Ted and Catherine Stevens
There is no doubt the Late Senator Stevens moved Alaska into the status it finds itself today, however, he never moved the people of Alaska forward.
The Stevens and the Murkowskis had captured Alaska and having seen it from territory to Statehood, they 'occupied' the power structure that resulted afterward.
To say Stevens was ambitious is an understatement, but, his ambition existed as an opportunitis and not a Statemen. He never moved native born Alaskans to lead their State's infrastructure. It shows.
...Several days after Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration as president (click title to entry - thank you) in January 1953, the Alaska Republican Party Central Committee demanded that "all Democratic appointees [in Alaska]" resign their patronage jobs."รข€˜ One of the Democratic appointees who did so was Robert McNealy, the U.S. attorney in Fairbanks, who submitted his resignation effective February 1." However, rather than accepting it, the newly appointed Eisenhower officials at the Department of Justice asked McNealy to stay on the job until the president appointed his replacement;" so Charles Clasby knew when he offered Stevens a job at Collins and Clasby that McNealy's position was vacant and would be filled by a Republican political appointee.
Winter passed into spring and then summer, and in July when his successor had not been named, McNealy notified Fairbanks District Court Judge Harry Pratt that August 15 would be his last day in office.
When McNealy departed, on August 31 Pratt named Ted Stevens to serve as U.S. attorney until the president appointed McNealy's replacement.
Stevens was a peculiar choice, since he had little to no trial or criminal law experience and, having arrived in Alaska less than six months earlier, was something of a carpetbagger. Who, if anyone, discussed Ted Stevens' appointment with Pratt before he made it is not known. What is known is that when the appointment was announced, a majority of the members of the Fairbanks Bar Association were outraged, but had no candidate for the permanent appointment until December when the association met and the members in attendance voted to support Carl Messenger, the legal officer at the nearby air force base.9' Two weeks later the Alaska Republican Party Committee for the Fourth Division (in which Fairbanks is located) also endorsed Messenger. But the decision on the permanent appointment would be made 3,500 miles to the east....
Victims in crash that killed Stevens identified
By RICHARD MAUER, LISA DEMER and KYLE HOPKINS
Anchorage Daily News
Published: August 10th, 2010 03:49 PM
Last Modified: August 10th, 2010 04:03 PM
Former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, a political icon who helped steer Alaska from its frontier territorial days to its modern present, was among five people killed in the crash of a lodge floatplane near Dillingham on Monday....
http://www.adn.com/2010/08/10/1404123/troopers-id-victims-of-crash-that.html
