Clintons, 43 senators to attend Chafee rites
The unusually large outpouring, reflects the respect people held for Senator Chafee, says Donald C. Ritchie, a Senate historian.
By JONATHAN SALTZMAN
and JOHN E. MULLIGAN
Journal Staff Writers
Sen. John H. Chafee's funeral Saturday will draw the most extraordinary assemblage of mourners to Rhode Island in memory, with President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, three Cabinet-level officials and 43 U.S. senators joining the Chafee family at Grace Church in Providence.
The dignitaries will include Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol M. Browner and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
Former Presidents Carter and Bush are also considering paying their respects to Chafee, a senator revered as the last of the Rockefeller Republicans. A dozen former senators and several House members are also expected.
``I think this is an unprecedented gathering,'' said Lisa Pelosi, a spokeswoman for Governor Almond, whose office is helping to arrange the funeral.
Donald C. Ritchie, a Senate historian in Washington, D.C., said, ``When a member of the Senate dies, there is always a sort of rallying, but this is an unusually large outpouring, which reflects the respect people held for Senator Chafee.''
To work out the extraordinary logistical and security details, more than 30 federal, state and local officials met behind closed doors for about two hours yesterday.
The group included representatives of the Secret Service, state police, the Rhode Island National Guard and the offices of Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. and Almond. Warwick Mayor Lincoln Chafee, one of Chafee's sons and a candidate for the seat he planned to vacate in January 2001, also sent representatives.
They discussed matters that ranged from security for the visiting dignitaries to balancing the wishes of Chafee's grieving family with those of citizens who want to pay their respects.
The nation's official farewell to the former Rhode Island governor, Navy secretary and four-term senator will begin today when Chafee's family and Marine Corps Commandant James L. Jones accompany his body home from Andrews Air Force Base aboard a military transport plane. Also on the flight will be Chafee's fellow Marines in the Senate, his old friend and former Navy Secretary John W. Warner, R-Va., and Charles S. Robb, D-Va.
Tomorrow at 9 a.m., the coffin, draped with an American flag, will be brought by hearse to the State House and carried by an honor guard through the Smith Street entrance and up the stairs to the rotunda.
Family and current and former members of the senator's staff will have an hour to pay their respects in private. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., the public will be able to view the closed casket beneath the marble dome of the State House.
At 9:30 Saturday morning, Chafee's body will be transported from the State House to Grace Church on Mathewson Street, possibly by a horse-drawn caisson similiar to the one that carried President John F. Kennedy to his final resting place.
The Rhode Island National Guard has been scouring New England for a caisson, according to Pelosi, of the governor's office.
Chafee's 5 children and some of his 12 grandchildren may follow the coffin on foot during the two-mile trek, but those plans need to be firmed up, she said.
The tentative route for the procession is Smith Street to Canal Street to Washington Street through Kennedy Plaza to Dorrance Street to Westminster Street and then to Mathewson. The procession will pass the U.S. Post Office on Kennedy Plaza, where Chafee used to have his district office, as well as the office building on Dorrance Street that currently houses his district office.
The service is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. at the Episcopal church. The church can seat up to 800 people, but there will be little if any room for the public because of all the visiting dignitaries.
Officials planned to set up loudspeakers, possibly inside the Rhode Island Convention Center, so the public could hear the service.
Former Sen. John C. Danforth, R-Mo., an Episcopal priest who was Chafee's closest friend in the Senate, will officiate. Members of Chafee's family also plan to speak.
Also participating will be the Rev. Maria DeCarvalho, a pastor at the Cathedral of St. John in Providence and a member of Chafee's Senate staff from 1976 to 1980. She worked in his offices in both Providence and Washington and served as his first scheduler.
``I feel terribly sad'' about his death, she said at the State House. ``It was not only an honor but a pleasure and a job to work with Senator Chafee. You can tell a great deal by how a person treats the people who work for him.''
DeCarvalho, who attended the planning session in the House Lounge, said she has participated in scores of funeral services since she became an Episcopal priest 10 years ago. She said it's ``an honor and a privilege'' to conduct a funeral of a friend whom she and so many Rhode Islanders admired.
``My emotions will parallel all those of the people in the pews,'' she said.
So many dignitaries are attending the funeral that federal officials have arranged for buses to carry the senators and House members from the steps of the U.S. Capitol to Andrews, which they will depart on three military planes to Rhode Island.
President Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and some of the dignitaries will fly on Air Force One.
``It's an overwhelming turnout,'' said Jim Manley, press secretary to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. ``It just illustrates how much [Chafee] was respected and revered.''
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