Gale McGee; Former Senator, Ambassador

Gale McGee, a Wyoming Democrat who served nearly 20 years in the Senate and was ambassador to the Organization of American States, has died at 77.

McGee died of pneumonia Thursday at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md. He had been convalescing from surgery for a brain aneurysm he suffered in September.

“This was one of Wyoming’s finest,” Assistant Republican Leader Alan Simpson told colleagues in a tribute from the Senate floor.

Simpson, who said McGee had been one of his professors at the University of Wyoming, called him “truly a remarkable man . . . very loved and deeply respected in the state of Wyoming.”

Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan honored McGee on his 77th birthday last month for his contributions to the state and nation. Sullivan noted McGee’s public service career and his international reputation as “an observer and formulator of American foreign policy.”

McGee, born in Norfolk, Neb., on March 17, 1915, taught history for 20 years, including more than a decade as professor of American history at the University of Wyoming.

He won his first U.S. Senate term in 1958 in his initial run for public office, upsetting incumbent Sen. Frank A. Barrett by a vote of 58,035 to 56,122. He left the Senate in 1977 after he lost a bid for reelection to Republican Malcolm Wallop.

McGee served the Carter and Reagan administrations as ambassador to the Washington-based Organization of American States.

He left that office in 1981 to become a private consultant in international and government affairs.

McGee is survived by his wife, Loraine, two daughters, two sons and six grandchildren.