Paul Douglas Coverdell (January 20, 1939 – July 18, 2000) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 1993 until his death in 2000. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the director of the Peace Corps from 1989 to 1991 under President George H. W. Bush.
Coverdell was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1939 and lived much of his childhood in the Midwest. Coverdell graduated from Lee's Summit High School in Lees Summit, Missouri. and went on to graduate from the University of Missouri in 1961 with a degree in journalism. While in college, Coverdell was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
Coverdell joined the Army in 1962 and served as a captain in Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea. After completing his service Coverdell settled in Atlanta with his wife, Nancy. Coverdell began a career in insurance, founding the firm Coverdell & Co. Inc. with his father and becoming president of the family business in 1965.
Georgia State Senator (1970–1989)
Coverdell was unsuccessful in his first attempt to win election to the state senate in 1968 but he ran again and won in 1970 representing north Fulton County. Coverdell began serving as Senate Minority Leader in 1974, a position he held until he left the Georgia Senate in 1989. Coverdell worked with Democrats to accomplish his goals. Roy Barnes, a Democrat who would later be elected Governor of Georgia, said that when he joined the Georgia State Senate, Republican Coverdell took him under his political wing. "He showed that people of different parties could discuss their personal strengths and weaknesses," Barnes said. "I never worried that Paul would disclose anything I said." During Coverdell's time as minority leader he worked for pension reform, supported DUI legislation, and raising the legal drinking age in Georgia.
In 1977 Coverdell lost a special election to Wyche Fowler to succeed Andrew Young. After Coverdell's loss in 1977, he began working to develop a base for national Republican candidates and a viable statewide Republican Party organization. In 1985 Coverdell was elected Chairman of the Georgia GOP.
In 1978, Coverdell was vacationing in Maine and decided to look up former chairman of the Republican National Committee George H. W. Bush. Coverdell found Bush's address in a phone book, went to his home, knocked on the door and introduced himself to the future president. Bush and Coverdell became close friends and over the next fourteen years Bush and Coverdell would help each other on a number of occasions. In 1980, Coverdell was finance chairman in Georgia when Bush first ran for the Republican nomination for president. In 1988, Coverdell was the Southern steering committee chairman for the Bush campaign. Coverdell's efforts paid off in 1988 when Bush carried Georgia's twelve electoral votes. When Bush was elected president, Coverdell sent a letter. "If I can help, I'd like to help," Coverdell wrote. Bush appointed Coverdell to head the Peace Corps.
Peace Corps Director (1989–1991)
Coverdell was sworn in as Director of the Peace Corps on May 2, 1989, in a ceremony in the Oval Office. At the same time Coverdell stepped down from the Georgia State Senate, a post he had held for 15 years and resigned as president of Coverdell and Co. Inc to devote his time to the Peace Corps. Coverdell's primary initiative as Peace Corps Director was the creation of the "World Wise Schools" program. The program linked students in the United States with Peace Corps volunteers serving around the world. During the time Coverdell was in office, the World Wise Schools program connected volunteers with 5,000 classrooms in the United States. Coverdell was well regarded among the Peace Corps community. In the fall of 2000, after his death, a tribute was held in his honor at the Peace Corps Headquarters to honor his life and legacy.
Peace Corps enters Eastern Europe
Coverdell sent the first Peace Corps volunteers to Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. On June 15, 1990, President George H. W. Bush hosted a send off for volunteers headed for Poland and Hungary. "The key you carry with you will be the English language—what Paul calls the language of commerce and understanding. And just as national literacy has long been the key to power, so today English literacy has become the key to progress. Like your liberty, your language came to you as a birthright and a credit to the dreams and sacrifices of those who came before. And today you're investing that birthright in the ancient dreams and the new ideas of faraway peoples and their own nations reborn. Your investment is America's investment in the consolidation of democracy and independence in Central and Eastern Europe. Peace Corps programs in Poland and Hungary, and then soon in Czechoslovakia, are another tangible element of America's sustained commitment to Central and Eastern Europe's democratic transformation toward a Europe whole and free."
Coverdell's support for the Peace Corps
After Coverdell was elected to the Senate he continued his support for the Peace Corps and supported legislation to expand it. In testimony before the International Relations Committee in the House of Representatives on March 18, 1998, Coverdell testified in support of expansion. "I want to point out that the goal of increasing the number of Peace Corps volunteers spans three Presidencies. Under the distinguished leadership of former Director, the late Director Ruppe, the concept of moving toward 10,000 American volunteers throughout the world began to be articulated by the Reagan Administration. During my directorship we continued the pursuit of expanding the volunteer corps. We were there at a rather unique moment in world history, and the emphasis necessarily began to shift to responding to a host of nations experiencing freedom for the first time in nearly half a century, many more years, and so the emphasis began to move toward the opening, as the chairman alluded to, of new country programs. These new countries can be the beneficiary of our activities if we pursue expanding the volunteer corps."
Controversy over trips to Georgia
Meanwhile, Coverdell had his eye on the Senate seat held by Wyche Fowler, the man who defeated him in the special election for Congress in 1977. The Associated Press reported on September 4, 1991, that Coverdell had resigned as director of the Peace Corps and was considering a run for the Senate. There is some controversy over Coverdell's use of the office of Peace Corps Director and his subsequent run for the Senate. The New York Times reported on September 27, 1992, that Coverdell's tenure as head of the Peace Corps was likely to be one of the issues in the 1992 Senate race in Georgia and that Coverdell had been "accused of using the office to plot his political future in Georgia." However, Charlton Heston, who came to Georgia to campaign on Coverdell's behalf in the Senate election, wrote for the National Review in 1992: "He served (as Peace Corps director) effectively, but it hardly seemed an ideal launching pad for national elective office." In 2001, the Georgia trips issue returned to the news when some senators proposed renaming the Peace Corps building after Coverdell.
In 1992, Coverdell faced an uphill fight to win a U.S. Senate seat and had to campaign in four separate elections (all-candidate primary, primary runoff, all-party general, and general runoff). Coverdell was not a natural campaigner. Senator Phil Gramm, then chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he was appalled the first time he saw Coverdell speak. "Paul got up and spoke in that squeaky voice and he sort of had a way of jumping up and down when he was speaking and waving his hands," Gramm said. "But little did I know ... that this man had the heart of a lion."
Facing four other candidates in the Republican primary, Coverdell failed to win 50% of the vote and was forced into a runoff against Bob Barr that he won by only 1,600 votes. The general election also proved difficult. Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler beat Coverdell by 30,000 votes on election day, but because the Libertarian candidate, Jim Hudson, had won 3 percent of the vote another runoff election was required. On November 24, Coverdell won the runoff by slightly over 16,000 votes, aided by an endorsement from Hudson, who was no longer in the race; he became only the second Republican Georgia sent to the Senate since Reconstruction. President Bush showed his support for Coverdell and Barbara Bush campaigned for Coverdell during the Senate race.