Lucius Mendel Rivers (28 September 1905 – 28 December 1970), was a United States Representative from South Carolina for nearly thirty years. Born in Gumville, South Carolina, Rivers attended the public schools and the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. At the University of South Carolina at Columbia he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1932, and commenced practice in Charleston. Elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1933, Rivers served until 1936. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from South Carolina in 1936. In 1941 Rivers was elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives from the Charleston-based 1st District, and was re-elected 15 more times. He was chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services his last three terms. Rivers is one of numerous public officials known to have drinking problems during the time.[1] He is perhaps best known for declaring that Hugh Thompson was the only person who deserved to be punished for the massacre at My Lai. Rivers died in Birmingham, Alabama, almost two months after being elected for his 16th term. He was buried at St. Stephen Episcopal Church Cemetery in St. Stephen, South Carolina. Rivers was an Episcopalian, and a member of the Freemasons, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE), and the Exchange Club. The USS L. Mendel Rivers (SSN-686) was named in his honor. Charleston Southern University's library, the L. Mendel Rivers Library, is also named in his honor.[2] He was best known as a strong supporter of the American military in general, and of enlisted military servicemembers in particular. In 1963 he established, through the vehicle of the House-Senate Conference Committee, the principle of linking military retired pay to increases in the Consumer Price Index, similar to the practice for retired federal civil servants. In 1964 he championed the cause of "hospital rights," guaranteeing medical care in military hospitals for military retirees and their dependents. In 1965, opposing the recommendations of both the Secretary of Defense and the President, he helped secure the first military pay raise since 1952 and the largest single pay raise ever for enlisted personnel. He was instrumental in establishing the additional enlisted pay grade of E-9, and he helped secure mobile home allowances and cheap air fares for soldiers returning from Viet Nam. Rivers was initially skeptical of America's escalation of the Viet Nam conflict and the sending of combat troops to Viet Nam, but once the war was commenced, he became one of the strongest supporters of the war. He enjoyed referring to himself as "The Granddaddy of the War Hawks." He urged the President to use nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese and to invade and occupy Hanoi. He criticized Army helicopter pilot and My Lai Massacre hero CWO Hugh Thompson, Jr. for giving the order to his men to fire upon American soldiers at My Lai if they continued to shoot unarmed Vietnamese civilians, calling him a traitor and saying he should be prosecuted. Rivers was unable to believe that American soldiers would do such a thing and publicly expressed doubt that any massacre ever happened. He attempted to protect the perpetrator of My Lai, Army 2nd Lt. William Calley, by quickly holding hearings of his subcommittee on My Lai, calling every major witness to the event (including Thompson) before the subcommittee, and then refusing to release the transcripts of the testimony, so that military prosecutors would be prohibited from calling those persons as witnesses at Calley's court martial. Rivers was an ardent segregationist. He opposed every civil rights bill offered during the 1950's and 1960's. He was the only member of the South Carolina state congressional delegation to join the White Citizens Council, an organization formed to protect segregation in the South, and he signed the Southern Manifesto which condemned the US Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision. He strongly criticized President Harry S. Truman for integrating the US Army, calling him a "dead chicken" and a "bankrupt politician." Rivers was plagued by alcoholism. He was the "binger" variety of alcoholic, one who is generally sober but relapses periodically. Washington syndicated columnist Drew Pearson wrote that he was a "security risk" and devoted eight uncomplimentary pages to him in his 1968 book The Case Against Congress. Rivers eventually ceased drinking and was sober the last two years of his life. He strongly supported the constant upgrading of US military preparedness, regardless of the cost. He supported making all US Navy ships nuclear powered , and he championed development of the C5A Galaxy military airlift jet airplane, despite huge cost overruns . In his last speech to his colleagues in the US House of Representatives on December 10, 1970, delivered just before he departed for Birmingham, Alabama to have heart surgery, he stated, "While we debate the question of maintaining our military capability, the Soviet Union forges ahead. We seem hell-bent on national suicide....We cannot as a nation afford to spend one penny less on national defense than that amount which is required to insure that you and I, and our children, can convince the Soviets they dare not pull the trigger when a Soviet gun is placed against our heads." In that same speech, he delivered the quote for which he is best remembered: "The final measure of our ability to survive as a nation in a hostile world will not be how well we have managed our domestic resources and domestic programs, but whether or not we have avoided and frustrated the forces of evil which would draw us into the crucible of war with the Soviet Union. If we fail in that endeavor, we will have failed in everything."
References
- ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n12_v19/ai_6306545}s
- ^ http://www.csuniv.edu/library
