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University of Maine president Fred Hutchinson could not have chosen a more independent investigator when he appointed Stanley R. Tupper of Boothbay Harbor to investigate the troubled UMaine athletic department.
Tupper is a former U.S. congressman and ambassador whose reputation for independence dates to his earliest days in Maine politics.
Throughout a public career noted for its ability to shake up the establishment and sound wakeup calls to the Republican Party, Tupper never shied from controversy, according to Bangor Daily News reports.
Whether it was opposing the election of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964 or the re-election of Sen. Margaret Chase Smith in ’72, Tupper has frequently bucked the crowd.
Early in his career, he was considered a “progressive Republican,” then a member of the “liberal wing” of his party. Later he was characterized as a “maverick” Congressman and, finally, a “renegade” Republican.
He scored a political first during the 1964 election, receiving the endorsement of Maine labor. In the ’64 election, when Lyndon B. Johnson became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Maine since 1912 and the Democrats won control of the legislature for the first time since 1911, party faithful blamed Tupper’s refusal to back Goldwater. Tupper was the only major Republican candidate to win in ’64.
In 1969, he urged his party to admit that its candidate pool was weak and, in 1970, citing a “new era of independence,” he chaired Republicans for Muskie.
One of his most recent appointments could well have served as a forerunner for the University of Maine’s Tupper Report. In 1988, he chaired a state commission studying ethics laws affecting the legislature and other branches of government.
A Boothbay Harbor High School graduate and World War II Navy veteran, he graduated from Middlebury College and earned his law degree from La Salle Extention University.
His first public office was as a Boothbay Harbor selectman in the early ’50s. After one term in the state legislature, he joined the Sea and Shore Fisheries Commission in ’53 and headed that until 1957.
Tupper was elected to Congress from Maine’s second district in 1960 and planned not to run in ’62, citing the cost of $25,000. He entered the race when Rep. Peter Garland’s office announced his pending divorce, sending shivers down the spine of conservative Maine Republicans. Tupper won the seat and served until 1967 when he was named ambassador to the Montreal Expo.
NOTE: The following chronology was not published.
The Tupper File Stanley R. Tupper, attorney, age 72, Boothbay Harbor. Graduate: LaSalle Extension University, LLB, Middlebury, Boothbay
Harbor High School 1949: Opened law practice 1953: Elected to Maine House of Representatives
Appointed to Sea and Shore Fisheries Council; chairman to
1957 1957: National Committeeman for the Maine Council of Young
Republicans 1958: Appointed assistant Attorney General for Maine 1960: Elected to U. S. House of Representatives from Second
District 1961: Appointed to Canada-US Interparliamentary Group, one of
12 congressmen
Begins to sound the alarm against “ultra-conservatives” 1962: Defeats Garland in June and wins First District seat in
November 1963: New England manager of Nelson A. Rockefeller’s bid for
Republican presidential nomination 1964: July, announces he will not back Goldwater, defeats
Secretary of State Kenneth M. Curtis in re-election
bid by 203 votes 1965: Urging party to disavow right wingers 1966: Appointed by White House as Commissioner General for the U.S.
at the Canadian Universal and International Exposition in
Montreal in 1967 with title and rank of ambassador 1967: Joins Portland law firm of Linnell, Perkins, Thompson,
Hinckley and Thaxter 1968: Executive Director of State Urban Action 1970: Chairs Republicans for Muskie 1972: Supports Monks over Smith for Senate 1974: Declines U. S. appointment as assistant secretary for defense 1975: President Ford appoints Tupper to Northwest Atlantic
Fisheries Commttee 1977: Endorses William Hathaway, a democrat 1979: Heads Sensible Maine Power, working to keep Maine Yankee
from reopening 1981: Endorses nuclear referendum shutdown 1982: Endorses Democrat Joseph Brennan 1985: Governor Brennan appoints him to MMA Board of Trustees 1988: Chairs state commission studying ethics in legislature
and government 1989: Chairman of Maine Common Cause
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