Lexington Herald-Leader | 10/16/2003 | a life of public service

Kentucky politicians mourned the loss of one of their fellows yesterday -- and with him, a sense of something nobler, and perhaps long gone, from public life.

Edward Thompson "Ned" Breathitt Jr., who as Kentucky's governor from 1963 to 1967 challenged the political establishment to secure the first civil rights law in a Southern state, died late Tuesday night at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

Mr. Breathitt, who had been in a coma at the medical center since last Friday, when he collapsed during a speech at the university, was 78. John Gurley, Mr. Breathitt's cardiologist, said in a statement that the former governor had collapsed due to ventricular fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm.

Mr. Breathitt's death brought an outpouring of praise for him from politicians past and present, who spoke of his commitment to progressive government, civil politics and civic involvement.

In addition to the milestone civil rights law he helped pass, Mr. Breathitt's administration is credited with pioneering a system to limit strip-mining's harmful effects on the environment and boosting the regulation of campaign fund-raising and spending.

In the years since his term ended, Mr. Breathitt, a Democrat, had been involved in education issues and had been a driving force behind an ongoing effort by the Lexington city government to buy the privately held water company that serves Fayette County.

"One of the things I will always admire about Governor Breathitt is that even when he no longer held elective office, he sought countless opportunities to contribute to the public good," said U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky's top Republican official. "His was a lifetime of service to the commonwealth he loved. A greater legacy than that I cannot imagine."

Mr. Breathitt, whose career after politics also included a stint as a railroad executive, said in a 1980 interview that he thought it was easier for former governors to get involved in public affairs after they gave up their own political ambitions.

"They can make a better contribution when people are not looking over their shoulders, wondering what their motives are," he said.

During a four-year term that began just weeks after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Mr. Breathitt overcame factionalism within his own party to advance his agenda.

Of his accomplishments, he was perhaps most pleased by winning full funding for the Land Between the Lakes, a 170,000-acre national recreation and environmental education area between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley in his native Western Kentucky.

"It was his main legacy in his view," said Don Mills, who served as press secretary in Mr. Breathitt's administration. "He got it fully funded through Congress with the help of Lyndon Johnson."

"It doesn't undermine the fact that he felt strongly about civil rights and the strip mine bill, but he just said (they) would happen sooner or later," Mills said.

But one hallmark of the administration was a resounding failure: An attempt by Mr. Breathitt and others to modernize Kentucky's 1891 constitution -- an effort to which he devoted years of his life -- was overwhelmingly rejected by voters in 1966.

"I left part of my life in that one," he said in a later interview. "I gave it all my juice ... and we took a bad licking."

Still, Mr. Breathitt, the Democratic handpicked successor of Gov. Bert T. Combs, managed to confound political experts who predicted he was doomed to the role of caretaker because money was scarce and Combs had begun many new state programs.

Instead, with the help of a $176 million bond issue, Mr. Breathitt presided over the largest building program in the state's history up to that time. The money paid for improvements in Kentucky highways, education, parks and social services.

Innovations included a state vocational training program and funding for Kentucky Educational Television, the statewide educational TV system.

Noted political family

Mr. Breathitt was born in Hopkinsville on Nov. 26, 1924, the son of E.T. Breathitt, who spent his life in the tobacco business, and Mary Jo Wallace Breathitt, who was from Trigg County. He came from a noted political family. A distant relative had been governor, his grandfather had been attorney general and an uncle was lieutenant governor.

Hopkinsville High School's class of 1942 voted Mr. Breathitt the "boy most likely to succeed." After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, he received a UK degree in commerce in 1948, and a UK law degree in 1950.

In a university philosophy class, Mr. Breathitt met Frances Holleman of Mayfield; he married her in December 1948. Frances Holleman Breathitt, characterized as her husband's silent partner during his political life, died of complications from cancer July 11, 1985, in Washington. She was 58. The couple had four children.

Mr. Breathitt started a law practice in Hopkinsville, and in 1951, at age 27, he won the first of three terms in the state House of Representatives.

As state personnel commissioner for then-Gov. Combs, Mr. Breathitt was instrumental in developing a new "merit" system designed to protect state employees from political interference in their jobs.

In preparation for the 1963 race, Combs groomed Mr. Breathitt successfully against a key Democratic rival, former Gov. A.B. "Happy" Chandler, who headed a rival faction of the Democratic party.

Problems inside the party

Mr. Breathitt, who took office Dec. 10, 1963, promised taxpayers "a dollar's worth of service for every dollar spent out of the public treasury -- or heads will roll."

The Breathitt administration had problems from the start, beginning with a rift inside the Democratic party. Mr. Breathitt squabbled with his lieutenant governor, Harry Lee Waterfield, who had been Chandler's running mate in the primary.

The men made charges and countercharges against each other about broken promises and political shenanigans, particularly in the area of economic development, and battled for control of the state Senate.

Mr. Breathitt's relations were much better with the nation's top Democrat of the day, President Lyndon B. Johnson. The two men rode down Main Street in Inez together to help Johnson launch the national "War on Poverty" on April 23, 1964.

That same year, Mr. Breathitt received a telegram of appreciation from the president for his role in getting a number of governors to sign a statement supporting a federal civil rights bill. Mr. Breathitt was the only governor on the President's Council on Human Rights.

Pushed strict mining law

In November 1965, Ollie Combs, a Knott County woman, was jailed for trying to block a bulldozer in a strip mining operation -- a case that drew national attention to the cause of the "Widow Combs."

Three days after her arrest, Mr. Breathitt urged strip and auger mines to hold off on using "broad-form deeds" in Kentucky. Under such deeds, coal companies acquired only mineral rights, not the "surface" above the coal. But Kentucky's high court had ruled that coal operators could strip away the surface to get to the coal.

Mr. Breathitt went on to ram through the 1966 legislature one of the nation's strictest mining laws. Enforcement was poor and subject to political influence, and the law failed to protect or restore ravaged land.

A federal law was needed, he said, not just to rein in the industry, but to create a level playing field among states. Eleven years later, a federal law was enacted.

In December 1967, as one of his final acts in office, Mr. Breathitt put into effect a regulation aimed at reducing landslides on strip mining sites. That year, he received the Conservationist of the Year award from the Kentucky Association of Soil Conservation Districts. The association's president cited laws passed in 1966 to control water and air pollution and littering.

Mr. Breathitt's administration was also recognized by the Society of Industrial Realtors, which in 1964, named Kentucky's industrial development program the nation's most effective.

A November 1967 newspaper editorial said that over Mr. Breathitt's term, Kentucky announced more than 750 new or expanded manufacturing plants, creating at least 57,000 new jobs at full capacity. Investment for new plants during Mr. Breathitt's years totaled more than $1 billion.

As he prepared to leave office, Mr. Breathitt said in an interview that he thought history would judge his administration kindly. "Our administration hasn't been besmirched by scandal," he said. "Nobody in my cabinet has abused the public trust."

Return to law practice

After leaving the governor's office, Mr. Breathitt returned briefly to his Hopkinsville law practice and served as special counsel to the Southern Railway System, for which he became a vice president in 1972. The railroad later became Norfolk Southern Corp.

He retired from Norfolk Southern and joined the Lexington office of the law firm Wyatt, Tarrant and Combs in 1992.

Over the years, Mr. Breathitt also had executive positions in the Ford Foundation Institute for Rural America and the Coalition for Rural America.

On April 2, 1988, while still working for the railroad, he married Lucy Alexander Winchester in Lexington. The second Mrs. Breathitt had been social secretary to first lady Pat Nixon. Lucy Breathitt also is a cousin of Libby Jones, wife of former Gov. Brereton Jones.

In 1980, after nearly 13 years away from public office, Mr. Breathitt began to renew his involvement in public life, particularly in higher education.

He was a major, but low-key, adviser to Gov. John Y. Brown Jr., who appointed him to the UK Board of Trustees in 1981. He later served on the boards of Morehead State University and Kentucky State University with his former political rival, former Gov. Louie B. Nunn.

In July 1992, Mr. Breathitt joined the UK Board of Trustees again. It was the third time he had served on the board, including his years as governor; before 1970, state law required that the governor chair the board. As board chairman in 1997, he clashed with another governor, Paul Patton.

Under a comprehensive reform plan, Patton sought to separate Kentucky's community colleges from the control of UK and link them with technical schools under a new board. Mr. Breathitt opposed the move in what became an unusually public and acrimonious fight.

Patton prevailed in 1997. Said Mr. Breathitt: "He knows how to use the tools of the governor to get votes." The men later mended fences.

In recent years, he also was president of the Kentucky Historical Society and served as chairman of a group that wants the city of Lexington to buy Kentucky-American Water Co.

Mr. Breathitt received several honors in recognition of his work in education. A $150,000 UK College of Law endowed professorship was named for him in 1991. He was named to UK's College of Business and Economics Alumni Hall of Fame in 1994 and UK's College of Law Alumni Hall of Fame in 1997. UK named an undergraduate lectureship in the humanities for him in 1995. Murray State University, which houses his gubernatorial papers, gave Mr. Breathitt an honorary doctorate in 1994.

In 2000, Mr. Breathitt received Eastern Kentucky University's Center for Kentucky History and Politics John Sherman Cooper Award for Outstanding Public Service to Kentucky. In 1999, he received the Henry Clay Medallion for Distinguished Service, given by the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation. Kentucky's Pennyrile Parkway was renamed for him in 2000.

Mr. Breathitt is survived by his second wife; three daughters and a son from his previous marriage, Mary Frances Breathitt of Lexington, Linda K. Breathitt of Washington, Susan B. Brickman of Dallas, and Edward T. Breathitt III of India; and four grandchildren.

Edward T. 'Ned' Breathitt Jr. 1924-2003