Jacob Koppel Javits (18 March 1904-7 March 1986) was a member of the US Senate from New York (R) from 3 January 1957 to 3 January 1981, succeeding Herbert Lehman and preceding Al D'Amato; he previously served as Attorney General of New York from 1 January 1955 to 9 January 1957, succeeding Nathaniel L. Goldstein and preceding Louis Lefkowitz, and as a member of the US House of Representatives from New York's 21st district from 3 January 1947 to 31 December 1954, succeeding James H. Torrens and preceding Herbert Zelenko.
Biography[]
Jacob Koppel Javits was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, New York on 18 March 1904 to a Jewish family. Javits graduated from the New York University School of Law before establishing a private practice in New York City, and he served in the US Army's Chemical Warfare Department during World War II. Outraged by the corruption of Tammany Hall, Javits became involved with the Republican Party, supporting Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia. Javits won election to the US House of Representatives in 1946 and served in that body until 1954, and he supported President Harry S. Truman's Cold War foreign policy and voted to fund the Marshall Plan. He defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. in the 1954 election for Attorney General of New York, and he was elected to the US Senate in 1956. In the House and Senate, Javits established himself as a liberal Republican, opposing the anti-labor union Taft-Hartley Act, and supporting much of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs and civil rights legislation. Javits supported the US entry into the Vietnam War in 1964, but he questioned Johnson's handling of the war, and he supported the War Powers Resolution. In 1980, he lost the Republican Senate primary to Al D'Amato, who campaigned to Javits' right. He died in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1986 at the age of 81, and he was buried in Queens, NYC.