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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (age 48) - The Iraqi cleric rose to power within the terrorist organization ISIS (ISIL), ultimately reaching the level of "Emir of the Caliphate." His birth name is reported to have been Ibrahim al-Samarri. He is reported to have detonated a suicide vest on October 26, 2019, to avoid capture by American forces during a raid on a compound in Syria.
Birch Bayh (age 91) - Bayh served three terms in the U. S. Senate as a Democrat from Indiana. During his tenure, Bayh authored Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and not one but two amendments to the U. S. Constitution (Amendments XXV and XXVI). As such, he is the only non-Founding Father to have written more than one amendment. He was defeated for re-election by future vice President Dan Quayle in 1980. His son, Evan, filled the same seat from 1999-2011. Bayh died of pneumonia March 14, 2019.
Berkley Bedell (age 98) - Bedell was an Iowa boy who became a millionaire from the fishing tackle business he started in 1945. He entered politics in the 1970s as a populist, Democratic representative of rural Iowa (my how things change). He served in the House from 1975 to 1987, when he retired and was replaced by Gopher from "The Love Boat." In government, he concentrated on issues important to his constituents, such as farming and small business. Bedell died December 7, 2019.
David Bergland (age 83) - Bergland twice served as the national chairman of the Libertarian Party, and ran unsuccessfuly for U. S. President on the Libertarian ticket in 1984. He also ran, as a Libertarian, for local and statewide offices in California on several occasions. Bergland died June 3, 2019.
Kathleen Blanco (age 76) - Blanco, a Democrat, was the first woman ever elected governor of Louisiana when she took office in 2004. She served one term (2004-8), choosing not to run for re-election in the wake of criticism over Louisiana's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. In the last years of her administration, Blanco severely criticized the Bush administration and FEMA for their disaster response. She died August 18, 2019, of cancer.
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Harold Brown (age 91) - Brown was the US Secretary of Defense in the administration of Jimmy Carter (1977 to 1081). He also served as Secretary of the Air Force in the Kenny and Johnson administrations. In later life, Brown served as chairman of the Johns Hopkins University Foreign Policy Institute and as a member of the U. S. Energy Security Council. Brown died of pancreatic cancer January 4, 2019. |
Ellen Bree Burns (age 95) - Burns was the first woman to serve on the Federal bench in Connecticut, having been nominated by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. She rose to the position of chief judge of the circuit before her retirement in 2015, having presided over the trials of mobsters, Hells Angels, and local dealers. Burns died June 3, 2019.
Jacques Chirac (age 86) - Chirac's legacy includes decades of governmental service in France, culminating his election to the national presidency twice in the interval 1997-2007. He was previously the mayor of Paris (1977-1995) and the Prime Minister during the terms of both Valery Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterand. After leaving office, Chirac founded a peace action organization. He died September 26, 2019.
Princess Christina (age 72) - Christina, also known as Marijke, was the youngest of four daughters of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and her consort. She was married to a Cuban exile, Jorge Pérez y Guillermo, for twenty years. She was an accomplished musician and patron of the music arts who taught music in a New York Montessori school for several years and sang for her parents' funerals. Christina died August 16, 2019.
John Conyers (age 90) - Conyers served his Detroit-area district in the U. S, House of Representatives for more than fifty years (1965-2017), becoming one of the longest-serving representatives in history. He came into Congress as an advocate for civil rights, and left after being accused of sexual harassment. Conyers died October 27, 2019.
Douglas Costle (age 79) - A Harvard-trained lawyer, Costle headed the government study that recommended the creation of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency . He also served as the agency's director under the Carter administration (1977-1981). After leaving the agency, Costle served as dean of the Vermont Law School and founded the Institute for Sustainable Communities. He passed away January 20, 2019, as the result of a stroke.
Elijah Cummings (age 68) - Cummings was a U. S. Congressman from Baltimore, Maryland, from 1986 until his death. He chaired the House Oversight Committee beginning in 2019. Cummings' career included several bills intended to increase governmental transparency such as amendments to the Presidential Records Act. Cummings was mot recently known for sparring with the White House over investigations into the actions of President Donald Trump. He died suddenly on October 17, 2019.
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William Dannemeyer (age 89) - Dannemeyer was a Republican ember of the U. S. House, representing California's 39th District (Orange County) from 1979-1993. A staunch - some would say strident - conservative, Dannemeyer made a name for himself as an anti-LGB crusader. He ran for the U. S. Senate in 1992, but lost. After leaving Congress, Dannemeyer became a conservative gadfly, frequently spreading conspiracy theories about the Clinton family. Dannemeyer succumbed to dementia on July 9, 2019.
John Dingell, Jr. (age 92) - Dingell served a district in southeastern Michigan in Congress for 59-plus years, beginning when he assumed the seat of his late father in a special election. He holds the record for the longest service in the U. S. House of Representatives. During his tenure, he championed environmental causes and introduced a healthcare bill every year until the passing of "Obamacare" in 2010. On his retirement, Dingell's wife, Debbie, took over the seat. Dingell died February 7, 2019, of prostate cancer.
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Beji Caid Essebsi (age 92) - Essebsi was the second elected president of Tunisia, a position he held from 2019 until his death on July 25, 2019. He was previously the Prime Minister during the "Arab Spring" and the presidency of Moncef Mouzarki. He is widely considered the "first freely elected president of Tunisia."
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Martin Feldstein (age 79) - Economist Martin Feldstein was a famous deficit hawk, sharing his views on the national economy from a professorship at Harvard University. He was also a former chair of the National Bureau of Economic Research and, for two years (1982-1984), the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to the Reagan administration. Feldstein died June 11, 2019.
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Negasso Gadida Solon (age 75) - Negasso Gadida Solon was the president of Ethiopia from 1995 to 2001, Before his election as president, he headed the committee that drew up the Ethiopian constitution, a document that many believe was not properly ratified. Gadida died April 27, 2019.
Alan García Perez (age 69) - García Perez was twice the president of Peru, from 1985-90 and 2006-11; and was also leader of Peru's Aprista (the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance). García Perez was under investigation for money-laundering and, when police arrived to arrest him, shot himself. He died soon after, on April 17, 2019.
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Ralph Hall (age 95) - Hall served as a U. S. Congressman from northeastern Texas for more than two decades, beginning in 1981 and lasting until he was beaten in the 2014 Republican primary and left office in 2015. In the years 1981-2004, he was a "blue-dog" Democrat but switched parties in 2004. Hall died March 7, 2019.
Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir (unknown) - This was the pseudonym of an anonymous spokesman for ISIS (ISIL). He assumed the role of spokesperson in 2016, and is widely believed to have been a non-Arab. Some have postulated that he was a Texan who converted to Islam. He was killed in a CIA bombing raid in Syria on October 27, 2019, hours after the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
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J. Charles Jones (age 82) - A graduate of Harvard Law and a civil rights attorney, Jones had a long career in the fight for justice. He was a former Freedom Rider and one of the founding members of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. Jones passed away December 27, 2019.
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Walter B. Jones, Jr. (age 75) - Jones, the son of North Carolina congressman Walter B. Jones, followed in his father's footsteps to the capitol with one exception: Dad was a Democrat, Junior changed parties in 1994 to become a Republican. He served twelve terms in office, gaining a reputation as a politician who paid attention to his constituents instead of party leadership. He may be best known as the man who coined the term "freedom fries" in 2003. Jones died February 10, 2019. |
Lord Toby Jug (age 53) - Born Brian Borthwick, the British politician legally changed his name to "Toby Gug" (after a pottery piece). A musician of sorts, Jug was a candidate for Parliament and member of the "shadow cabinet" for the Monster Raving Loony Party. After being expelled from that party, Jug founded the Eccentric Party, standing for office multiple times, regularly receiving double-digit vote counts. Jug died May 2, 2019.
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 | Alan Krueger (age 58) - Kreuger, a professor of economics at Princeton University, was the Chair of the White House Council under President Obama from 2012-13; before which he was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. During his career, he specialized in exploding economic memes such as "raising the minimum wage will result in loss of jobs." Kreuger died of suicide March 16, 2019. |
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Bruce Laingen (age 96) - Laingen served in the U. S. Diplomatic Corps from the 1940s until 1979 when, as dhargé d'affaires at the Embassy in Tehran he was held captive by Iranian revolutionaries for 444. days. Prior to his Tehran posting, Laingen was ambassador to Malta, making him the senior staffer among the captives. Laingen died July 15, 2019.
Lyndon LaRouche (age 96) - The founder of the U. S. Labor Party, LaRouche was a well-known political activist and sometimes presidential candidate. LaRouche ran for U. S. President in every election from 1976-2004, generally polling less than 0.1% of the total votes. He continued a career as a political gadfly until his death on February 12, 2019.
Richard Lugar (age 87) - A native of Indianapolis, Lugar began his politiacl career ont he local school board before serving two terms as the city's mayor. After leaving that office, he ran for the U. S. Senate, where he served Indiana from 1977-2013, distinguishing himself as an expert on foreign policy. He was "primaried' in the 2012 election, and left office embittered by the partisanship of modern politics. Lugar passed away on April 28, 2019.
Manuel Lujan (age 90) - A ten-term Republican congressman from New Mexico, Manuel Lujan, Jr., was named by George H. W. Bush to be his Secretary of the Interior in 1989. He presided over the department until the election of Bill Clinton. Lujan was seen as more moderate than his predecessors, hard-line conservatives James Watt and Donald Hodel. Lujan passed away April 25, 2019.
| Tony Mendez (age 78) - A 25-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mendez received the CIA's Intelligence Star in 1980 for the so-called "Canadian Caper," in which six American diplomats were smuggled out of Tehran under the guise of a Canadian film crew. The story was retold in the 2012 movie "Argo," in which Mendez was played by Ben Affleck. Mendez succumbed to Parkinson's Disease on January 19, 2019. |  |
William Milliken (age 97) - Milliken was heading the family's department store in his native Traverse City when he was drawn into politics in 1947. He rose through the ranks as a state senator and lieutenant governor before being elected governor in 1968 as a moderate Republican. He held the office for four terms, making him the longest-serving governor in state history. He died October 18, 2019.
Mohammed Morsi (age 67) - Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was elected president of Egypt after the Arab Spring uprising, lasting slightly over a year before being deposed, When he died, Morsi was on trial for multiple alleged crimes after an earlier conviction was overturned. He had just finished testifying in his trial when he collapsed. He died soon after of what was reported to be a heart attack; on June 17, 2019.
Robert Mugabe (age 95) - Mugabe was working as a teacher when he became active in the Southern Rhodesian nationalism movement, eventually becoming one of the leaders in the fight for secession from the British Empire. After the creation of Zimbabwe, Mugabe was elected the country's first Prime Minister in 1980. In 1987, he was named "chief executive" of the troubled country, a position he held in one form or another until 2017. Mugabe died September 6, 2019.
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Yasuhiro Nakasone (age 101) - Nakasone was a member of the Japanese Parliament from 1947-2004 and Prime Minister of Japan from 1982-1987. He was instrumental in the rebuilding of his homeland's national pride and industrial might during his tenure as PM. Nakasone died November 29, 2019.
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H. Ross Perot (age 89) - A founder of Electronic Data Systems, Perot was one of the first tech billionaires. He will, however, be known as the most successful third-party presidential candidates in generations. He pulled almost 20% of the popular vote in the 1992 election, although no electoral college votes. He may well have been the model for the Ferengi in "Star Trek the Next Generation." Perot died of leukemia on July 9, 2019.
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William Ruckelshaus (age 87) - Native Hoosier Ruckelshaus dates back to an earlier age of politics, when a Republican pressident created the EPA. At the time a Justice Department deputy; he was tapped by Richard Nixon to be the first director of the agency, a post he held twice. During Watergate, he was acting director of the FBI before being fired in the Saturday Night Massacre. He was brought back to head the EPA again in the Reagan administration after it was "hollowed out." Ruckelshaus died November 27, 2019.
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Bernice Resnick Sandler (age 90) - Sometimes called The Godmother of Title IX, "Bunny" Sandler was instrumental in drafting that portion of the 1972 Education Amendment with members of the U. S. Congress and Senate. Sandler continued her efforts as an advocate for women's rights and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2013. She died January 5, 2019.
Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (age 96) - Prince Bandar was the eldest surviving member of the Saudi royal family and an elder half-brother of King Salman. Although of royal blood, he removed himself from the line of succession in 1982, reportedly for a large bribe. He was at one time director general of the Interior, a relatively minor government role. Prince Bandar died July 28, 2019.
Barbra Casbar Siperstein (age 76) - A lifelong resident of New Jersey, "Babs" transitioned in the 1980s and was outed as transgender in 2000. She then became an activist for LGBT causes, serving as president of the New Jersey Stonewall Democrats and as a member of the DNC Executive Committee. Siperstein passed away February 3, 2019.
John Paul Stevens (age 99) - Judge Stevens served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1975 until retiring in 2010. Although appointed by a Republican president (Gerald Ford), Stevens position on the court shifted to the "liberal" side by his retirement as justices such as Scalia, Thomas, and Alito dragged the court to the right. Stevens was replaced by Elizabeth Kagan upon retirement. He died July 16, 2019 after a stroke.
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Paul Volcker (age 92) - Volcker chaired the U. S. Federal Reserve from 1979 to 19887 under Presidents Carter and Reagan, and chaired President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He was a member of the Trilateral Commission and chaired the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget; and was best known for his anti-inflationary bent. Volcker died December 8, 2019. |
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Joseph Wilson (age 69) - Wilson was a career diplomat, ultimately rising to the level of Ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Principe. In 2002, after retirement, he was tasked by the CIA with investigating the rumors of Iraq's purchases of uranium minerals in Niger. After his investigation found evidence of such transactions, his wife Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA agent by the Bush White House. Wilson died September 27, 2019. |
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Harris Wofford (age 92) - Harris served as U. S. Senator from Pennsylvania from 1991-94 after being appointed to fill the seat of John Heinz. He was instrumental in establishing MLK Day as a "Day of Service" as well as the Peace Corps. Wofford perished January 20, 2019, as a result of injuries received in a fall. |
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Edward Zigler (age 88)- Zigler, a leader in the field of developmental psychology, was the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. In 1970, then-President Nixon appointed Zigler to head the Office of Child Development. It his work in this position that led people to call him the "Father of Head Start." Zigler passed away February 7, 2019.
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