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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.
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