30 years in Senate draw to close

WASHINGTON The reminders of public service are coming out of the office of Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., who leaves the Senate at noon on Jan. 3 after 30 years:

A chair used by Teddy Roosevelt at a peace conference in 1905. An oil painting by Winston Churchill. A metal fragment of a Scud missile. A stone from the ancient Roman Senate.

Pictures with presidents and admirals. Colorful still lifes by Warner himself. A mounted smallmouth bass. Battle flags. The resolution, drafted by Warner, to go to war against Iraq in the first Gulf War.

The office overlooking the Capitol from the Russell Senate office building is one of the choicest on Capitol Hill, and Warner has occupied it for 18 years.

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Once seen by some political observers as a rich dilettante who married well and looked good, Warner worked hard and seriously to become a lion of the Senate. Thrice chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he is considered the Senate's foremost expert on defense.

Warner says he has no regrets about stands that put him at odds with the state Republican Party, such as his opposition to the 1987 Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork and to Oliver North's Senate candidacy in 1994.

University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato, who has followed Warner's career, said Warner's model of the Republican Party is the only one that can win long term.

"He's been vindicated by history. He's been more successful for longer than any Republican in Virginia history."

Perhaps because of the dismantling of his office, Warner, who will turn 82 in February, was more interested in talking about the past than his record during a recent interview.

"I don't like to use that term [legacy]," he said. "I will rate a footnote in the political history of the state.

"For me it's been a remarkable opportunity. . . . Few people thought A: I could get elected, and B: when I got elected, how well I would work out. Well, I think I have sort of indicated I have pulled on my oar pretty effectively for this commonwealth and the country."

As a former Secretary of the Navy and chairman of the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, Warner sought the Republican nomination to run for the Senate in 1978, but ran second to a conservative party leader, Richard D. Obenshain. But Obenshain was killed in a plane crash, and party leaders picked Warner to carry the torch.

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His wife at the time, famed actress Elizabeth Taylor, campaigned with him and helped him draw large crowds in the race against Democrat Andrew P. Miller. Taylor also was an attraction at an annual picnic Warner held at his estate, Atoka, in the Northern Virginia hunt country. He got that estate as a divorce settlement with his first wife, Catherine Mellon, daughter of the late philanthropist Paul Mellon.

Warner edged Miller in an upset in 1978. In four future Senate elections, he had a tough challenge only once, scoring a victory of 5 percentage points over Democrat Mark R. Warner in 1996.

Warner plans to walk down the aisle with Mark Warner on Jan. 6, after he is sworn in as the next senator from Virginia.

John Warner's 30 years in the Senate make him the second longest-serving senator in Virginia history, behind Harry F. Byrd Sr., who served for 33 years. He has served with 262 senators.

"It's not easy for me to leave, but I made the decision that I thought was in the best interests of Virginia. When you get to be in your 80s, you can't predict from day to day exactly how forceful you will be," said Warner, who has been in and out of the hospital over the past year with heart problems.

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Reflecting on his longevity in office, Warner said: "People ask me how we were able to be re-elected all this time, and I say it's because of the quality of the people and the voters. They like their politics, but in the end they try and vote for that individual that they think will do the best for the country and the state."

"In so many states the political system is so rigid," he added. "They send those voters to the polls and say 'You vote this way,' but we're an independent lot."

Warner thinks the Republican Party in Virginia, which he helped build, is substituting rigidity for independent thinking.

"I would have to say that I'm deeply concerned, indeed sad, about the Republican Party of Virginia," he said.

A year ago, when he knew he was not going to seek re-election, Warner said he donated $2,000 to the Republican Party of Virginia to help defray the costs of a luncheon and straw poll at the party's annual Advance in Arlington.

"Guess who they elected? Ron Paul. That was the worst investment of several thousand dollars I ever made."

Paul is a conservative Libertarian congressman from Texas who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for president this year.

In 1994, Warner chose to oppose North, the party's Senate nominee, then best known for the Iran-Contra affair. Warner enticed J. Marshall Coleman, a former attorney general and the Republicans' 1989 gubernatorial nominee, to run for the Senate seat as an independent. Many Republicans blamed Warner for North's narrow loss to Democrat Charles S. Robb.

"I felt there were certain things about [North] that would not serve the state or the country well," Warner said.

But he now has praise for North's post-political career as a journalist and military analyst. "I regularly read his pieces and think he is a superb military analyst," Warner said.

Warner also split with many Virginia Republicans in 2004 when he backed Gov. Mark Warner's proposed $1.4 billion tax increase.

In the Senate he has been considered a moderate, generally supporting tax cuts and legislation against abortion, but also voting for a gun-control bill and adding a hate-crimes provision to a defense appropriations bill.

As a senator, Warner said he is most proud of two bills that have gotten little attention. One was an appropriations amendment that authorized the Embrey Dam near Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock River to be blown up. Warner, an avid fisherman, said this enabled fish to swim up the river all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains to spawn.

He also is proud of a bill that sets up "Tri-Care for Life," a medical plan for National Guardsmen and other service personnel. He pointed to a picture on the wall of his father in a World War I uniform and standing next to a one-armed, bearded man, who was his great-uncle and lost the arm in the Wilderness fighting for the Confederacy.

"My father's service was medicine and along came his son who offered perhaps the most advanced bill in modern times for improved medical care for the armed services," Warner said. "The thing I have enjoyed the most and gotten the greatest satisfaction out of was working with the men and women of the armed forces," he added.

While his stints on the Armed Services Committee have brought lucrative contracts to the shipyard in Newport News, his support of the military has not been one-sided. For example, he held hearings on the Abu Ghraib scandal after reports about abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

He supported and continues to support the current war in Iraq, saying there was ample reason to believe that Saddam Hussein had, or was seeking, weapons of mass destruction.

Warner is "a quintessential governing senator rather than a political senator," said Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat who has known Warner since he was 25 and worked for Warner while the Republican was undersecretary of the Navy.

"There is not a person who is wearing the military uniform today who has not benefited from the wisdom and judgment of John Warner," Webb added.

Webb says Warner "will continue to be a valued voice in terms of national security issues and issues affecting Virginia."

Warner soon will trade Capitol Hill for Old Town Alexandria, where he lives with his wife, Jeanne Vander Myde.

Giving a hint of his future, he signs off now as "John Warner, Artist." Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or .