Gaylord A. Nelson, who spent a lifetime in service to Wisconsin, the nation and the planet, never stopped fighting on behalf of environmental causes, even as his own body began to fail.

The former governor and U.S. senator died of cardiovascular disease Sunday morning at his home in Kensington, Md., according to his family. He was 89.

He was the founder in 1970 of Earth Day, which is regarded as the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Twenty-five years later, Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, for that and his lifelong work on behalf of the environment.

Earth Day was a milestone that, in retrospect, Nelson himself regarded as the most personally satisfying, although only as the capstone of his efforts on behalf of environmental protection throughout his political career and beyond.

Gaylord A. Nelson, one of the architects of America's modern environmental movement who as a United States senator from Wisconsin founded Earth Day to protest degradation and launch a national legislative campaign to improve stewardship, died today in at his home in Kensington, Md. He was 89 years old,

The cause was cardiovascular failure, Bill Christofferson, Mr. Nelson's biographer and a family spokesman, told The Associated Press.

A liberal Democrat, Mr. Nelson was known for his candor and independence. He was just one of three United States senators who voted against the $700 million appropriation that began the nation's expanded involvement in the Vietnam War.

But it was Mr. Nelson's lifelong devotion to the natural landscape that distinguished him as one of Capitol Hill's early and ardent environmental leaders. On March 25, 1963, in his first Senate speech, he framed the declining condition of the nation's air and water as a national issue. "We need a comprehensive and nationwide program to save the national resources of America," he said. "Our soil, our water, and our air are becoming more polluted every day. Our most priceless natural resources - trees, lakes, rivers, wildlife habitats, scenic landscapes - are being destroyed."

The speech coincided with Mr. Nelson's private effort to successfully lobby President John F. Kennedy to embrace environmental protection as a priority. In September 1963, Mr. Kennedy embarked on a five-day, 11-state tour to talk about conservation.

The president's attention stirred political interest. In 1964, Mr. Nelson was part of the group of lawmakers that sponsored and celebrated the passage of the Wilderness Act to permanently safeguard millions of acres of federal land. He worked with the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson to pass the 1968 federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Among the first eight rivers protected by the law were the St. Croix and the Namekagon rivers in Wisconsin. And he helped the Interior Department establish new national scenic seashores and lakeshores, including the Apostle Island National Lakeshore along Wisconsin's Lake Superior coast.

Posted by: Jonathan Singer / 9:00 AM | Basie! Home