Thomas Kean
Thomas Howard Kean (born
April 21,
1935 in
New York City) is an
American Republican Party politician, who served as the
48th Governor of
New Jersey, from 1982 to 1990.
In 2002, he was appointed by President
George W. Bush to chair the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, widely known as the 9/11 Commission, which was responsible for investigating the causes of the
September 11, 2001 attacks and providing recommendations to prevent future attacks.
Kean was born in
New York City to a long line of
New Jersey politicians. His father,
Robert Kean, was a Congressman, and his grandfather
Hamilton Fish Kean and grand-uncle
John Kean both served as
Senators. His other grand-uncle was
Hamilton Fish, a Senator, Governor of New Jersey, and
Secretary of State.
Kean was educated at
St. Mark's School in
Southborough, Massachusetts, and then at
Princeton University and
Columbia University.
Originally a teacher of
history and
government, Kean was elected, in 1967, as a Republican to the
New Jersey General Assembly.
With a split among the Assembly's Democrats, Kean obtained the support of one of the Democratic factions and thereby got elected New Jersey House Speaker in 1972. In the next Assembly, in 1974, the Democrats united behind one candidate for Speaker and Kean was relegated to minority leader of the Assembly. In 1973, he briefly served as acting New Jersey Governor.
1977 Gubernatorial loss
In 1977, Kean ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for New Jersey Governor. Although he has spent most of his career as a political moderate, in this 1977 race Kean ran to the right of New Jersey Senate Minority Leader Raymond Bateman. Bateman won the nomination, though he lost the general election to
Brendan Byrne.
1981 Gubernatorial victory and 1985 re-election
Kean faired better four years later, in 1981, when he again ran for governor, and this time defeated U.S. Representative
James Florio in the closest election in New Jersey Gubernatorial election history, winning by fewer than 1,800 votes.
Kean proved hugely popular in office. In striking contrast to his slim 1981 victory, he won re-election in 1985 with the largest margin of victory in the history of the office, defeating Peter Shapiro, then the Chairman of the
Essex County Democratic Party.
In 1988, reflecting his growing national stature as one of the leaders of the Republican Party's moderate wing, Kean delivered the keynote speech at the
1988 Republican National Convention in
New Orleans. The same year, he also authored a book,
The Politics of Inclusion, published by Free Press, which urged collaboration between political parties and leaders of varying ideological stripes.
New Jersey Republican political machine
Limited to two Gubernatorial terms by the
New Jersey State Constitution, Kean left office in
January,
1990 as one of the most popular political figures in New Jersey political history. He was succeeded by Florio, who won a landslide victory in November 1989 but then struggled in the face of growing political opposition as Republican influence in the state continued to grow, led in part by former Kean aides and political allies.
Throughout his political career, Kean was known for attracting bright, rising stars with deep public policy expertise. Former New Jersey gubernatorial candidate
Doug Forrester, New Jersey Congressman
Bob Franks, and other leading New Jersey and national Republican figures began their political and public policy careers in his state administration. Following the end of his Governorship, these and other Republicans from the Kean administration helped expand the
Republican political machine that was beginning to emerge in New Jersey, a traditionally
Democratic state.
While Democrats continued to win many offices throughout the state, this new Republican political machine helped propel Republican
Christine Todd Whitman to victory against Florio in the 1993 New Jersey Gubernatorial race. Whitman was reelected in 1997, against
James McGreevey, again signalling the sucess of the new Republican machine in New Jersey, though both Whitman elections were won narrowly.
Foreign policy and national security
After leaving
Trenton in 1990, Kean assumed the Presidency of
Drew University in
Madison, New Jersey, though he continued to expand his role as a national political leader, forging close working relationships with both the administrations of
Bill Clinton (with whom he had worked closely in the
National Governors Association) and then with
George W. Bush, who saw Kean as an important national political ally.
Kean maintained an active national role on numerous public policy issues, including
education and low-income housing. In 1997, Kean was appointed as an Advisory Board member of President Clinton's
One America Initiative, designed to heal racial divides in the nation.
Following the end of his second Gubernatorial term, former
Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst
Michael Johns and other national policy and political leaders were recruited by Kean to support and help administer his growing involvement in
foreign policy,
national security and a broad range of national policy issues. Laying the ground for his ultimate appointment to head the
9/11 Commission, Kean quickly was appointed to the boards of several important foreign policy bodies, including the U.S. government-funded
National Endowment for Democracy {NED), which was heavily engaged in supporting
democracy-building programs in former
Eastern bloc and other nations, and a Presidential advisory commission on a post-
Castro Cuba, chaired by former U.S. Presidential Republican candidate
Steve Forbes.
Heading the September 11 commission
Following the
September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States by
al-Qaeda, political pressure grew for an independent commission to independently investigate why the attacks were not prevented by U.S. national security organizations, including the
Central Intelligence Agency,
Department of Defense,
Federal Bureau of Investigation and others, and to provide recommendations for preventing future attacks.
Bush initially selected former
Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to head the Commission, known as the "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States", or the
9/11 Commission. But on December 13, 2002, Kissinger resigned as the Commission's Chairman under pressure related to his global business conflicts. Noting Kean's post-Gubernational foreign policy involvement and his reputation as a consensus-oriented political leader, Bush nominated Kean to succeed Kissinger in leading the important and politically-sensitive commission. The commission is widely considered the most important independent U.S. government commission since the
Warren Commission, which was charged with investigating the 1963 assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.
Just as some had criticized Kissinger's nomination, Kean's leadership of the committee also drew some criticism. Some critics argued that Kean, the Commission members, and the Commission staff almost all had various business and political conflicts that made it difficult to lay blame on their political allies.
The Commission's Staff Director,
Philip D. Zelikow, had served on George W. Bush's Presidential transition team and had worked closely with U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, a key Commission witness, in the
George H. W. Bush administration.
Other critics argued that some witnesses were not questioned nearly hard enough, given the extraordinary stakes of the Commission's investigatory responsibilities.
Perhaps the most criticism was directed at a decisiuon to blank 28 pages of the publicly-released version of the report, though there is widespread speculation that the 28 pages had to do with sensitive issues related to
Saudi Arabia's relationship with al-Qaeda and were considered potentially threatening to U.S. national security interests if released to the public[
1].
On
April 4,
2004, Kean stated that the September 11 attacks could have been prevented had the
United States government acted sooner to dismantle al-Qaeda and responded more quickly to other
terrorist threats, which was seen as a political criticism of the Clinton administration and U.S. government national security agencies.
On
July 22,
2004, the Commission issued its final report, which concluded that the CIA and the FBI had ill-served President Bush and the American people in failing to predict or prevent the September 11 attacks, which the report concluded was preventable.
Without Precedent
On
August 15,
2006, a book by Kean and 9/11 Commission Vice Chairman
Lee H. Hamilton, titled
Without Precedent, will be released regarding the September 11 attacks and the September 11 Commission. In the book, Kean writes that the 9/11 Commission was so frustrated with repeated misstatements by officials from
The Pentagon and
Federal Aviation Administration during the investigation that it considered a separate investigation into possible obstruction of justice by Pentagon and FAA officials[
2].
Kean has a wife, Deborah, a daughter, Alexandra, and twin sons, Tom and Reed. They live in
Bedminster Township, New Jersey. Kean's son
Tom, Jr. is a
New Jersey State Senator, representing New Jersey's 21st district, and is the
Republican Senatorial nominee who will face off against
Robert Menendez in the
November 2006 general election.
Kean is also a weekly columnist for the
Star-Ledger, a
Newark, New Jersey newspaper, where he and former New Jersey Governor
Brendan Byrne (his immediate predecessor) debate issues of the day in a column titled "Kean-Byrne Dialogue". Although both men often disagree (as Kean is a Republican, while Byrne is a Democrat), they occasionally see eye to eye on topics, and both men have expressed great mutual respect for each other.
Kean is a member of the corporate
board of directors of
ARAMARK and
CIT Group Incorporated. He also is an advisor to, and has ben inducted into,
Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity.
Kean University in
Union Township,
New Jersey, formerly located in
Newark and named Newark State College and Kean College, is named in memory of Kean's father, Robert, who served New Jersey in the
United States House of Representatives from 1939 to 1959.
