Bruce Sundlun (born
Bruce George Sundlun) was an American politician and member of the
Democratic Party who served as
71st Governor of Rhode Island from 1991 to 1995. He was Rhode Island's second Jewish governor, and the only Jewish governor in the United States during his two terms. In addition to politics, Sundlun had a varied career as a military pilot, federal attorney, practicing lawyer, corporate executive and university lecturer.
(January 19, 1920 – July 21, 2011),
Early life and education
Sundlun was born in
Providence on January 19, 1920 to Walter Irving Sundlun and Jan Zelda (Colitz) Sundlun. His grandparents were
Lithuanian Jewish immigrants.
[4] Sundlun attended the
Gordon School, Providence
Classical High School and
Tabor Academy. In 1933 while attending boy scout camp at
Camp Yawgoog he fell though ice on a pond and was rescued by a young
John Chaffee, and while he was in high school he was track star, excelling in long jump events.
[5] Upon finishing college classes begun in 1938, he received a
B.A. from
Williams College in 1946 after serving during
World War II in the
United States Army Air Forces flying B-17 bombers in the 8th Air Force in England. He attended
Harvard Law School, graduating with a
Doctor of Laws degree in 1949.
[3]
Military service
While still in college, Bruce Sundlun volunteered for service in the U.S. Army Air Forces Aviation Cadet Program on December 8, 1941, at
Westover Field. He was trained as a four-engine bomber pilot at
Maxwell Field in Alabama, after basic flight training at the
USAAC Southeast Training Center at
Orangeburg, South Carolina, the
Greenville Army Air Field at
Greenville, Mississippi, and
George Field in
Lawrenceville, Illinois.
During overseas active duty beginning in June 1943, Sundlun served as a
B-17 Flying Fortress pilot in the
England-based
384th Bomb Group of the
Eighth Air Force at
Grafton-Underwood Air Base. His plane the
Damn Yankee[6] was shot down over
Nazi-occupied
Jabbeke,
Belgium on 1 December 1943 after the plane was damaged by
flak during the bombing of
Solingen,
Germany, on his 13th mission.
[7] He was named an honorary citizen of Jabbeke in 2009 because of the fact that his actions saved countless lives in the town center of Jabbeke.
[8] He and his copilot Lt. Andrew J. Boles banked the airplane hard to the left prior to bailing out, crashing it safely into a turnip field at Zomerweg 41, south of the Jabbeke town center.
After six months time cooperating with the
French Resistance under the code name
Salamander, he made several attempts to enter
Spain near
Biarritz, and later near
Foix. But after a deciding that there was too much danger of capture or loss in the snowy
Pyrenees, he made his way on stolen bicycles north-eastward across France and escaped into
Switzerland on 5 May 1944 near
Fêche-l'Église. Before escaping into Switzerland, he was engaged with the
Maquis in acts of sabotage near
Belfort against German Army units under the command of Russian defector
General Andrey Vlasov.
[3][9] Later, he was recruited by
Allen Dulles working out of the U.S. Embassy in
Bern to reenter France under the auspices of the
Office of Strategic Services to act as a bombardment spotter for the Allied invasion of
Marseilles in August 1944. After a brief service as a pilot of
C-54 Skymaster cargo planes into
Karachi, and over "
The Hump" to
Kunming after
VE Day, he ferried bombers (
B-24 Liberators and
B-29 Superfortresses) from the U.S. mainland to
Tinian in the
Mariana Islands and into other bases in the
Pacific Theater of Operations.
In August 1945, Sundlun attained the rank of
captain, and left active service at the end of the war. He received the
Purple Heart,
Distinguished Flying Cross, and
Air Medal with two
oak leaf clusters from the U.S. military, and in 1977 he received the
Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur from the French government.
[10] Despite ending his active service in 1945, he remained in the
U.S. Air Force Reserves and rose through the officer ranks until he retired as a
Colonel in 1980 after serving with the
376th Troop Carrier Squadron at
Hanscom Air Force Base in
Massachusetts, and the
459th Troop Carrier Group, Medium at
Andrews Air Force Base in
Maryland[11]
In September 1948 Sundlun flew surplus B-17 bombers from
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in
Arizona to the newly created state of
Israel to help form the
Israeli Air Force. Later on 27 November 1979, he was awarded the Prime Minister's Medal by Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin for his services to the State of Israel.
[12][13]
[edit] Bruce Sundlun's Military Awards & Decorations
USAAF Command pilot
Legal and business career
From 1949 to 1972, Sundlun was a practicing attorney. In 1949, he was appointed by
Attorney General J. Howard McGrath to serve as an Assistant
U.S. attorney in
Washington, D.C. and later served as a Special Assistant to the
U.S. Attorney General. From 1954 to 1972, he was in private law practice in both Washington, D.C. and Providence, with the law firms of
Amram, Hahn, and Sundlun, and
Sundlun, Tirana and Scher.
Sundlun was active as a businessman from the 1960s through the 1990s. He was a pioneer in the jet charter industry in 1964 by being one of the founding members of the board of directors of
Executive Jet Aviation (EJA), along with Air Force generals
Curtis E. LeMay, and
Paul Tibbetts, and entertainers
James Stewart and
Arthur Godfrey among others, with retired Air Force Brigadier General Olbert F. ("Dick") Lassiter as president and chairman of the board.
[14][15] Shortly after incorporation in
Ohio, Sundlun arranged financing for EJA by engineering a stock purchase by American Contract Company of
Wilmington,
Delaware, a wholly owned subsidiary of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. EJA initially began operations in 1964 with a fleet of ten
Learjet 23 aircraft.
[16] A few years afterward, a number of financial and legal improprieties were made by Lassiter including the purchase of
Boeing 707 and
Boeing 727 aircraft in violation of federal law prohibiting railroad ownership of large aircraft. An order by the
Civil Aeronautics Board for EJA to either dispose of the large airplanes or for the
Penn Central Railroad to divest its $22 million investment led to the near collapse of EJA in 1970.
[17] The company's creditors reacted by demanding the removal of Lassiter as president.
[18] On July 2, 1970 Sundlun was installed as EJA president, and he set out to rebuild the company. Under his leadership, the big jets were sold and he brought the company into the black. In the process, Sundlun,
Robert Lee Scott, Jr. and Joseph Samuels ("Dody") Sinclair, grandson of one of the founders of
The Outlet Company of Providence, borrowed $1.25 million from the Industrial Trust Company of Providence to buy out Penn Central's interest in EJA. That purchase was completed in 1972 as part of the Penn Central Railroad's bankruptcy proceedings. When
Paul Tibbetts became president of EJA in 1976, he said that the company's turn around, under Sundlun's guidance, was one of the nation's great business success stories of that decade.
[19] By the end of Sundlun's presidency, EJA was doing business with approximately 250 contract flying customers and logging more than three million miles per year. Sundlun remained on the Board of Directors of EJA until it was sold in 1984 to a group of investors led by
Richard Santulli. The company is still in business with the name of
NetJets as one of the holdings of
Berkshire Hathaway.
From 1976 to 1988, Sundlun was president and chief executive officer of
The Outlet Company, a department store and broadcast communications company in
Providence. In close association with Dody Sinclair, he led the diversification of the corporation by expanding its radio and television broadcast communications portfolio in the 1970s and 1980s until it had 147 retail stores and 11 radio and television stations.
[20] He presided over the corporation during the 1981 sale of the company's flagship Providence department store, sale of several radio stations, the merger of The Outlet Company with the
Rockefeller Group in 1984, and the renaming of the company to Outlet Communications.
[20] In 1986 after the Rockefeller family voted to not expand further into broadcast communications, a group of Outlet Communications executives, led by Sundlun, executed a leveraged buyout of the company.
[21] Remaining as president throughout the entire merger and leveraged buyout sequence, Sundlun led the doubling of Outlet Communications holdings of licensed television broadcast stations from 4 to 11 across the country. And in his last three years as president between 1986 and 1988, he led the sale of the Outlet Communications stations in
Orlando,
San Antonio and
Sacramento.
Politics and public service
Sundlun ran twice but lost the Rhode Island governorship races in 1986 and 1988, but won it in his third try in 1990, defeating incumbent governor
Edward D. DiPrete in a landslide victory 74%-26%,the largest majority for any Rhode Island governor. He won reelection in 1992, but in 1994, he failed to win the Democratic primary against
Myrth York, and she was defeated in the general election.
Only one hour after Sundlun's inauguration as governor on January 1, 1991, he announced the closure of 45 banks and credit unions in the state due to the collapse of their private insurer, the Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corporation (RISDIC).
[22] Resolution of the crisis was through Sundlun's creation of the Rhode Island Depositor's Economic Protection Corporation (DEPCO) to manage the assets of closed banks and assure depositor repayment. Sundlun served as the chairman of the DEPCO Board of Directors. Despite considerable political resistance and the permanent closure of several institutions due to their failure to acquire
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or
National Credit Union Administration insurance, all depositor funds were repaid in full plus interest, after two and a half years.
[23]
During Sundlun's two terms as governor, he took particular interest in expanding Rhode Island as a destination for conventions and tourism. Noting that a shortage of hotels in Providence hindered the city's development as a convention destination by building the
Rhode Island Convention Center. Later, he urged the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority to facilitate the building of a hotel that eventually became
The Westin Providence.
[24][25] He created the Rhode Island Airport Corporation as an entity to revitalize and operate Rhode Island's state airports, and he was responsible for a complete redesign and rebuild of the passenger terminal and airport approach roads at
T.F. Green Airport in
Warwick.
[26][27] In 1992, he aided in the establishment of the
Quonset Air Museum at the
Quonset State Airport in
North Kingstown.
[28] He was also was responsible for building the
Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge, and the
Jamestown Expressway, as well as arranging the financing of
Providence Place Mall, and the relocation of the
Woonasquatucket River to permit the construction of
Waterplace Park and the
Citizens Bank Building in downtown Providence.
[29] The Bruce Sundlun Terminal at T.F. Green Airport is named in his honor, and the airport now generates over $2 billion in economic activity annually.
[30]
Sundlun served as a co-chairman of the inaugural parade committee for President
John F. Kennedy in 1960 and 1961, and was appointed by President Kennedy in October, 1962 as an incorporating member of the
Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT), where he served for 30 years as a director.
[31] In 1978, President
Jimmy Carter appointed him as a member of the
Board of Visitors of the
United States Air Force Academy where he served two four-year terms,
[32] and that same year, he was appointed by
Governor J. Joseph Garrahy as a
Rhode Island Commodore. He served a four-year term as a director of the
National Security Education Board, appointed by President
Bill Clinton in 1993.
[33] Sundlun was a delegate to
Democratic National Convention in
1964,
1968,
1980,
1988, and
2000, as well as to the Rhode Island Constitutional Convention of 1985. He was a member of the
Providence School Board from 1984 to 1990. And from 1995 until his death, Sundlun had been teaching political science and Rhode Island history at the
University of Rhode Island as
Governor in Residence.
[34]
Personal life
From the 1950s to the late-1980s, Sundlun maintained a residence at
Salamander Farm, a 130-acre (0.53 km
2) estate in
The Plains, Virginia, which he named after his wartime identity with the French Underground.
[35] From 2004 until his death in 2011, he lived in
Jamestown, Rhode Island with his wife Susan, a professional photographer and owner of
East Greenwich Photo.
[36]
Sundlun had been married five times and has four children. He was the father of
WFSB news anchor Kara (Hewes) Sundlun and father-in-law to WFSB news anchor Dennis House.
[37] Sundlun admitted paternity after Hewes filed suit in 1993 alleging that Sundlun had fathered her in a relationship with her mother, Judith Vargo (Hewes). During the initial stages of the suit, Sundlun said that a payment to Judith Hewes of $35,000 in 1976 and Kara's adoption by Robert Hewes in the late 1970s had fully absolved him of financial responsibility in the matter.
[38] However, Sundlun accepted Kara Hewes fully as his daughter assuring that her college education was fully financed.
[39]
Sundlun also had 3 sons from his first marriage to Madeleine Gimbel: Tracy Walter Sundlun, Vice President of
Competitor Group, a promoter and manager of marathon races who at 17 coached track at the
1972 Olympic Games and was the youngest ever Olympic coach;
[40][41] Stuart Arthur Sundlun, a financial services executive managing the New York operations of
Triago;
[42] and Peter Bruce Sundlun, a commercial airline pilot with
Dominion Aviation Services and
Atlantic Southeast Airlines until 2009, becoming a Transportation Security Officer with the
Transportation Security Administration.
[43] Tracy has a daughter named Felicity, Peter has a son named Hunter, and Kara has two children, Helena and Julian.
[3]
Sundlun died on 21 July 2011 at his home in
Jamestown, Rhode Island.
[2][44] Sundlun was accorded full state and military honors prior to and at his funeral and burial on 24 July 2011.
[45] He was buried at Temple Beth El Cemetery in
Cranston, Rhode Island.
[46]
Media reports and popular controversy
In July 1993, when he thought that three raccoons on his 4-acre (16,000 m
2)
Newport estate were rabid, Sundlun shot at them with a 12-gauge shotgun. Later the
Providence Journal-Bulletin reported that the act was illegal according to state fish and game laws. The day of the publication, Sundlun turned himself in to the state police for arrest stating that ethics was the cornerstone of his administration. The state police reluctantly complied, so the case went to court and Sundlun pleaded guilty. But state officials and his own lawyer
Robert Flanders, convinced Sundlun that his actions were not a crime because his estate did not constitute a "compact area" and because the threat of rabies that year had led the state to waive restrictions on shooting raccoons. His guilty plea was withdrawn and all charges were dropped.
[47]
In December 1997, in
East Greenwich, Sundlun attempted to purchase some plastic forks from a nearby
CVS/pharmacy convenience store for a Christmas party he was attending. Police were called after an argument over Sundlun and the teenaged employees for not complying with his requests. Sundlun eventually issued an apology to the workers and the pharmacy chain for his actions.
[48]
On February 24, 2009, Sundlun was involved in a dispute over place in line at branch of
Citizens Bank in East Greenwich. Sundlun was pushed to the ground by Charles Machado, 59, of
Warwick. Sundlun hit his head and was stunned, but he declined to press charges against Machado.
[49]
In recent years, Sundlun had been involved in some traffic accidents and traffic violations, which led two Rhode Island police departments,
North Kingstown in 2007 and
Jamestown in 2009, to convince the state Department of Motor Vehicles in evaluating Sundlun's ability to drive. In 2008, he was admonished by authorities of University of Rhode Island about his driving on the campus after separate incidents in which he drove on the sidewalk, nearly hit a professor who was walking with a cane, and allegedly bumped into a parked car. Sundlun passed the first driving test which was the result of the North Kingstown request. On April 30, 2009, Sundlun voluntarily surrendered his license.
[50][51]
On June 4, 2009, Sundlun was on a
WPRO radio talk show in which he claimed that he flew a private plane owned by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Votolato, 79, from T.F. Green Airport to
Hartford. Within days, Judge Votolato and Sundlun had issued a statement that the judge was in fact in full control of the aircraft. While Votolato's pilot's license had been maintained up to date, Sundlun's commercial pilot's license had expired in the late 1970s.
[52]
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