Thomas J. Dodd
Encyclopedia
Thomas Joseph Dodd was a United States
Senator
and Representative
from Connecticut
, He was the first Senator censured by the US Senate since Joseph McCarthy in 1954, and was one of only six people censured by the Senate in the 20th century. He is the father of former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd
and Thomas J. Dodd, Jr.
, who served as the United States Ambassador to Uruguay from 1993–1997 and to Costa Rica from 1997-2001 .
, New London County
, to Abigail Margaret O'Sullivan and Thomas Joseph Dodd, a building contractor; all four of his grandparents were immigrants from Ireland
. He graduated from Saint Anselm College
's preparatory school, run by Benedictine monks in Goffstown, New Hampshire
, in 1926. He graduated from Providence College
in 1930 with a degree in philosophy, and from Yale University Law School in 1933. In 1934, Dodd married Grace Murphy of Westerly, Rhode Island. They had six children.
He served as a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
in 1933 and 1934, the highlight of his career there being his participation in an unsuccessful trap set for famed gangster John Dillinger
. He was then Connecticut director of the National Youth Administration
from 1935 to 1938. He was assistant to five successive United States Attorneys General
(Homer Cummings
, Frank Murphy
, Robert Jackson
, Francis Biddle
and Tom Clark
) from 1938 to 1945.
As a special agent for the Attorney General, Dodd was basically a trial-level federal prosecutor. He worked primarily on criminal and civil liberties cases, including the prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan
in the 1930s. In 1942 he was sent to Hartford to prosecute a major spy ring case in which five men (Vonsyatsky
, Kunze and others) were accused of violating the Espionage Act of 1917
by conspiring to gather and deliver U.S. Army, Navy, and defense information to Germany or Japan. Four of the five pled guilty; Dodd tried and won the conviction of the fifth, Reverend Kurt Emil Bruno Molzahn.
Dodd became vice chairman of the Board of Review and later executive trial counsel for the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality at Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945 and 1946. He practiced law privately in Hartford, Connecticut
, from 1947 to 1953.
, chief prosecutor for the U.S., and Dodd insisted upon a fair and legal trial to prosecute the Nazi war criminals. Dodd accepted Jackson's offer to join him in Germany. Dodd expected the position to last only several months, but he wound up spending 15 months there. Dodd suggested Heidelberg
as the location for the International Military Tribunal, since it had survived the war almost completely unscathed, but Nuremberg was eventually chosen. In October 1945, Jackson named Dodd to his senior Trial Board for the Nuremberg Trials, and later in 1946, named him Executive Trial Counsel, putting him in the number-two position at the trials. In the summer of 1946, Jackson appointed Dodd as the acting Chief of Counsel while he returned to DC. Dodd finally returned to the U.S. in October 1946. He described the delegation as "an autopsy on history's most horrible catalogue of human crime."
Dodd cross-examined defendants Wilhelm Keitel
, Alfred Rosenberg
, Hans Frank
, Walther Funk
, Baldur von Schirach
, Fritz Sauckel
and Arthur Seyss-Inquart
. In addition to cross-examining, Dodd drafted indictments against the defendants, showed films of concentration camps, provided evidence of slave labor programs, and presented evidence of economic preparations by the Nazis for an aggressive war.
Dodd showed through his evidence that Ukrainian Overlord Erich Koch
and defendant Polish Overlord Hans Frank were responsible for the plan to deport one million Poles for slave labor. Dodd also showed evidence that defendant Walther Funk
turned the Reichsbank
into a depository for gold teeth and other valuables seized from the concentration camp victims. Dodd showed a motion picture of the vaults in Frankfurt where Allied troops found cases of these valuables, containing dentures, earrings, silverware and candelabra. Dodd showed many gruesome items of evidence, such as a shrunken, stuffed and preserved human head of one of the concentration camp victims that had been used as a paperweight by the commandant of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
Final pleas were made on August 31, 1946, and the Tribunal announced its judgment in September 1946. Dodd assisted the Allied prosecuting team of convicting all but three of the defendants. All but one of the defendants had claimed innocence, including Hermann Göring
, whom Dodd had charged with ordering Reinhardt Heydrich to set the Holocaust in motion. In addition to prosecuting the individual defendants, Dodd demanded in his summation to the Tribunal that all six of the indicted Nazi organizations be convicted of crimes against humanity, on the same grounds of the crimes against humanity ascribed to the individual defendants. These six organizations are the Leadership Corps, the Reich cabinet, the Gestapo
, The Storm Troops (SA
), the Armed Forces, and the Elite Guard (SS). Dodd said that these organizations should not escape liability on the grounds that they were too large, part of a political party, etc.
Dodd was given several awards in recognition of his work at the Nuremberg trials. Jackson awarded him the Medal of Freedom in July 1946 and President Harry Truman awarded him the Certificate of Merit, which Jackson personally delivered to him in Hartford in the fall of 1946. Dodd also received the Czechoslovak Order of the White Lion
. In 1949, the Polish government had intended to award Dodd with a badge of honor called the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, but Dodd rejected the medal due to his commitment to human rights and views that the Polish government was imposing a tyranny similar to that imposed by the Nazis, and accepting an honor from the President of Poland would be like accepting one from the Nazis.
Before becoming a U.S. senator, Dodd was hired to lobby for Guatemala
in the United States for $50,000 a year by dictator Carlos Castillo Armas
. According to the North American Congress on Latin America, Dodd "had perhaps the coziest relationship with the Castillo Armas government." After a short trip to Guatemala in 1955, Dodd urged the House of Representatives to increase aid to the Central America
n country. Dodd's amendment passed and Guatemala received $15 million of US aid in 1956.
In 1961, Dodd visited the Congo to investigate the civil war caused by the secession of the province of Katanga. In his memoirs, the United Nations Representative in the Congo, Brian Urquhart
, described Dodd as a "vain and silly man" who "knew nothing of Africa."
In addition to his work in the Congo Senator Dodd opened what became nearly three years of intermittent hearings. The results of the three committee staff monitoring reports of television content in 1954, 1961, and 1964 showed incidents of violence. Senator Dodd and Estes Kefauver are the two men responsible for informing the public of the effects of violence on juveniles.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency
, Dodd worked to restrict the purchase of mail order
handguns, and later shotguns and rifles. These efforts culminated in the Gun Control Act of 1968
, which Dodd introduced.
in 1954, and was one of only six people censured by the Senate in the 20th century. The censure was a condemnation and finding that he had converted campaign funds to his personal accounts and spent the money. Beyond the Senate Ethics Committee's formal disciplinary action, other sources (such as investigative journalist Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson's Congress in Crisis) suggest Dodd's corruption was far broader in scope, and there were accusations of alcoholism
. In response to these accusations, Dodd filed a lawsuit against Pearson claiming that Pearson had illegally interfered with his private property. Although the district court granted a partial judgment to Dodd, the appellate court ruled in favor of Pearson on the grounds that Dodd's property had not been physically abused. In 1970, the Democrats endorsed for his seat Joseph Duffey
, who won the nomination in the primary
. Dodd then entered the race as an independent, taking just under a quarter of the vote, in a three-way race which he and Duffey lost to Lowell Weicker
.
at his home. His son Christopher Dodd
was elected to the Senate as a Connecticut Democrat in 1980.
Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium
in Norwich
was named in his honor.
In 1995, The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center was established at the University of Connecticut
. The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center or Dodd Research Center houses the Human Rights Institute, Archives & Special Collections for the University of Connecticut Libraries, and the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut
.
In 2003, the University of Connecticut
established the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights
.
In 2008, Saint Anselm College
in Goffstown, New Hampshire
established the Senator Thomas J. Dodd Center for the Study of International Affairs and Law. The center seeks to promote understanding of the forces that drive politics and the political economy in the global world; to sensitize students to the cultures of other countries, and to spur interest in the needs and problems of other nations and countries.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
and Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
from Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, He was the first Senator censured by the US Senate since Joseph McCarthy in 1954, and was one of only six people censured by the Senate in the 20th century. He is the father of former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd
Christopher Dodd
Christopher John "Chris" Dodd is an American lawyer, lobbyist, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States Senator from Connecticut for a thirty-year period ending with the 111th United States Congress....
and Thomas J. Dodd, Jr.
Thomas J. Dodd, Jr.
Thomas J. Dodd, Jr. is the former United States Ambassador to Uruguay and to Costa Rica . He is a Professor of Latin American History and Diplomacy at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service...
, who served as the United States Ambassador to Uruguay from 1993–1997 and to Costa Rica from 1997-2001 .
Early life
Dodd was born in NorwichNorwich, Connecticut
Regular steamship service between New York and Boston helped Norwich to prosper as a shipping center through the early part of the 20th century. During the Civil War, Norwich once again rallied and saw the growth of its textile, armaments, and specialty item manufacturing...
, New London County
New London County, Connecticut
New London County is a county located in the southeastern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. As of 2010 the population was 274,055. The total area of the county is , including inland and coastal waters....
, to Abigail Margaret O'Sullivan and Thomas Joseph Dodd, a building contractor; all four of his grandparents were immigrants from Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. He graduated from Saint Anselm College
Saint Anselm College
Saint Anselm College is a nationally ranked, private, Benedictine, Catholic liberal arts college in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Founded in 1889 by Abbot Hilary Pfrängle, O.S.B. of Saint Mary's Abbey in Newark, New Jersey, at the request of Bishop Denis M. Bradley of Manchester, New Hampshire, the...
's preparatory school, run by Benedictine monks in Goffstown, New Hampshire
Goffstown, New Hampshire
Goffstown is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 17,651 at the 2010 census. The compact center of town, where 3,196 people resided at the 2010 census, is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as the Goffstown census-designated place and is located at the...
, in 1926. He graduated from Providence College
Providence College
Providence College is a private, coeducational, Catholic university located about two miles west of downtown Providence, Rhode Island, United States, the state's capital city. With a 2010–2011 enrollment of 3,850 undergraduate students and 735 graduate students, the College specializes in academic...
in 1930 with a degree in philosophy, and from Yale University Law School in 1933. In 1934, Dodd married Grace Murphy of Westerly, Rhode Island. They had six children.
He served as a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
in 1933 and 1934, the highlight of his career there being his participation in an unsuccessful trap set for famed gangster John Dillinger
John Dillinger
John Herbert Dillinger, Jr. was an American bank robber in Depression-era United States. He was charged with, but never convicted of, the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana police officer during a shoot-out. This was his only alleged homicide. His gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations...
. He was then Connecticut director of the National Youth Administration
National Youth Administration
The National Youth Administration was a New Deal agency in the United States that focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 24. It operated from 1935 to 1939 as part of the Works Progress Administration . Following the passage of the Reorganization Act of...
from 1935 to 1938. He was assistant to five successive United States Attorneys General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
(Homer Cummings
Homer Stille Cummings
Homer Stille Cummings was a U.S. political figure who was United States Attorney General from 1933 to 1939. He also was elected mayor of Stamford, Connecticut, three times before, founding the legal firm of Cummings & Lockwood in 1909...
, Frank Murphy
Frank Murphy
William Francis Murphy was a politician and jurist from Michigan. He served as First Assistant U.S. District Attorney, Eastern Michigan District , Recorder's Court Judge, Detroit . Mayor of Detroit , the last Governor-General of the Philippines , U.S...
, Robert Jackson
Robert H. Jackson
Robert Houghwout Jackson was United States Attorney General and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court . He was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials...
, Francis Biddle
Francis Biddle
Francis Beverley Biddle was an American lawyer and judge who was Attorney General of the United States during World War II and who served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg trials....
and Tom Clark
Tom C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...
) from 1938 to 1945.
As a special agent for the Attorney General, Dodd was basically a trial-level federal prosecutor. He worked primarily on criminal and civil liberties cases, including the prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
in the 1930s. In 1942 he was sent to Hartford to prosecute a major spy ring case in which five men (Vonsyatsky
Anastasy Vonsyatsky
Anastasy Andreyevich Vonsyatsky , better known in the United States as Anastase Andreivitch Vonsiatsky, was a Russian anti-Bolshevik émigré and fascist leader based in the United States since the 1920s....
, Kunze and others) were accused of violating the Espionage Act of 1917
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...
by conspiring to gather and deliver U.S. Army, Navy, and defense information to Germany or Japan. Four of the five pled guilty; Dodd tried and won the conviction of the fifth, Reverend Kurt Emil Bruno Molzahn.
Dodd became vice chairman of the Board of Review and later executive trial counsel for the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality at Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945 and 1946. He practiced law privately in Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, from 1947 to 1953.
Nuremberg Trials
Both Supreme Court Justice Robert H. JacksonRobert H. Jackson
Robert Houghwout Jackson was United States Attorney General and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court . He was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials...
, chief prosecutor for the U.S., and Dodd insisted upon a fair and legal trial to prosecute the Nazi war criminals. Dodd accepted Jackson's offer to join him in Germany. Dodd expected the position to last only several months, but he wound up spending 15 months there. Dodd suggested Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
as the location for the International Military Tribunal, since it had survived the war almost completely unscathed, but Nuremberg was eventually chosen. In October 1945, Jackson named Dodd to his senior Trial Board for the Nuremberg Trials, and later in 1946, named him Executive Trial Counsel, putting him in the number-two position at the trials. In the summer of 1946, Jackson appointed Dodd as the acting Chief of Counsel while he returned to DC. Dodd finally returned to the U.S. in October 1946. He described the delegation as "an autopsy on history's most horrible catalogue of human crime."
Dodd cross-examined defendants Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Bodewin Gustav Keitel was a German field marshal . As head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and de facto war minister, he was one of Germany's most senior military leaders during World War II...
, Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
, Hans Frank
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany...
, Walther Funk
Walther Funk
Walther Funk was a prominent Nazi official. He served as Reich Minister for Economic Affairs in Nazi Germany from 1937 to 1945, tried as a major war criminal by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.-Early life:...
, Baldur von Schirach
Baldur von Schirach
Baldur Benedikt von Schirach was a Nazi youth leader later convicted of being a war criminal. Schirach was the head of the Hitler-Jugend and Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Vienna....
, Fritz Sauckel
Fritz Sauckel
Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel was a Nazi war criminal, who organized the systematic enslavement of millions from lands occupied by Nazi Germany...
and Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart was a Chancellor of Austria, lawyer and later Nazi official in pre-Anschluss Austria, the Third Reich and for wartime Germany in Poland and the Netherlands...
. In addition to cross-examining, Dodd drafted indictments against the defendants, showed films of concentration camps, provided evidence of slave labor programs, and presented evidence of economic preparations by the Nazis for an aggressive war.
Dodd showed through his evidence that Ukrainian Overlord Erich Koch
Erich Koch
Erich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was the Chief of Civil Administration of Bezirk Bialystok. During this period, he was also the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine from 1941 until 1943...
and defendant Polish Overlord Hans Frank were responsible for the plan to deport one million Poles for slave labor. Dodd also showed evidence that defendant Walther Funk
Walther Funk
Walther Funk was a prominent Nazi official. He served as Reich Minister for Economic Affairs in Nazi Germany from 1937 to 1945, tried as a major war criminal by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.-Early life:...
turned the Reichsbank
Reichsbank
The Reichsbank was the central bank of Germany from 1876 until 1945. It was founded on 1 January 1876 . The Reichsbank was a privately owned central bank of Prussia, under close control by the Reich government. Its first president was Hermann von Dechend...
into a depository for gold teeth and other valuables seized from the concentration camp victims. Dodd showed a motion picture of the vaults in Frankfurt where Allied troops found cases of these valuables, containing dentures, earrings, silverware and candelabra. Dodd showed many gruesome items of evidence, such as a shrunken, stuffed and preserved human head of one of the concentration camp victims that had been used as a paperweight by the commandant of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
Final pleas were made on August 31, 1946, and the Tribunal announced its judgment in September 1946. Dodd assisted the Allied prosecuting team of convicting all but three of the defendants. All but one of the defendants had claimed innocence, including Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
, whom Dodd had charged with ordering Reinhardt Heydrich to set the Holocaust in motion. In addition to prosecuting the individual defendants, Dodd demanded in his summation to the Tribunal that all six of the indicted Nazi organizations be convicted of crimes against humanity, on the same grounds of the crimes against humanity ascribed to the individual defendants. These six organizations are the Leadership Corps, the Reich cabinet, the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, The Storm Troops (SA
SA
-Organizations:* S.A. , a type of corporation in various countries* Salvation Army, a Christian denomination founded by William Booth* Sewickley Academy, a private school in the United States...
), the Armed Forces, and the Elite Guard (SS). Dodd said that these organizations should not escape liability on the grounds that they were too large, part of a political party, etc.
Dodd was given several awards in recognition of his work at the Nuremberg trials. Jackson awarded him the Medal of Freedom in July 1946 and President Harry Truman awarded him the Certificate of Merit, which Jackson personally delivered to him in Hartford in the fall of 1946. Dodd also received the Czechoslovak Order of the White Lion
Order of the White Lion
The Order of the White Lion is the highest order of the Czech Republic. It continues a Czechoslovak order of the same name created in 1922 as an award for foreigners....
. In 1949, the Polish government had intended to award Dodd with a badge of honor called the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, but Dodd rejected the medal due to his commitment to human rights and views that the Polish government was imposing a tyranny similar to that imposed by the Nazis, and accepting an honor from the President of Poland would be like accepting one from the Nazis.
Congress
Dodd was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives in 1952, and served two terms. He lost a Senate election in 1956 to Prescott S. Bush, but was elected in 1958 to Connecticut's other Senate seat and then re-elected in 1964.Before becoming a U.S. senator, Dodd was hired to lobby for Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
in the United States for $50,000 a year by dictator Carlos Castillo Armas
Carlos Castillo Armas
Carlos Castillo Armas was a Guatemalan Colonel who came to power in a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954. He held the title of President of Guatemala from July 8, 1954 until his assassination in 1957.-The coup:...
. According to the North American Congress on Latin America, Dodd "had perhaps the coziest relationship with the Castillo Armas government." After a short trip to Guatemala in 1955, Dodd urged the House of Representatives to increase aid to the Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
n country. Dodd's amendment passed and Guatemala received $15 million of US aid in 1956.
In 1961, Dodd visited the Congo to investigate the civil war caused by the secession of the province of Katanga. In his memoirs, the United Nations Representative in the Congo, Brian Urquhart
Brian Urquhart
Sir Brian Urquhart, KCMG, MBE is a former Undersecretary-General of the United Nations. He is also a World War II veteran and an author.-Early life:...
, described Dodd as a "vain and silly man" who "knew nothing of Africa."
In addition to his work in the Congo Senator Dodd opened what became nearly three years of intermittent hearings. The results of the three committee staff monitoring reports of television content in 1954, 1961, and 1964 showed incidents of violence. Senator Dodd and Estes Kefauver are the two men responsible for informing the public of the effects of violence on juveniles.
As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency
Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency
The United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was established by the United States Senate in 1953 to investigate the problem of juvenile delinquency.- Background :...
, Dodd worked to restrict the purchase of mail order
Mail order
Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote method such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the products are delivered to the customer...
handguns, and later shotguns and rifles. These efforts culminated in the Gun Control Act of 1968
Gun Control Act of 1968
The Gun Control Act of 1968 , by president Lyndon Johnson, is a federal law in the United States that broadly regulates the firearms industry and firearms owners...
, which Dodd introduced.
Senate censure and loss of office
In 1967 Dodd became the first Senator censured by the US Senate since Joseph McCarthyJoseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
in 1954, and was one of only six people censured by the Senate in the 20th century. The censure was a condemnation and finding that he had converted campaign funds to his personal accounts and spent the money. Beyond the Senate Ethics Committee's formal disciplinary action, other sources (such as investigative journalist Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson's Congress in Crisis) suggest Dodd's corruption was far broader in scope, and there were accusations of alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. In response to these accusations, Dodd filed a lawsuit against Pearson claiming that Pearson had illegally interfered with his private property. Although the district court granted a partial judgment to Dodd, the appellate court ruled in favor of Pearson on the grounds that Dodd's property had not been physically abused. In 1970, the Democrats endorsed for his seat Joseph Duffey
Joseph Duffey
Joseph Daniel Duffey is an American academic, educator and political appointee.He received an A.B. from Marshall University in 1954, a B.D. from Andover Theological School in 1957, an S.T.M. from Yale University in 1963, and a Ph.D. from Hartford Seminary Foundation in 1969...
, who won the nomination in the primary
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
. Dodd then entered the race as an independent, taking just under a quarter of the vote, in a three-way race which he and Duffey lost to Lowell Weicker
Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.
Lowell Palmer Weicker, Jr. is an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the 85th Governor of Connecticut, and unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for President in 1980...
.
Death and legacy
Months after his defeat, Dodd died from a heart attackMyocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at his home. His son Christopher Dodd
Christopher Dodd
Christopher John "Chris" Dodd is an American lawyer, lobbyist, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States Senator from Connecticut for a thirty-year period ending with the 111th United States Congress....
was elected to the Senate as a Connecticut Democrat in 1980.
Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium
Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium
Senator Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium is a stadium in Norwich, Connecticut. It is primarily used for baseball, and starting in 2010 will be the home of the Connecticut Tigers of the New York - Penn League...
in Norwich
Norwich, Connecticut
Regular steamship service between New York and Boston helped Norwich to prosper as a shipping center through the early part of the 20th century. During the Civil War, Norwich once again rallied and saw the growth of its textile, armaments, and specialty item manufacturing...
was named in his honor.
In 1995, The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center was established at the University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...
. The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center or Dodd Research Center houses the Human Rights Institute, Archives & Special Collections for the University of Connecticut Libraries, and the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...
.
In 2003, the University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...
established the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights
Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights
The Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights is awarded biennially by the University of Connecticut to an individual or group who has made a significant effort to advance the cause of international justice and global human rights. The Prize will be awarded again in Fall...
.
In 2008, Saint Anselm College
Saint Anselm College
Saint Anselm College is a nationally ranked, private, Benedictine, Catholic liberal arts college in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Founded in 1889 by Abbot Hilary Pfrängle, O.S.B. of Saint Mary's Abbey in Newark, New Jersey, at the request of Bishop Denis M. Bradley of Manchester, New Hampshire, the...
in Goffstown, New Hampshire
Goffstown, New Hampshire
Goffstown is a town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 17,651 at the 2010 census. The compact center of town, where 3,196 people resided at the 2010 census, is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as the Goffstown census-designated place and is located at the...
established the Senator Thomas J. Dodd Center for the Study of International Affairs and Law. The center seeks to promote understanding of the forces that drive politics and the political economy in the global world; to sensitize students to the cultures of other countries, and to spur interest in the needs and problems of other nations and countries.
Portrayal in popular culture
Thomas J. Dodd has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theater productions;- Hrothgar Mathews in the 2000 Canadian/U.S. T.V. production NurembergNuremberg (2000 film)Nuremberg is a 2000 Canadian/United States television docudrama, based on the book Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial by Joseph E. Persico, that tells the story of the Nuremberg Trials.-Part one:...
. - Rupert VansittartRupert VansittartRupert Vansittart is an English character actor. He has appeared in a variety of roles in film, television, radio and on stage, often playing comic or serio-comic characters....
in the 2006 British television docudrama Nuremberg: Nazis on TrialNuremberg: Nazis on TrialNuremberg: Nazis on Trial, is a BBC documentary film series consisting of three one-hour films that re-enact the Nuremberg War Trials of Albert Speer, Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess...
. - Protest singerProtest songA protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
Phil OchsPhil OchsPhilip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
references Dodd in his song "Draft Dodger RagDraft Dodger Rag"Draft Dodger Rag" is a satirical anti-war song by Phil Ochs, a U.S. protest singer from the 1960s known for being a harsh critic of the American military industrial complex...
": "I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keeping old CastroFidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
down."