Howard Cannon, 90; Quiet but Powerful Nevada Senator

Howard W. Cannon, an unpretentious but rough-and-tumble Westerner and decorated World War II aviator who served Nevada for 24 years in the U.S. Senate, died Wednesday at a hospice of congestive heart failure. He was 90 and had been in ill health for some time.

During his four Senate terms starting in 1958, the Democrat pursued political wheeling and dealing as a quiet, understated art, shrewdly protecting Las Vegas’ tourism and military industries while holding powerful posts in the Commerce, Rules and Armed Services committees.

“He was the most underappreciated political figure in recent Nevada history,” said Richard Bryan, a former Nevada governor who represented the state in the Senate from 1989 until last year. “He was a major player in Washington, even though he was not charismatically gifted. He was modest to the point of being shy, which belied a life of great adventure.”

Among his political successes: shepherding laws that deregulated the trucking and airline industries, which not only brought a sea change to those businesses but also boosted Las Vegas as a tourism destination thanks to cheaper air fares.

He promoted the growth of Las Vegas in other ways too--by capturing federal aid for local highway construction and marshaling funds for nearby Nellis Air Force Base, even when it was a chronic target for closure. Today it is home of the Air Force’s Air Warfare Center, which pits fighter pilots against one another in mock dogfights.

Cannon helped ensure Las Vegas’ growth in another way, helping win federal appropriations for pipelines so that thirsty Las Vegas Valley could tap Colorado River water from nearby Lake Mead and no longer rely exclusively on the desert aquifer.

His allegiance to Las Vegas was payback to voters; he was the state’s first senator elected from southern Nevada, as the weight of the state’s population was shifting to the south.

“He proved a master at protecting and encouraging key components of Nevada’s economy,” said historian Michael Green. “He was a very effective member of the Senate club.”

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called Cannon “a natural leader, a patriot, and a hero to the state of Nevada ... a great role model.”

Cannon lost reelection to the Senate in 1982, blindsided by Republican Chic Hecht, a Las Vegas businessman who aligned himself with Ronald Reagan. Hecht served only one term, and was succeeded by Bryan.

Many Nevadans today rue Cannon’s defeat; Congress in 1987 passed legislation naming Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the only prospective site to be developed as a repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste. President Bush approved the site last month.

“If he hadn’t been defeated, we wouldn’t be facing Yucca Mountain today,” said Mike O’Callaghan, Nevada’s governor from 1971 to ’79. “He would have stopped Yucca at the committee. He had that kind of power.”

Cannon was born in St. George, Utah, in 1912, the only son of Walter Cannon, who was a teacher, banker and farmer, and his wife, Leah. As a youngster, he became an expert cowhand on his parents’ ranch, riding horseback in his first job as a newspaper delivery boy.

While attending college in Arizona, he mastered the saxophone and organized a small orchestra that booked gigs at local towns and on a cruise ship. Infatuated with flying, he used some of his money to purchase a biplane--and was again delivering newspapers, this time dropping bundles from the air and aiming for desert brush to cushion their fall.

After earning his law degree in 1937 and opening a law office back home, he enlisted in the Utah National Guard and soon found himself assigned to the Army Air Corps with the outbreak of World War II.

He spent 20 months overseas and in 1944 was shot down behind enemy lines in Holland, escaping capture for 42 days before rejoining Allied troops.

After the war, with multiple decorations as a retired major general, he opened a Las Vegas law firm, and in 1949 was elected Las Vegas city attorney.

He was defeated in a run for Congress in 1956, but won election to the Senate two years later, on the strength of labor support and his war record.

A champion of all things Nevadan, he voted against the grain in 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson was angry that Southern Democrats had turned to filibuster to block a vote on his civil rights bill. Nevada politicians had long aligned themselves with Southern Democrats, whom they in turn counted on to protect Nevada’s gambling industry.

But at Johnson’s request, Cannon, himself a civil rights champion, voted for cloture, clearing the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

That fall, Cannon faced tough reelection competition in Paul Laxalt, Nevada’s popular Republican lieutenant governor. Cannon won by a scant 48 votes, and Laxalt refused to run against Cannon again, winning election instead 10 years later, replacing then-Sen. Alan Bible, a Democrat who retired.

Throughout his tenure in the Senate, Cannon pursued his love of aircraft and insisted on flying prototype aircraft before voting funds for their development. Among the aircraft he piloted: the F-14, F-15 and F-111.

A consummate politician, Cannon used his clout with discretion. “He had no national pretensions and wasn’t a showboat,” Bryan said. “He was extraordinarily competent and a hard worker who knew how to get things done as an inside player, so his colleagues were not threatened by him.”

He was sensitive to the individual needs of his constituents. “He was always looking out for the little guy with problems,” said Sara Denton, who managed his Las Vegas office from 1970 until 1982. “No matter how trivial someone’s problem was, the senator wanted us to take care of him--whether it was a veteran, a senior citizen or just someone having difficulty with the government bureaucracy.

“He wasn’t a glad-hander,” she said. “He was just a shy, humble and very caring person.”

Cannon is survived by his wife, Dorothy, children Nancy Downey and Alan Cannon, and three grandchildren.

Services are pending with Palm Mortuary in Las Vegas.