Suicide in the Senate

A fortnight ago Wyoming's Senator Lester C. (for Callaway) Hunt, 61, completed a lengthy hospital checkup, announced that because of ill health (a kidney ailment) he would not run again. One morning last week, Hunt entered the Senate Office Building, his coat partially cloaking a .22-cal. Winchester rifle. In his office, Hunt sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk and fired a shot through his brain. Four hours later, after emergency surgery failed, Lester Hunt was dead.*

Just completing his first Senate term, Hunt seldom stole the limelight, but was respected for his painstaking work on the Armed Services Committee. A semi-pro baseball pitcher in his youth, he spent 22 years in politics (twice state governor), and was the Senate's only dentist. Wyoming's Governor C. J. Rogers, a Republican, said he expected to name Hunt's successor soon to serve until next January.

In doing so he will break the political tie in the Senate (47 Republicans, 47 Democrats and Wayne Morse).

* Senate oldtimers recalled only one previous suicide by an incumbent Senator. On Oct. 14, 1924 Frank B. Brandegee, Connecticut Republican, killed himself by inhaling gas in the bathroom of his Washington apartment.

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