
abandoning the party of his father because the
Democratic State Central Committee had adopted a
loyalty oath binding all Democratic nominees to
support the party's candidates at the next general
election. Facing Democratic and Republican
opponents in the fall, Byrd received a majority
(53.5 percent) of the vote. Resisting overtures
from United States president Richard M. Nixon to
join the Republican Party, Byrd continued to
caucus with the Democrats. In 1976 he became the
first U.S. senator to be elected and then
reelected as an Independent. He chose not to seek
reelection to another term in 1982.
Byrd followed a consistently conservative course in the Senate. Urging economy in government, he denounced waste in federal programs. While supporting a strong national defense, he opposed sending troops into Cambodia in 1970 and voted to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which the Lyndon B. Johnson administration had interpreted as a congressional authorization to wage war in Southeast Asia.
Since his retirement Byrd has lived in Winchester, maintained his interest in the family's businesses, and taken public stands for fiscal responsibility in state government.
First published: February 12, 2008 | Last modified: April 7, 2011
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