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==Early life and career==
===Childhood and youth===
Stevens was born November 18, 1923 in [[Indianapolis, Indiana]], the third of four children,<ref name="rootsweb">[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/senators/stevens.htm Theodore Fulton “Ted” Stevens genealogy.] Rootsweb.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-31.</ref><ref name="whitney-formative">Whitney, David. (1994-08-08). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(formative%20years)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(formative%20years)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Formative years: Stevens' life wasn't easy growing up in the depression with a divided family."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref> in a small cottage built by his paternal grandfather after the marriage of his father, George A. Stevens, to Gertrude S. Chancellor. The family later lived in Chicago, where George Stevens was an accountant before the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929|stock market crash of 1929]] instigated the [[Great Depression]], ending his job.<ref name="whitney-formative"/><ref name="mitchell-bbj">Mitchell, Donald Craig. (2001). ''Take My Land, Take My Life: The Story of Congress's Historic Settlement of Alaska Native Land Claims, 1960–1971''. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, p. 220.</ref> Around this time, when Ted Stevens was six years old, his parents divorced, and Stevens and his three siblings went back to Indianapolis to live with their paternal grandparents, followed shortly thereafter by their father, who developed problems with his eyes and went blind for several years. Stevens' mother moved to California and sent for Stevens' siblings as she could afford to, but Stevens stayed in Indianapolis helping to care for his father and a mentally retarded cousin, Patricia Acker, who also lived with the family. The only adult in the household with a job was Stevens' grandfather. Stevens helped to support the family by working as a newsboy, and would later remember selling a lot of newspapers on March 1, 1932, when newspaper headlines blared the news of the [[Lindbergh kidnapping]].<ref name="whitney-formative"/>
In 1934, Stevens' grandfather punctured a lung in a fall down a flight of stairs, contracted pneumonia, and died.<ref name="whitney-formative"/> By the time Stevens was fifteen, in 1938, his father had died of cancer.<ref name="mitchell-bbj"/> Stevens and his cousin Patricia moved to [[Manhattan Beach, California]] to live with Patricia's mother, Gladys Swindells.<ref name="whitney-formative"/> Stevens attended [[Redondo Union High School]], participating in extracurricular activities including working on the school newspaper and becoming a member of a student theater group, a service society affiliated with the YMCA, and, during his senior year, the lettermen's society. Stevens also worked at jobs before and after school,<ref name="mitchell-bbj"/> but also had time for surfing with his friend Russell Green, son of the president of Signal Gas and Oil Company, who remained a close friend through Stevens' life.<ref name="whitney-formative"/>
===Military service===
After graduating from high school in 1942, Stevens enrolled at [[Oregon State University]] to study engineering,<ref name="mitchell-bba">Mitchell, 2001, p. 221.</ref> attending for a semester.<ref name="whitney-formative"/> With [[World War II]] in progress, Stevens attempted to join the Navy Air Corps, but failed the vision exam. He corrected his vision through a course of prescribed eye exercises, and in 1943 was accepted for a [[United States Army Air Forces|Army Air Corps Air Cadet]] program at [[Montana State University - Bozeman|Montana State College]].<ref name="whitney-formative"/><ref name="mitchell-bba">Mitchell, 2001, p. 221.</ref> After scoring near the top of an aptitude test for flight training, Stevens was transferred to preflight training in [[Santa Ana, California]] and received his wings in early 1944. He went on to [[Bergstrom Air Force Base|Bergstrom Field]] in Texas, where he trained to fly [[P-38 Lightning|P-38]]s, but due to an incident during graduation, in which a graduate booed a the colonel who delivered the graduation address, Stevens never flew a fighter in combat. Instead, Stevens later recalled, "Suddenly we were copilots in a troop carrier squad."<ref name="whitney-formative"/>
Stevens served in the [[China Burma India Theater of World War II|China-Burma-India theater]] with the [[Fourteenth Air Force|14th Army Air Corps]] Transport Section, which supported the "[[Flying Tigers]]," from 1943 to 1946. He and other pilots in the transport section flew [[C-46 Commando|C-46]] and [[C-47 Skytrain|C-47]] transport planes, often without escort, mostly in support of Chinese units fighting the Japanese.<ref name="whitney-formative"/> Stevens received the [[Distinguished Flying Cross (USA)|Distinguished Flying Cross]] for flying behind enemy lines, the [[Air Medal]], and the Yuan Hai medal awarded by the [[Republic of China|Chinese Nationalist government]].<ref name="whitney-formative"/><ref name="cstbio">[http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Biographies.CoChairman "About the Committee: Vice Chairman" (biography of Ted Stevens).] United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Retrieved on 2007-06-01.</ref> He was discharged from the Army Air Corps in March 1956.<ref name="whitney-formative"/>
===Higher education and law school===
After the war, Stevens attended [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]], where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science in 1947. He applied to law school at Stanford University and the University of Michigan, but on the advice of his friend Russell Green's father to "look East," he applied also to [[Harvard Law School]], and ended up attending there. Stevens' education was partly financed by the [[Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944|GI Bill]]; he made up the difference by borrowing money from an uncle, selling his blood, and working several jobs, including one as a bartender in Boston.<ref name="whitney-formative"/> During the summer of 1949, Stevens was a research assistant in the office of the [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney]] for the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of California|Southern District of California]].<ref name="harvardlawreview">"With the editors..." 64 ''Harvard Law Review'' vii (1950).</ref><ref name="mitchell-bbb">Mitchell, 2001, p. 222.</ref>
While at Harvard, Stevens wrote a paper on maritime law which received honorable mention for the Addison Brown prize, a Harvard Law School award made for the best essay by a student on a subject related to private international law or maritime law.<ref name="harvardlawreview"/> The essay later became a ''[[Harvard Law Review]]'' article<ref name="stevens-lawreview">Stevens, Theodore F. "Erie R.R. v. Tompkins and the Uniform General Maritime Law." 64 ''Harvard Law Review'' 88–112 (1950).</ref> whose scholarship Justice [[Jay Rabinowitz]] of the [[Alaska Supreme Court]] praised 45 years later, telling the ''[[Anchorage Daily News]]'' in 1994 that the high court had issued a recent opinion citing the article.<ref name="whitney-formative"/> Stevens graduated from Harvard Law School in 1950.<ref name="whitney-formative"/>
==
After graduation, Stevens went to work in the [[Washington, D.C.]] law offices of Northcutt Ely.<ref name="harvardlawreview"/><ref name="whitney-roadnorth">Whitney, David. (1994-08-09). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(%22the%20road%20north%20needing%20work%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(%22the%20road%20north%20needing%20work%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "The road north: Needing work, Stevens borrows $600, answers call to Alaska."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref> Twenty years previously Ely had been executive assistant to [[United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior]] [[Ray Lyman Wilbur]] during the [[Herbert Hoover|Hoover]] administration,<ref name="ely">Ely, Northcutt. (1994-12-16). [http://www.redlandsfortnightly.org/papers/persgulf.htm "Doctor Ray Lyman Wilbur: Third President of Stanford & Secretary of the Interior."] Paper presented at the Fortnightly Club of Redlands, California, meeting #1530. Retrieved on 2007-06-05.</ref> and by 1950 headed a prominent law firm specializing in natural resources issues.<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> One of Ely's clients, Emil Usibelli, founder of the [[Usibelli Coal Mine]] in [[Healy, Alaska]],<ref name="usibelli">Alaska Mining Hall of Fame Foundation. (2006). [http://alaskamininghalloffame.org/inductees/usibelli.php "Emil Usibelli (1893–1964)."] Retrieved on 2007-06-05.</ref> was trying to sell Healy coal to the military, and Stevens was assigned to handle his legal affairs.<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/>
===Marriage===
In early 1952 Stevens married Ann Mary Chennington. Ann, a [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]], was the adopted daughter of [[University of Denver]] chancellor [[Ben Mark Cherrington]]. She had graduated from [[Reed College]] in [[Portland, Oregon]] and during the [[Harry Truman|Truman]] administration had worked for the [[United States Department of State|State Department]].<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/>
==Early Alaska career==
In 1952, while still working for Norcutt Ely, Stevens volunteered for the presidential campaign of [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], writing position papers for the campaign on western water law and lands. By the time Eisenhower won the election that November, Stevens had acquired contacts who told him, "We want you to come over to Interior." Stevens left his job with Ely, but a job in the Eisenhower administration didn't come through<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> as a result of a temporary hiring freeze instituted by Eisenhower in an effort to reduce spending.<ref name="mitchell-bbb"/>
Instead, Stevens was offered a job with the [[Fairbanks, Alaska]] law firm of Emil Usibelli's Alaska attorney, Charles Clasby, whose firm, Collins and Clasby, had just lost one of its attorneys.<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/><ref name="mitchell-bbb"/> Stevens and his wife had met and liked both Usibelli and Clasby, and decided to make the move.<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> They loaded up their 1947 Buick<ref name="mitchell-bbc">Mitchell, 2001, p. 223.</ref> and, traveling on a $600 loan from Clasby, they drove across country from Washington, D.C. and up the [[Alaska Highway]] in the dead of winter, arriving in Fairbanks in February 1953. Stevens later recalled kidding Gov. [[Walter Joseph Hickel|Walter Hickel]] about the loan. "He likes to say that he came to Alaska with 37 cents in his pocket," he said of Hickel. "I came $600 in debt."<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> Ann Stevens recalled in 1968 that they made the move to Alaska "on a six-month trial basis."<ref name="mitchell-bbc"/>
In Fairbanks, Stevens cultivated the city's Republican establishment. He befriended conservative newspaper publisher C.W. Snedden, who had purchased the ''[[Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]]'' in 1950. Snedden's wife Helen later recalled that her husband and Stevens were "like father and son." "The only problem Ted had was that he had a temper," she told the a reporter in 1994, crediting her husband with helping to steady Stevens "like you would do with your children" and with teaching Stevens the art of diplomacy.<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/>
===U.S. Attorney===
Stevens had been with Charles Clasby's law firm for six months when the Bob McNealy, a Democrat appointed as [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney]] for Fairbanks during Truman administration,<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> informed U.S. District Judge Harry Pratt that he would be resigning effective August 15, 1953,<ref name="mitchell-bbd">Mitchell, 2001, p. 224.</ref> having already delayed his resignation by several months at the request of [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]] officials newly appointed by Eisenhower, who asked McNealy to delay his resignation until Eisenhower could appoint a replacement.<ref name="mitchell-bbc"/> Despite Stevens' short tenure as an Alaska resident and his relative lack of trial or criminal law experience, Pratt asked Stevens to serve in the position until Eisenhower acted.<ref name="mitchell-bbd"/> Stevens agreed. "I said, 'Sure, I'd like to do that,' " Stevens recalled years later. "Clasby said, 'It's not going to pay you as much money, but, if you want to do it, that's your business.' He was very pissed that I decided to go."<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> Most members of the Fairbanks Bar Association were outraged at the appointment of a newcomer, and members in attendance at the association's meeting that December voted to support Carl Messenger for the permanent appointment, an endorsement seconded by the Alaska Republican Part Committee for the Fairbanks-area judicial division.<ref name="mitchell-bbd"/> However, Stevens was favored by Attorney General [[Herbert Brownell]], by Senator [[William F. Knowland]] of California, and by the [[Republican National Committee]],<ref name="mitchell-bbd"/>, and ultimately Eisenhower nominated Stevens to the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]],<ref name="mitchell-bbe">Mitchell, 2001, p. 225.</ref> which confirmed Stevens' appointment on March 30, 1954.<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/>
Stevens soon gained a reputation as an active D.A. who vigorously prosecuted violations of federal and territorial liquor, drug, and prostitution laws,<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> characterized by area homestead Niilo Koponen as "this rought tough shorty of a district attorney who was going to crush crime."<ref name="mitchell-bbe"/> Stevens sometimes accompanied [[United States Marshals Service|U.S. Marshals]] on raids. As recounted years later by Justice [[Jay Rabinowitz]], "U.S. marshals went in with Tommy guns and Ted led the charge, smoking a stogie and with six guns on his hips."<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> However, Stevens himself has said the colorful stories spread about him as a pistol-packing D.A. were greatly exaggerated, and recalled only one incident when he carried a gun: on a vice raid to the town of [[Big Delta, Alaska|Big Delta]] about 75 miles southwest of Fairbanks, he carried a holstered gun on a marshal's suggestion.<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/>
Stevens also became known for his explosive temper, which was focused particularly on a criminal defense lawyer named [[Warren A. Taylor]]<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/> who would later go on to become the [[Alaska Legislature]]'s first Speaker of the House in the [[1st Alaska State Legislature|First Alaska State Legislature]].<ref name="vot-taylor">[[Anchorage Times|Voice of the Times]]. (2004-12-31). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=allfields(%22Warren%20A.%20Taylor%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(2004)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=2004&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=(%22Warren%20A.%20Taylor%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Test your legislative knowledge."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-07.</ref> "Ted would get red in the face, blow up and stalk out of the courtroom," a former court clerk later recalled of Stevens' relationship with Taylor.<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/>
In 1956, in a trial which received national headlines, Stevens prosecuted Jack Marler, a former [[Internal Revenue Service]] agent accused of failing to file tax returns. Marler's first trial, which was handled by a different prosecutor, had ended in a deadlocked jury and a [[Trial#Mistrials|mistrial]]. For the second trial, Stevens was up against [[Edgar Paul Boyko]], a flamboyant [[Anchorage, Alaska|Anchorage]] attorney who built his defense of Marler on the theory of [[no taxation without representation]], citing the [[Alaska Territory|Territory of Alaska]]'s lack of representation in the [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]]. As recalled by Boyko, his closing argument to the jury was a rabble-rousing appeal for the jury to "strike a blow for Alaskan freedom," claiming that "this case was the jury's chance to move Alaska toward statehood." Boyko remembered that "Ted had done a hell of a job in the case," but Boyko's tactics paid off, and Marler was acquitted on April 3, 1956. Following the acquittal, Stevens issued a statement saying, "I don't believe the jury's verdict is an expression of resistance to taxes or law enforcement or the start of a Boston Tea Party. I do believe, however, that the decision will be a blow to the hopes for Alaska statehood."<ref name="whitney-roadnorth"/>
===Department of the Interior===
====Alaska statehood====
In March 1956, Stevens' friend Elmer Bennett, legislative counsel in the [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of the Interior]], was promoted by [[United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior]] [[Douglas McKay]] to the Secretary's office. Bennett successfully lobbied McKay to replace him in his old job with Stevens, and Stevens returned to [[Washington, D.C.]] to take up the position.<ref name="mitchell-bbf">Mitchell, 2001, p. 226.</ref> By the time he arrived in June 1956, McKay had resigned in order to run for the U.S. Senate from his home state of [[Oregon]]<ref name="mitchell-bbf"/> and [[Fred Andrew Seaton]] had been appointed to replace him.<ref name="mitchell-bbf"/><ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood">Whitney, David. (1994-08-10). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(%22seeking%20statehood%20stevens%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(%22seeking%20statehood%20stevens%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Seeking statehood: Stevens bent rules to bring Alaska into the union."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref> Seaton, a newspaper publisher from Nebraska,<ref name="mitchell-bbf"/> was a close friend of ''[[Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]]'' publisher C.W. Snedden, and in common with Snedden was an advocate of Alaska statehood,<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> unlike McKay, who had been lukewarm in his support.<ref name="mitchell-bbf"/> Seaton asked Snedden if he knew any Alaskan who could come to Washington, D.C. to work for Alaska statehood; Snedden replied that the man he needed — Stevens — was already there working in the [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of the Interior]].<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> The fight for Alaska statehood became Stevens' principal work at Interior. "He did all the work on statehood," Roger Ernst, Seaton's assistant secretary for public land management, later said of Stevens. "He wrote 90 percent of all the speeches. Statehood was his main project."<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> A sign on Stevens' door proclaimed his office "Alaskan Headquarters" and Stevens became known at the Department of the Interior as "Mr. Alaska."<ref name="mitchell-bbf"/>
Efforts to make Alaska a state had been going on since 1943, and had nearly come to fruition during the [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] administration in 1950 when a statehood bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, only to die in the Senate.<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/>, The national Republican Party opposed statehood for Alaska, in part out of fear that Alaska would elect Democrats to Congress.<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> At the time Stevens arrived in the Washington, D.C. to take up his new job, a constitutional convention to write an Alaska constitution had just been concluded on the campus of the [[University of Alaska]] in Fairbanks<ref name="akconvention">University of Alaska. (ca. 2004). [http://www.alaska.edu/creatingalaska/convention/ "Constitutional Convention."] ''Creating Alaska: The Origins of the 49th State'' (website). Retrieved on 2007-06-21.</ref>. The 55 delegates also elected three unofficial representatives, all Democrats, as unofficial delegates to Congress: [[Ernest Gruening]] and [[William Egan]] as U.S. "senators" and [[Ralph Rivers]] as U.S. "representative."<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/>
President Eisenhower, a Republican, regarded Alaska as too large and sparsely populated to be economically self-sufficient as a state, and furthermore saw statehood as an obstacle to effective defense of Alaska should the Soviet Union seek to invade it.<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> Eisenhower was especially worried about the sparsely populated areas of northern and western Alaska. In March 1954, he had drawn a line on a map indicating his opinion of the portions of Alaska which he felt ought to remain in federal hands even if Alaska were granted statehood.<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/>
Seaton and Stevens worked with Gen. [[Nathan Farragut Twining|Nathan Twining]], [[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff|chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]], who had served in Alaska, and [[Jack L. Stempler]], a top [[United States Department of Defense|Defense Department]] attorney, to create a compromise that would address Eisenhower's concerns. Much of their work was conducted in Seaton's hospital room at [[Walter Reed Army Medical Center|Walter Reed Army Hospital]], where he was being treated for back problems. Their work concentrated on refining the line on the map that Eisenhower had drawn in 1954, which became known as the PYK Line after three rivers — the [[Porcupine River|Porcupine]], [[Yukon River|Yukon]], and [[Kuskokwim River|Kuskokwim]] — whose courses defined much of the line.<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> The PYK Line was the basis for Section 10 of the [[Alaska Statehood Act]], which Stevens wrote.<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> Under Section 10, the land north and west of the PYK Line — which included the entirety of Alaska's [[North Slope]], the [[Seward Peninsula]], most of the [[Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta]], the western portions of the [[Alaska Peninsula]], and the [[Aleutian Islands|Aleutian]] and [[Pribilof Islands]] — would be part of the new state, but the President would be granted emergency powers to establish special national defense withdrawals in those areas if deemed necessary for defense needs.<ref name="alaskastatehoodact">[http://www.lbblawyers.com/statetoc.htm Alaska Statehood Act, Pub. L. 85-508, 72 Stat. 339. July 7, 1958.] Codified at [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode48/usc_sup_01_48_10_2notes.html 48 U.S.C., Chapter 2.]</ref> "It's still in the law but it's never been exercised," Stevens later recollected. "Now that the problem with Russia is gone, it's surplusage. But it is a special law that only applies to Alaska."<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/>
Stevens also took part — illegally — in lobbying for the statehood bill,<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> working closely with the Alaska Statehood Committee from his office at Interior.<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> Stevens hired Margaret Atwood, daughter of ''[[Anchorage Times]]'' publisher Robert Atwood,<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> who was chairman of the Alaska Statehood Committee,<ref name="robert-atwood">University of Alaska. (ca. 2004). [http://www.alaska.edu/creatingalaska/StatehoodFiles/whoswho/alaskans/atwood.xml "Alaskans for Statehood: Robert B. Atwood."] ''Creating Alaska: The Origins of the 49th State'' (website). Retrieved on 2007-06-21.</ref> to work with him in the Interior Department. "We were violating the law," Stevens told a researcher in an October 1977 oral history interview for the [[Eisenhower Presidential Center|Eisenhower Library]]. "[W]e were lobbying from the executive branch, and there's been a statute against that for a long time.... We more or less, I would say, masterminded the House and Senate attack from the executive branch."<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> Stevens and the younger Atwood created file cards on members of Congress based on "whether they were Rotarians or Kiwanians or Catholics or Baptists and veterans or loggers, the whole thing," Stevens said in the 1977 interview. "And we'd assigned these Alaskans to go talk to individual members of the Senate and split them down on the basis of people that had something in common with them," he said.<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> The lobbying campaign extended to presidential press conferences. "We set Ike up quite often at press conferences by planting questions about Alaska statehood," Stevens said in the 1977 interview. "We never let a press conference go by without getting someone to try to ask him about statehood."<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/> Newspapers were also a targeted, according to Stevens. "We planted editorials in weeklies and dailies and newspapers in the district of people we thought were opposed to us or states where they were opposed to us so that suddenly they were thinking twice about opposing us."<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood"/>
The [[Alaska Statehood Act]] became law with Eisenhower's signature on July 7, 1958,<ref name="alaskastatehoodact"/> and Alaska formally was admitted to statehood on January 3, 1959, when Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Proclamation<ref name="akstateproclaim">University of Alaska. (ca. 2004). [http://www.alaska.edu/creatingalaska/StatehoodFiles/infodocs/pictures/statehoodproclamation.xml "Signing of the Alaska Statehood Proclamation, January 3, 1959."] ''Creating Alaska: The Origins of the 49th State'' (website). Retrieved on 2007-06-21.</ref>
====Arctic National Wildlife Refuge====
The act authorized the new state to select 103.5 million acres of "vacant and unappropriated public ___domain" to develop an economy.
Three years later, in the last days of the Eisenhower administration, when Stevens was the Interior Department's top lawyer, he wrote the public land order creating what is now the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The signing of that order was Seaton's last official act.
ANWR was created in an effort to end a much more sweeping land order that had withdrawn the whole of Alaska's Arctic during World War II, Stevens said.
"It was a great goal of people, particularly at Interior, who were quite interested in a gas field (near Barrow) at the time," Stevens said.
The withdrawal was supported by the state, according to Phil Holdsworth, Alaska's first commissioner of natural resources.
What Alaska got out of the deal was the lifting of the federal ban on state land selections in a large middle section of the North Slope bordered by the 9 million-acre arctic refuge to the east and the Naval Petroleum Reserve to the west.
That midsection contained a then-obscure landmark called Prudhoe Bay. Ten years later, it would become the site of the biggest oil strike in North American history and the foundation of Alaska's economy.
Now, as Prudhoe Bay reserves decline, the oil industry insists that the best hope for keeping up oil production in Alaska is the coastal plain of the refuge that Stevens helped create.
The 1980 Alaska Lands Act requires a vote of Congress to open it to oil drilling and, so far, environmental opposition has prevented that from happening. But Stevens maintains the creation of the refuge was at the time, at least a small price to pay for opening Prudhoe Bay and much of the rest of the North Slope to oil exploration. The land order he wrote more than 30 years ago contained no legal barriers to drilling, he insists.
"The order specifically allowed oil and gas exploration in the arctic range subject to stipulations to protect fish and wildlife," Stevens said. "I think it was a very good deal."
===Alaska House of Representatives===
After returning to Alaska, Stevens practiced law in [[Anchorage, Alaska|Anchorage]]. He was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives in 1964, and became House majority leader in his second term.
==United States Senate career==
==Refs not used yet==
<ref name="whitney-seekingstatehood">Whitney, David. (1994-08-10). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(%22seeking%20statehood%20stevens%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(%22seeking%20statehood%20stevens%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Seeking statehood: Stevens bent rules to bring Alaska into the union."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref>
<ref name="whitney-penchant">Whitney, David. (1994-08-11). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(%22penchant%20for%20politics%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(%22penchant%20for%20politics%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Penchant for politics: Rule change enabled Hickel to appoint Stevens to Senate."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref>
<ref name="whitney-bitterbattle">Whitney, David. (1994-08-12). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(%22bitter%20battle%20no%20love%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(%22bitter%20battle%20no%20love%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Bitter battle: No love lost between Stevens, Gravel."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref>
<ref name="whitney-mellowing">Whitney, David. (1994-08-13). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(%22mellowing%20of%20the%20man%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(%22mellowing%20of%20the%20man%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Mellowing of the man — Stevens' priorities change after marriage, birth of daughter."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref>
<ref name="whitney-twohearths">Whitney, David. (1992-07-04). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(%22where%20do%20these%20guys%20live%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(%22where%20do%20these%20guys%20live%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Where do these guys live? Alaska representatives call two hearths home."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref>
<ref name="whitney-bigvoice">Whitney, David. (1994-08-07). [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AS&p_theme=as&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(%22big%20voice%20for%20alaska%22)%20AND%20section(all)%20AND%20date(all)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(%22big%20voice%20for%20alaska%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=_rank_:D&xcal_ranksort=4&xcal_useweights=yes "Big voice for Alaska."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref>
'''Extra'''
<ref name="whitney-_">Whitney, David. (1994-08-_). [
"
."] ''Anchorage Daily News''. Retrieved 2007-06-01.</ref>
==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}
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