John O. Pastore

John Orlando Pastore was an attorney and politician who rose through the ranks to become Governor of Rhode Island in 1945. Five years later, he was elected to the United States Senate, for which he served for over a quarter of a century. The son of Italian immigrants, Pastore has the distinction of being the first person of Italian descent to be elected governor of a state and the first Italian-American elected to the United States Senate. Highlights of his political career include his keynote address at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which renominated Lyndon B. Johnson for the Presidency. In 1969, as the chairman of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications, he overheard testimony regarding the future funding of public broadcasting. Johnson had proposed a budget of $20 million, but newly elected President Richard Nixon wanted to cut the budget in half to help fund the Vietnam War. Pastore, who was becoming increasingly impatient at