Thomas J. Dodd

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Thomas Joseph Dodd (May 15, 1907-May 24, 1971) was a United States Senator and Representative from Connecticut.

Early life

He was born in Norwich, New London County, Conn., on May 15, 1907. He graduated from Providence College in 1930, and Yale University Law School in 1933.

He served as a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1933 and 1934, and was Connecticut director of the National Youth Administration 1935-1938. He was assistant to five successive United States Attorneys General from 1938-1945 and became vice chairman of the Board of Review and later executive trial counsel for the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality at Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945 and 1946. He engaged in the private practice of law in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1947 to 1953.

Congress

Dodd was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives in 1952, and served two terms. He lost a Senate election in 1956 to Prescott S. Bush, but was elected in 1958 to Connecticut's other Senate seat and then re-elected in 1964. In 1967 he was censured by the Senate for using campaign funds for personal purposes. In 1970, after suffering a heart attack, he chose not to run for re-election for the Senate, and the Democrats nominated Joseph Duffey to replace him. However, Dodd entered the race after the primary, which both he and Duffey lost to Lowell Weicker.

Dodd was known to have a very serious problem with alcohol. In an infamous 1965 incident that took place on Capitol Hill, Dodd was reported to be so inebriated that he needed the help of two secretaries to reach his car.

Dodd died in 1971. His son, Christopher J. Dodd, was elected to the Senate as a Connecticut Democrat in 1980.

Famed protest song artist Phil Ochs references Dodd in his song "Draft Dodger Rag" with the line, "I believe in god and Senator Dodd and keeping old Castro down."

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