Claude Roy Kirk, Jr. was the
36th Governor of the
U.S. state of
Florida (1967–1971). He was the first
Republican Governor of Florida since
Reconstruction.
[1]
(January 7, 1926 – September 28, 2011)
Early life
Claude Kirk was born in
San Bernardino, California. He lived in
Chicago, Illinois, and
Montgomery, Alabama, where he attended
Sidney Lanier High School. After graduating at age seventeen, he enlisted in the
U.S. Marine Corps reserve and rose to the rank of
second lieutenant, having served stateside during
World War II. He briefly attended
Emory University in
Atlanta,
Georgia before he transferred to
Duke University in
Durham,
North Carolina, where he earned a
Bachelor of Science degree. Kirk was accepted at the
University of Alabama School of Law in
Tuscaloosa and graduated in 1949. He was recalled to the Marines for the
Korean War and was initially assigned to the
1st Marine Division. He later served aboard the battleship
USS New Jersey and was discharged as a
first lieutenant in 1952.
[2]
Business
Kirk worked as an insurance salesman and sold building supplies before partnering with W. Ashley Verlander in 1956 to start the
American Heritage Life Insurance Company in
Jacksonville, Florida.
He had no money of his own, so he recruited investors and his
brother-in-law to bankroll the venture. The firm catered to the wealthy
and quickly became one of the most successful in the industry, earning
Kirk a fortune. Six years later, he left American Heritage Life and
purchased a partnership in the New York securities firm,
Hayden Stone, selling investments to Floridians.
[3]
Between 1965 and 1966, Kirk traveled to Brazil for an unsuccessful
business venture, but met Erika Mattfeld, a beautiful model and actress.
[3]
Politics 1960 and 1964
In 1960, Kirk
switched his party affiliation from
Democrat to Republican and headed the "Floridians for
Nixon" campaign, which helped the
GOP to win the state's then ten
electoral votes for the third consecutive time.
In 1964, Kirk ran as a Republican against veteran Democratic
U.S. Senator Spessard Holland, a former governor and epitome of the Florida Democratic establishment. He was considered a placeholder on the ballot, with
Barry M. Goldwater losing Florida to
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, but the energetic Kirk campaigned enthusiastically and polled 36.1 percent of the vote.
Thereafter, Kirk became embroiled in an intraparty squabble with
U.S. Representative William C. Cramer of
St. Petersburg.
Cramer recalled Kirk having "begged me" to allow him to address
meetings held during the 1964 delegate and national committeeman races.
In this manner, Kirk became acquainted with Republican party activists
who could be helpful to him his later career.
[4]
Governor Kirk
Governor Kirk official painting
In 1966, Kirk scored a huge upset to become governor, having defeated the Democrat
Robert King High, the
mayor of Miami, 55-45 percent. High had unseated incumbent Governor
Haydon Burns, a
conservative, in the Democratic primary. In the general election, Kirk won majorities in fifty-six of the sixty-seven counties.
[5]
Burns's refusal to support High was a major factor in Kirk's decisive
victory in the general election. Upon taking the oath of office on
January 3, 1967, he became the state's first Republican governor in
ninety years. During his single four-year term in office, a new
Florida Constitution
went into effect in 1968. The governor was often at odds with both
Democrats and his Republican colleagues in the legislature on issues
such as growth and taxes. He earned the nickname
Claudius Maximus because of his brash, ascerbic style of leadership and opinionated, colorful personality.
[1] A significant event of his tenure was a controversial statewide teachers' strike in 1968.
One of the major themes of Kirk's campaign was his strong support for
the death penalty, in contrast to Collins', Bryant's and Burns'
opposition to
capital punishment.
Kirk promised to resume executions—the last had taken place in Florida
in 1964—but no executions occurred during his administration, mostly
because of an informal nationwide moratorium. Kirk made headlines when,
during the campaign, he visited
Florida State Prison and, after shaking hands with several death row inmates, said, "If I'm elected, I may have to sign your death warrants".
[6]
Kirk was allied with anti-
busing. In 1970, as he geared for a reelection bid, he tried to halt a desegregation plan in
Manatee County. He quipped that the pro-busing judges of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in
New Orleans, were "drinking in the
French Quarter and reading dirty books."
[7]
Kirk's management style was described as flamboyant and confrontational.
[8] He especially opposed court-ordered mandatory
busing.
[9] Although he had a Democratic-controlled legislature, Democrats did not have a veto-proof majority during Kirk's term of office.
[10]
After the publication of
John Filo's photograph showing
Mary Ann Vecchio of Florida kneeling over the body of
Jeffrey Miller at the
Kent State University shootings on May 4, 1970, then Governor Kirk publicly labeled Vecchio a dissident "
communist".
[11]
The long-lasting schism with Bill Cramer
The schism between William Cramer and Claude Kirk accelerated in 1966
to the point that in a 1988 interview, Kirk said that he could not
recall Cramer having rendered him any assistance at all in either the
1964 or 1966 campaigns: "Cramer never helped me do anything. At all
times he was a total combatant."
[12]
Kirk claimed that Cramer wanted the 1966 gubernatorial nomination
himself after Burns, the primary loser, refused to endorse Mayor High,
an ally of U.S. Senator
Robert F. Kennedy of
New York. Kirk said that Cramer's legislative assistant, Jack P. Inscoe, a
Tampa
developer, could verify that Cramer had asked Kirk to bow out of the
race with High. Kirk claimed that the three met "in a car ... probably
in
Palm Beach County". Inscoe said: "This never happened. Kirk is not known for telling too much truth."
[12]
Though Cramer said that he had no ambition to be governor, Kirk
retorted, "How could I have brought this up if it didn't happen?"
[12]
Cramer said that he subsequently urged Kirk to merge his own
organization into the regular party structure in Cramer's home county of
Pinellas.
However, Kirk maintained a separate entity in hope of maximizing
crossover support from Democrats unhappy with the nomination of Mayor
High. Cramer recalled this disagreement over strategy as the "first
indication that Kirk intended to do his own thing and attempt to form
his own organization within the Republican Party in Florida. I didn't
get the signal at the time, but it became very obvious later,
particularly when he attempted to defeat me as national committeeman in
1968."
[12]
Kirk asked then U.S. Representative and later Senator
Edward Gurney of
Winter Park
serve as chairman of the 1967 gubernatorial inauguration although
Gurney had not been involved in the Kirk campaign. By contrast, Cramer
was not even asked to serve on the inaugural committee. In 1968,
Governor Kirk dispatched his staff to the Republican state convention in
Orlando to push for Cramer's ouster as
national committeeman.
Kirk justified his move against Cramer: "I wanted my own man. After
all, I was the leader of the party. If Cramer had been the leader of the
party, he would have wanted his own man too."
[13]
Cramer said that Kirk was attempting to be "not only the governor but
the king of the party, and I was about the only person at the time who
stood in his way from taking total control."
[13]
Despite Kirk's opposition, Cramer attributed his retention in 1968 as
national committeeman to the loyalty of organizational Republicans: "I
had proved myself an effective congressman. I was on the House
leadership as vice chairman of the Republican Conference and was ranking
member on the then named
House Public Works Committee."
[14] l
In 1988, Cramer recalled a visit twenty-one years earlier to Kirk's
office at which time a former state legislator was denied an appointment
with the governor even though the man was a stalwart Republican.
According to Cramer, "Kirk made it very clear that he got a great deal
of joy in making sure that this guy didn't get an appointment. ... He
just loved to kick people in the teeth to show how much power he had."
[13]
Despite observing this incident, Cramer said that party unity led him
to avoid public criticism of Kirk. Cramer viewed Kirk as "his own worst
enemy."
[13] Kirk claimed that he had never had a "serious discussion" on any topic with Cramer.
[13] Walter Wurfel, a Floridian who was later U.S. President
Jimmy Carter's
deputy press secretary, termed Kirk's election in 1966 as "the worst
thing that could have happened to the Republicans. He wasn't interested
in the Republican Party; party was a matter of convenience for him."
[15]
Cramer said he believed that Kirk may have become
vice president
or even U.S. President had he tended to his gubernatorial duties,
rather than openly seeking the second position. Eyeing the vice
presidency in 1968, Kirk stood alone in the Florida delegation at the
1968 Republican National Convention in
Miami Beach by supporting
Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York, rather than the clear frontrunner, Richard Nixon. Cramer said that Nixon may have selected Kirk, rather than
Spiro T. Agnew of
Maryland
for the second slot had Kirk concentrated on his duties of office. Kirk
claimed that it "had been agreed" that he would run with either
Rockefeller or Nixon, but Nixon chose Agnew in hopes of enhancing
campaign contributions from
Greek American businessmen.
[16]
Defeat in 1970
In 1970, Kirk struggled through two Republican gubernatorial primaries against drugstore magnate
Jack Eckerd of
Clearwater and state Senator and later U.S. Representative
L. A. "Skip" Bafalis. Eckerd, who would be his party's U.S. Senate nominee in 1974, having lost to
Richard Stone, and the gubernatorial standard-bearer in 1978, defeated by
Bob Graham,
said that though he had supported Kirk in 1966, he became disappointed
and embarrassed with Kirk: "I was offended by his public behavior and
chagrined that he was a Republican."
[17] Despite Kirk's tactics, Eckerd said "time heals all wounds, and now I chuckle about it." He added that his primary
runoff defeat in 1970 probably prolonged his life."
[18]
After he dispatched Eckerd, Kirk then lost 57-43 percent to the Democrat
Reubin O'Donovan Askew, a
state senator from
Pensacola,
who served two consecutive terms in the office. In that same 1970
general election, William Cramer, Kirk's intraparty nemesis, lost to
Democrat
Lawton Chiles of
Lakeland
for the U.S. Senate seat that Spessard Holland finally vacated. Cramer
had defeated Kirk's preferred Senate choice, Fifth Circuit Court Judge
G. Harrold Carswell of
Tallahassee.
When Kirk's term of office ended on January 5, 1971, he returned to
his business pursuits, though he has campaigned several times for
governor, U.S. senator, and Florida commissioner of education under both
Democratic (1978) and Republican (1990) labels.
Personal life
Kirk met Sarah Stokes while he was in law school. Her family owned an
automobile dealership, and the couple married in 1947. They were
divorced in 1950, but remarried in 1951. The union produced four
children: two daughters, Sarah and Kitty, and twin sons Frank and Will.
They divorced for the final time in 1966.
[3]
In a 1967 interview, Sarah Stokes commented that Kirk "drinks to excess
quite often (and) has indiscreet public associations with other women".
[19]
A divorcee when he took office Kirk, then 41, married
German-born Erika Mattfeld, 33, on February 18, 1967.
[20] From his final marriage he had two daughters and a son.
[21]
Kirk's son-in-law,
Ander Crenshaw, married to daughter Kitty, represents
Florida's 4th congressional district in the
United States House of Representatives.
[1]
In February 2011, Kirk survived a mild
heart attack but died in his sleep on September 28, 2011.
[2]
Quotes
I'm a tree-shakin' son of a bitch.
[20]
Electoral history
United States Senate election in Florida, 1964[22]:
Florida gubernatorial election, 1966[23]:
- Claude R. Kirk, Jr. (R) - 821,190 (55.13%)
- Robert King High (D) - 668,233 (44.86%)
- Write-in - 238 (0.02%)
1968 New Hampshire Republican Vice Presidential primary[24]:
Florida gubernatorial election, 1970[25]:
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Ida Fink was an Israeli Polish-language Jewish author who wrote about the Holocaust.
