Progressive Wis. Senator Was Founder Of Earth Day

Never a wealthy man, Nelson lived on his Senate salary and retired to a home that he bought in 1971 in the firmly middle-income suburb of Kensington. Even the man who took his seat in 1980, Robert Kasten, said at the time that Nelson was as close to a living legend as was likely to be found in American politics. And Wilderness Society president Meadows noted that after Nelson left office, instead of cashing in with a lucrative job as a lobbyist or lawyer, he chose to work for a nonprofit organization.

Born to a country doctor and nurse in the small town of Clear Lake, Wis., Nelson grew up immersed in the outdoors and enamored of his home state's progressive hero Robert M. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette.

"All we had was the out of doors," he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 1999. "We had no radio until I got into high school. There was no television, obviously. And once the first big snowfall came in winter, there were no automobiles because they didn't plow the road. So you made your own entertainment."

He graduated from California's San Jose State College in 1939 and from the University of Wisconsin's law school in 1942. During World War II, he served in the Army in Okinawa, Japan, where he commanded a unit of black soldiers and met his future wife, an Army nurse. Their romance was one of the stories told in Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation" (1998).

After the war, Nelson returned to Wisconsin and set up a law practice in Madison. There he met Aldo Leopold, author of one of the first ecology books, "A Sand County Almanac," which made an indelible impression on him, Nelson said.

He was elected to the state senate in 1948 and after three terms won a race for governor, becoming the second Democrat elected to that seat in the 20th century.

"I had concluded that the most important issue facing us as a society was the environmental issue," he told the Milwaukee paper. "My concern was the political establishment was not interested in the environment, whereas the public was."

He committed the state to buying a million acres of parkland, wetlands and wildlife habitat, funded by a 1 cent tax on cigarette packs. The Outdoor Recreation Act Program raised $50 million and became a model for other states.

In the Wisconsin state senate, Nelson served with Melvin Laird, who would later become Nixon's secretary of defense. Laird said they would argue vociferously on the senate floor, then adjourn to dinner and drinks.

"There was no closer political friendship and love between two opposite party members in the history of Wisconsin politics than that of Gaylord and me," Laird said.

The friendship continued in Washington. Late one night at the Army and Navy Club, after arguing whether the "hotline" to Moscow was at the White House or the Pentagon, Laird summoned his driver, loaded Nelson into the back seat with him and took him over to the Pentagon command center, where service members on duty must have been stunned to see the defense secretary and the antiwar Democrat stroll in.

"I said, 'Right there is the hotline, and I'm going to have them run through an experiment with it right now' and have them call Moscow," Laird said, and Nelson finally admitted he was mistaken. He often told the story in later years, Laird said.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton awarded Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the government's highest civilian honor, for his environmental leadership. A Wisconsin state park and the University of Wisconsin's environmental studies institute were named for him, and next month, the Apostle Islands wilderness area will also bear his name.

Nelson realized the importance of his role in the environmental movement, telling the Minneapolis Star-Tribune 10 years ago, "We've seen a tremendous change in every aspect of every social and cultural group in the country during the past 25 years. It's subtle, sort of like watching lily pads grow but not being able to see them move on any particular day."

Survivors include his wife, Carrie Lee Nelson of Kensington; three children, Gaylord Nelson Jr. of Dane, Wis., Jeffrey Nelson of Kensington and Tia Nelson of Madison, Wis.; and four grandchildren.