Henry John Heinz III
(October 23, 1938 – April 4, 1991) was an American
politician
from Pennsylvania
, a Republican member of the
United States
House of Representatives (1971–1977) and the United States Senate
(1977–1991).
Early life
Born in
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania
, Heinz was the son of H. J.
Heinz II (heir to the
H. J.
Heinz Company) and Joan Diehl.
His
parents divorced, and Heinz moved to San
Francisco
, California
with his mother and his stepfather, U.S. Navy Captain
Clayton C. McCauley.
After graduating from the Town School,
Phillips Exeter
Academy
in 1956 and Yale University
in 1960, he earned an MBA from Harvard Business
School
in 1963. In 1963, Heinz enlisted in the United States Air Force and served
on active duty from June to December of that year at Lackland Air
Force Base
. He then served with the 911th Troop Carrier
Group, based at the Greater Pittsburgh Airport
, as a member of the United States Air Force
Reserve; he was honorably
discharged in 1969 with the rank of staff sergeant.
Academic and Business Activities
From 1970
to 1971, Heinz was a member of the faculty at the Graduate School of Industrial
Administration
at Carnegie Mellon University
. His career as a businessman included
positions as an analyst in the
controller's division, and numerous positions in
the
marketing division of the H. J. Heinz
Company.
Public service
House of Representatives
In 1971, he was elected by special election to fill the vacancy
caused by the death of
Robert J.
Corbett during the
92nd Congress. He defeated
Gateway Clipper Fleet creator
John E. Connelly. He was reelected to the
93rd and
94th Congresses.
Senate
Heinz was
elected to the Senate in 1976, aided by the U.S.
Supreme Court's decision, Buckley
v. Valeo,
issued mid-campaign, which invalidated statutory restrictions on
the spending of one's own
personal
funds in a political campaign. Heinz spent millions of dollars
attacking Democratic nominee
William
J. Green, a
seven-term congressman from Philadelphia
and future mayor of that city,
as being "soft" on military issues because he had voted against
various Defense
appropriation
bills in the Vietnam War era.
Heinz was reelected to the Senate in 1982 and 1988.
Heinz's Senate work was focused on
retirement and the
elderly,
health care,
international trade,
finance and
banking,
environmental issues,
human development and
education. He was chairman of
the
National
Republican Senatorial Committee (
96th and
99th Congresses) and a member of
the
Senate
Special Committee on Aging (
97th through
99th Congresses).
Death
Heinz and
six other people were killed on April 4, 1991, when a Bell 412 helicopter
collided with the Senator's Piper Aerostar plane over Merion Elementary School
in Lower Merion Township,
Pennsylvania
. All aboard the two aircraft and two
first-grade girls playing outside the school were killed. The
helicopter had been dispatched to check out a problem with the
landing gear of Heinz's plane. While moving in for a closer look,
the helicopter's
rotor blades
struck the bottom of the plane, causing both aircraft to lose
control and crash.
Senator
Heinz was interred in the Heinz family mausoleum in Homewood Cemetery
, located in the Squirrel Hill
neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
Personal life
Heinz
married Teresa Simões-Ferreira on
February 5, 1966 in Pittsburgh
. Nine months later, their son,
Henry IV, was born, followed by sons
André and
Christopher. His widow later married
Senator
John Kerry of Massachusetts, who
was the 2004 Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
Honors
The
John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at
Tinicum
was renamed following his death. The 1,200
acre (4.9 km²) refuge includes the largest remaining
freshwater tidal
marsh in Pennsylvania as well
as other habitats that are home to a variety of plants and animals
native to Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Several institutions bear his name, including:
Further reading
- Heinz, H. John, III. "Foreign Takeover of U.S. Banking — a Real
Danger?" Journal of the Institute for Socioeconomic
Studies 4 (Autumn 1979): 1–9
- Heinz, John. U.S. Strategic Trade: An Export
Control System for the 1990s. Boulder: Westview press,
1991.
External links
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