PORTLAND, Maine — Former Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Hathaway, a World War II prisoner of war who upset Maine legend Margaret Chase Smith but then lost his seat after one term to William Cohen, has died. He was 89.
Hathaway died Monday at his home in McLean, Va., said his daughter-in-law, Lee Hathaway.
A liberal Democrat who had strong backing from organized labor, Hathaway served four terms in the House from northern Maine's 2nd District, geographically the largest east of the Mississippi, before running for the Senate in 1972.
After narrowly defeating Smith in the Senate, Hathaway was unseated in 1978 by Cohen, who had succeeded Hathaway in the House and was one of the Judiciary Committee Republicans who backed President Richard Nixon's impeachment.
U.S. Sen. Angus King, a former Senate staffer for Hathaway, called him "a dear friend" and "cherished mentor."
"I was fortunate to witness firsthand his strong moral courage and his sincere and unfailing desire to help others," King said.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said that although Hathaway was in a wheelchair, he was lively and engaging the last time she saw him, in January. "I shall miss him," she said.
A Cambridge, Mass., native and son of a railroad engineer, Hathaway parachuted from a downed B-24 bomber over the Ploesti oil fields in Romania during World War II and spent two months in a prisoner of war camp. He met his wife of 62 years, Mary Lee Bird Hathaway, in 1945 when she was a flight nurse in a San Antonio hospital and he was her patient.
