Members of the Dartmouth community are mourning the death of former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Paul Tsongas '62 who died Saturday of pneumonia.
Tsongas, 55, was hospitalized Jan. 3 with a liver problem related to his cancer therapy and later developed pneumonia. He died at Brigham and Women's Hospital, according to the Associated Press. Tsongas was cancer free when he died, the hospital told the AP.
Dartmouth remembers
Jess Hughes '97, whose family was close to Tsongas, said, "He really understood he could do so much by just putting his message across. Everybody's losing a really great leader."
Despite his eventual political career, Tsongas actually came to the College intending to major in chemistry but graduated with a government degree, according to William McDonald '62, a close friend of Tsongas.
During their freshman year McDonald and Tsongas "both took an honors course in chemistry ... and after that, we decided we weren't going to be chem majors," McDonald said.
While at Dartmouth, Tsongas was a member of the swim team, drill team and Army Reserve Officer Training Corps. He was also active in the Young Democrats, Pre-Law club and WDCR, the College's AM radio station .
Most of Tsongas' classmates remembered him as shy and introverted.
"Paul was generally a very quiet, hard-working kind of person," Judson Pierson '62, a member of the swim team, said. "He didn't necessarily have a lot of swim talent, but he was always there."
"I was really surprised that he was in politics because he did not seem a very likely source," according to Stephen Weber '62, Tsongas' freshman-year roommate. "He was a bit of a social misfit."
But other alumni who knew Tsongas remembered his wry sense of humor.
When McDonald and Tsongas worked in the College's dining hall, they "would have these contests to see who could eat the most ice-cream," McDonald said.
Timothy Kraft '63 said Tsongas kept his sense of humor even during his presidential campaign in 1991 and 1992, in which he had to prove he had recovered from his struggle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1984.
"There was a spot that showed him swimming laps -- he joked about that. He made fun of his own ad," Kraft said.
Tsongas, who served as the junior senator from Massachusetts from 1978 to 1984, was the first Democrat to challenge then-incumbent President George Bush in his bid for re-election in 1992.
Tsongas quickly became the front-runner for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. But after winning primaries in New Hampshire, Maryland, Utah, Arizona, Rhode Island and his native Massachusetts, he was forced to drop out of the race in March, 1992 because of a lack of funds.
Bill Clinton, then-Gov. of Arkansas, gained momentum following Tsongas' departure and went on to win the Democratic nomination, and eventually the presidency.
After his aborted bid for president, Tsongas continued to champion deficit reduction and economic pragmatism, forming the Concord Coalition with New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman.
Tsongas spoke at the College several times, most recently in 1995, when he condemned both major American political parties for moving away from the "passionate center" positions most Americans support.
Current students at the College who met Tsongas were saddened by the news of his death.
"He was the kind of leader who put long term interests ahead of short term political gain," Chris Swift '98, vice president of the Student Assembly said. Swift, who met Tsongas at an Alumni Council dinner last spring, said the former Senator "always had his integrity about him. That's not something a lot of leaders can say."
A nation mourns
Tsongas' death has saddened members of the political arena as well.
"Paul Tsongas was a great American. He cared deeply about his beloved state of Massachusetts and about our country and its future," President Bill Clinton said, according to the AP. "In a life devoted to public service, he set an unparalleled example of integrity, candor and commitment."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who replaced Tsongas in the Senate, told the AP Tsongas "lived the words, 'public service' as much as anyone as I've ever known."
"It's like losing a member of your family. That's how close we had become," Rudman told the AP. "Paul Tsongas was truly an American hero," he said.
After graduating from the College in 1962, Tsongas was a Peace Corps volunteer, serving in Ethiopia and the West Indies.
He received a Yale Law School degree in 1967 and began his political career the following year when he was elected to the City Council in Lowell, Mass.
Tsongas was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 and served two terms before becoming a senator in 1978.
In Washington, Tsongas was considered a leader of the "neo-liberals," who urged the Democratic leadership to temper its idealism with economic common sense.
Tsongas was liberal in regards to foreign policy, however. He called for nuclear arms reductions and opposed U.S. involvement in Lebanon, South Africa and Latin America.
He was a crusader for human rights and conservation issues and worked behind the scenes to get federal and state funds to help revitalize his hometown.
When Tsongas left the Senate, he said he never regretted. quitting Washington to concentrate on private life with his wife, Niki, and their three daughters.
