AKA Arlen J. Specter

Born: 12-Feb-1930
Birthplace: Wichita, KS

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Politician
Party Affiliation: Democratic [1]

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: US Senator from Pennsylvania

Military service: USAF (1951-53, 1st Lt.)

When Arlen Specter was a young lawyer, he was appointed as assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, the government body investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. There was only one way the evidence could show that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy, and that was Specter's "magic bullet" theory.

In short, Specter's theory was that one bullet, fired from Oswald's gun on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building, hit Kennedy in the back, then ricocheted up and exited from the front of Kennedy's throat, then entered Texas Governor John Connally's back, shattering five inches of his rib bone, then exited through Connally's chest and struck his right wrist, shattering the radius bone, and then embedded itself in Connally's thigh. If Oswald had no accomplices, then the bullet would have to be the same one that subsequently loosened itself and fell out of Connally's body as he lay in a stretcher on the way to the hospital. And that bullet was pristine, as unsmudged and undented as a bullet that had never been fired. This was Arlen Specter's theory. It proved conclusively that Oswald acted alone, and that there was no conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

At the time, Specter was a registered Democrat, and he had been friendly with John and Robert F. Kennedy. But a few months after the Warren Commission announced its findings, he switched parties, and ran for District Attorney of Philadelphia as a Republican. He won, and held that job for eight years, then worked as a lawyer until he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980, where he's been ever since. He's generally a fiscal/economic conservative and social moderate. He wrote the Armed Career Criminal Act, which has meant long prison terms for criminals who repeatedly use guns in their crimes. He also wrote the Terrorist Prosecution Act, which gives U.S. courts jurisdiction in cases of terrorism against Americans, no matter where the terrorism takes place. Specter's cross-examination of Anita Hill made great television, during the hearings on Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court. She had accused Thomas of sexual harassment, but Specter clearly didn't buy it.

Specter is peripherally connected to the infamous Unicorn Killer, Ira Einhorn, who bludgeoned his girlfriend to death in 1977, then left her corpse to rot in a trunk in his closet. In 1981, it was Specter's secretary who signed for Einhorn's $40,000 bail. Einhorn promptly fled the country, and disappeared. He was tried in absentia in 1993, found guilty, and discovered in France seven years later. He now resides in a Pennsylvania prison.

Specter ran for President in 1995, but his candidacy fizzled fast. In 1998, he wrote an essay stretching more than 14,000 words arguing that President Bill Clinton shouldn't be impeached. In 2009, he switched parties and announced that he would run for re-election the following year as a Democrat.

    High School: Russell High School, Russell, KS (1947)
    University: BA International Relations, University of Pennsylvania (1951)
    University: LLB, Yale Law School (1956)

    US Senator, Pennsylvania (1981-)
    Pennsylvania State Official District Attorney, Philadelphia (1966-74)
    Pennsylvania State Official Assistant District Attorney, Philadelphia (1959-64)
    Meese Commission witness (19-Jun-1985)
    Warren Commission Assistant Counsel (1964)
    Yale Law Journal Editor
    District of Columbia Bar 1983
    Israel Project Board of Advisors
    It's My Party Too National Advisory Board
    National Student Leadership Conference Honorary Board of Advisors
    New Jersey State Bar Association 1979
    Republican Main Street Partnership
    Ripon Society
    Pennsylvania Bar Association 1956
    Phi Beta Kappa Society
    Pi Lambda Phi Fraternity
    Heart Bypass Operation
    Funeral: Richard Nixon (1994)
    Russian Ancestry
    Ukrainian Ancestry Paternal
    Jewish Ancestry
    Risk Factors: Brain Cancer

Official Website:
http://specter.senate.gov/

Is the subject of books:
Learning to Legislate: The Senate Education of Arlen Specter, 1991, BY: Richard F. Fenno

Author of books:
Passion for Truth: From Finding JFK's Single Bullet to Questioning Anita Hill to Impeaching Clinton (2000, memoir)

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