Former Michigan Governor William Milliken dies at 97

Oct. 19--William Milliken, who was Michigan's longest-serving governor and a champion for Detroit, the environment, and a far more moderate Republican Party, died Friday. He was 97.

Milliken, who was governor from 1969 to 1983, was a World War II air combat veteran, a retailer, state senator, and lieutenant governor (to George Romney), all before becoming Michigan's 44th governor.

Milliken died at 5:30 p.m. Friday in the Traverse City home he built himself 60 years ago, said Jack Lessenberry, a spokesman for the family. He had been under hospice care.

"He was one of the nicest men you will ever meet," said Bill Rustem, who was a 20-year-old MSU student when he became a Milliken intern and went on to become a spokesman, speech writer and policy adviser to the former governor.

"It was an age of civility when compromise was not a bad word, and when you listened instead of shouted," Rustem said.

"He'll be remembered both in Michigan and across the country as one of the people who helped pull the nation into a new era of environmental responsibility."

Barring a change to the state constitution, which since the 1990s limits governors to two four-year terms, Milliken's record 14 years as governor of Michigan will never be surpassed.

He was also the oldest ex-governor in state history, surpassing the record of Alpheus Finch, who served briefly as governor before the Civil War and died much later at age 91.

After leaving office, he rejected the rightward turn of the GOP and expressed regret at the bitterness and divisiveness of public life.

"Today, politics is very mean and nasty. It just doesn't serve the public as well as it should," he said in 2014.

During his years in office, Milliken "shunned the extremes and sought to govern from the center," wrote Michigan environmentalist Dave Dempsey in his 2006 biography, "William Milliken: Michigan's Passionate Moderate."

He was known as a champion of Detroit and the state's environment, working closely with the late former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, and pushing for Michigan's bottle deposit law, among other initiatives.

He made Michigan the first state to ban PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), which were widely used in electrical transformers and linked to cancer, and DDT, a pesticide harmful to wildlife and humans.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer praised Milliken as "a true statesman who led our state with integrity and honor," and a man with "a unique ability to bring people from both sides of the aisle together for the betterment of Michigan."

Milliken grew up in Traverse City, where his family owned Milliken's department stores, which had three stores in the region but no longer exists. He ran the family business after graduating from Yale University.

During World War II, Milliken flew 50 combat missions and survived two crash landings. He was awarded a Purple Heart.

Once an active runner, Milliken remained an active walker around Traverse City after a bad back caused him to slow his pace when he was in his 90s.

Milliken is survived by his son, William Jr.

Milliken's wife, Helen, died of ovarian cancer in 2012, at age 89. His daughter Elaine died of cancer in 1993.

Milliken was a third-generation politician, serving as a state senator like his father and grandfather.

Romney was tapped by Richard Nixon to join his administration as Housing and Urban Development secretary, and Milliken ascended to the governor's job. He was elected three times.

Milliken became governor in 1969, less than two years after the Detroit riot, believing the success of Michigan and Detroit was intertwined.

Milliken had a close working relationship with Young, the Democratic and bombastic former mayor of Detroit, as the governor championed statutory state revenue-sharing, which aided Detroit and other cities during tough economic times in the 1970s.

"I trusted him and I liked him," Milliken said of Young. "I tried hard to do everything I could to be helpful to the city of Detroit and the mayor. We weren't entirely successful."

He said in an interview he wished they could have done more on issues such as regional transportation and investment for the riverfront.

"When Gov. Milliken decided he wasn't to going to run again for governor, the first person he called was Mayor Young. And when Mayor Young decided he was not going to run again, the first person he called was Gov. Milliken," the late Bob Berg, press secretary to both men at different times, said in 2014.

"When they shook hands on a deal, they knew they could trust each other to follow through," Berg said. "That's not always the case in politics these days."

Another major issue for Milliken was protecting the Great Lakes and Michigan's environment. He pushed through passage of the nation's most aggressive bottle recycling law.

Milliken faced tough times in office with a major General Motors strike, and economic meltdowns in Michigan amid oil embargoes. After he left office, former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca named him to the automaker's board, citing his ability to work well with various constituencies.

Milliken continued to endorse political candidates in recent years, regardless of their political stripe, as the Republican Party moved further away from him to the right.

In 2016, the Republican Party in Milliken's home county of Grand Traverse voted to no longer recognize him as a Republican, after Milliken endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race against Republican Donald Trump.

Some of Milliken's other Democratic endorsements over the years include former Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Gary Peters.

He also endorsed Republicans, including former Gov. Rick Snyder and the late Sen. John McCain when he ran for president in 2008.

Helen Milliken, a leading advocate for the arts and the environment, was a political force in her own right.

In 1980, she skipped the opening ceremonies of the Republican National Convention in Detroit -- of which Gov. Milliken was a co-host -- to attend a protest march outside the convention decrying the party's decision to remove pro-Equal Rights Amendment language from its platform.

She also was an ardent supporter of abortion rights, in 1987 describing "all other rights" of a woman of "limited value" without the right to choose when to bear children.

Free Press columnist Carol Cain, Free Press staff writer Kathleen Gray, and former Free Press staff writer Dawson Bell contributed to this article.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.

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