Claiborne deBorda Pell, the quirky Newport blueblood who held the affections of blue-collar Rhode Island and championed better education of the poor during a 36-year Senate career, died shortly after midnight today at his home in Newport. He was 90 years old.

Democrat Pell, who had suffered from Parkinson’s disease since before his retirement from the Senate, died peacefully in the presence of his wife, Nuala O’Donnell Pell, and family members, according to a statement released by the family.

Pell, who served as the U.S. senator from Rhode Island from 191 to 1997, was perhaps best known nationally for the college grant program that bears his name.

He focused heavily on education, the arts and humanities, and foreign affairs during his 36 years in the Senate. During the latter part of his Senate career, he served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

As his family noted in the statement, the courtly Pell often expressed the definition of his job in seven words: "Translate ideas into actions and help people."

Journal file photo

Sen. Claiborne Pell at a committee meeting announcing his retirement in 1995

From his burst onto the local political scene in 1960 to his long valedictory in the mid-1990s, Pell's unlikely triumphs were the stuff of local legend. His old-school demeanor and his distracted, ungainly manner were fodder for a thousand parodies on the political circuit from the Blackstone Valley to Capitol Hill.

But as persistently as his foes razzed the manor-born son of a diplomat, or underestimated his political skills, Pell prevailed. He never lost an election and compiled an uncommon record of achievement, from college grants for poor people in the first part of his tenure to the ratification of nuclear arms treaties near the end.

Along the way, Pell worked so hard on his reputation for self-effacement that he become famous for it. "I always try to let the other fellow have my way,'' he said again and again -- one of many vintage ``Pellisms'' passed down through generations of Rhode Island reporters and politicos, along with an affectionate hoard of anecdotes that showed the senator's blithe unawareness of the popular culture that surrrounded him.

Pell was, no doubt about it, one of the strangest birds in American politics.

Journal file photo / Connie Grosch

Warwick, RI Wednesday, November 7, 2007 Former Sen. Claiborne Pell and Nuala Pell at the 37th annual meeting of Common Cause Rhode Island, held at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick in Nov., 2007.

He was an old-money millionaire who jogged into his eighth decade among the Gilded Age cottages of Bellevue Avenue, clad in beat-up Bermudas or frayed dress pants and the remains of his Princeton (Class of '40) letter sweater.

He was a champion, as a father of the National Endowmentf or the Arts, of federal patronage of artists -- even after the notorious subsidies to Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. But privately, Pell abominated their works and was cool toward toward the absractions of modern art. His taste ran to 19th-century American painters as George Caleb Bingham.

He was such a terrible driver that he drove for years in a white Mustang that was fitted with a roll-bar. That feature -- plus the array of body dents and the pelican hood ornament he had borrowed from his family crest -- always distinguished Pell's car from the somber sedans at the foot of the Capitol steps.

He was a onetime Foreign Service officer whose lifelong goal, the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, became a disappointment once he attained it. But as a dogged generalist who was happy to till a legislative field for years be fore it bore fruit, Pell scored lasting achievements. Cases in point were his campaigns against drunk driving, and for federally subsidized railroads.

He was a man who had a national college scholarship -- the Pell grants -- and a local bridge -- the Pell Bridge spanning Jamestown and Newport -- named for him, plus honorary degrees and international decorations running to the dozens. But Pell never outgrew a devotion to his late father that went beyond the filial.

The gaunt son wore the stout father's belt -- wrapping it around his waist several times to keep it properly cinched -- and decked his Capitol office with such moHmentoes as the sepia-toned photo of Navy Secretary Franklin D. Roseveltcheck New York Gov. Al Smith and New York Democratic Chairman Herbert C. Pell.

The only child of Herbert Claiborne and Matilda (Bigelow) Pell, Jr., Claiborne deBorda Pell was born on Nov. 22, 1918, into a family whose forbears included fighters on both sides of the American Revolution, five members of Congress and a vice president (George M. Dallas, who served under President James K. Polk from 1845 to 1849).

Pell's father represented Manhattan's silk stocking district in the House from 1918-20. As President, Roosevelt appointed him minister to Portugal and Hungary.

His father's work gave Pell a front-row seat on history and shaped his ambitions. They were on hand, for example, to hear London applaud Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. The future senator drew particular inspiration from Herbert Pell's little-noted efforts on behalf of Jews in flight from pre-war Nazi Germany.

The family summered often in Newport, moving there permanently when Claiborne was nine. He received his early education at St. George's School there and studied at Princeton during what he later called ``the last of the F. Scott Fitzgerald days.''

Young Pell ran cross country, played on a rugby team that won the Intercollegiate Championship and graduated cum laude in 1940. He later took a masters degree in fine arts at Columbia.

After graduation, Pell worked as a roustabout in the Oklahoma oil wells. Then he made his first sally into foreign affairs as a private secretary at the American Legation in Portugal. After the war broke out, Pell drove trucks in the effort to carry emergency supplies to prisoners of war in Germany. He was arrested several times by the Nazi government.

Four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Pell enlisted in the Coast Guard as a ship's cook. He saw duty in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean before he contracted undulant fever and was sent back to the Newport Naval Hospital. There he met his future wife, Nuala O'Donnell, a fellow Newporter whose great-grandfather had founded the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company.

Pell played bit parts in the opening scenes of the Cold War, watching the tanks of Soviet occupation roll into Czechoslovakia and clerking for the creators of the United Nations in San Francisco. As a senator, Pell could always produce a well-thumbed blue copy of the U.N. charter from his jacket pocket. Pell's tour in the Foreign Service included assignments to the consulate in Genoa, Italy and the State Department's Baltic Bureau.

In 1951, the Pells built a shingled ranch house, largely of Pell's design, overlooking Rhode Island Sound on Ledge Road, near Bailey's Beach in Newport. Pell spent much of the 1950s in investment banking but kept active in politics.

When he jumped into the free-for-all to succeed retiring Sen. Theodore F. Green in 1960, no less an authority than Democratic Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy called Pell the least electable man in America. Political Rhode Island tended to dismiss Pell's candicacy as a sideshow to the blood match between two hard Irish pols - former Governors Dennis J. Roberts and J. Howard McGrath - both past their prime and with a whiff of scandal about them.

The newcomer unleashed on them the first modern political campaign the state had seen, pouring his own money into television, polls and professional managers of the Democratic primary campaign. And Pell set rules for himself that became his hallmarks on and off the campaign trial:

Don't attack the other fellow. Keep a sense of humor. Do the unexpected.

When the opposition cried ``carpetbagger,'' Pell fired back with full-page newspaper ads featuring his grand-uncle Duncan Pell, Rhode Island lieutenant governor in 1865.

When one foe called him ``a creampuff,'' Pell trumpeted the endorsement of the bakers union.

When somebody sneered that little Claiborne had been raised by a nanny, Pell trotted out a very nice old lady who made a very nice impression on voters.

Pell's appeal may have been less mysterious than it appeared, based as it was on the simple tool with which Pell disarmed opponents for decades: a self-deprecating brand of honesty.

The late U.S. Sen. John H. Chafee, a failed Pell challenger who became his Senate colleague for two decades, once said, "It's very fundamental in politics to be what you are. 'To thine own self be true.' Claiborne has always been very straightforward in that regard.''

Reactions to former Sen. Claiborne Pell's death poured this afternoon.

Pell's longtime chief of staff, Thomas G. Hughes, recalled today that "always rallied" to the attentions of former colleagues and constituents when he encountered them at public events around the state -- even though the senator was wheelchair-bound an unable to speak during his latter years.

Hughes recalled a Rhode Island campaign event last summer that featured Sen. Joseph Biden, before the Delaware Democrat had become 0Bama's running mate. "Senator Biden, God bless him, sat with Senator Pell, who couldn't speak back to him, and just talked to him for what must have een 30 minutes. He talked about the campaign, about their times together in the Senate," Hughes recalled.

As ever in such circumstances, Hughes said it was clear in Pell's attentive and widening eyes that he was taking in -- and appreciating -- every syllable of his longtime friend's remarks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued this statement about from his home in Searchlight, Nev.:

"I am deeply saddended by the death of Claiborne Pell, a great American and a giant of the Senate. Any student who has ever received federal aid has Senator Pell to thank for his or her education. The Pell Grants he created revolutionized our education system for generations of Americans who might not otherwise be able to pursue higher education.

"The longtime chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pell never ran a negative campaign and was revered by his constituents and his colleagues alike. My heart goes out to his family."

Sen. John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who first encountered Pell as a young Navy veteran testifying against the Vietnam War before Pell's committee in the early 1970s, had this reaction to the Rhode Island senator's death: "Public service was stamped in Claiborne Pell's DNA. He was a quiet giant and a gentleman to the core, a dignified man who always did what he thought was right. Claiborne Pell will be recorded in history as a leader whose moral compass pointed him to do great things. This was a man born to great privilege whose domestic legacy will always be the Pell Grants which put college within reach for millions who would never have had that chance without his vision. In foreign policy, he was every bit as principled, pushing to end the war in Vietnam and leading the Foreign Relations Committee to support America's rightful place in the world community.''

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, said in a statement, "Claiborne Pell was a mentor, example and friend; a uniquely beloved Rhode Island politician; and a champion for artists and scholars and all Americans who see higher education lighting a path to a brighter future. We will all miss him deeply, and long benefit from the works of his farseeing soul. America shares in the loss felt by Nuala and the Pell family."

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, said in a statement, "My thoughts and prayers are with Senator Pell's wife, Nuala, and his family. Senator Pell has left an extraordinary legacy that is appreciated by so many people around the world. Our nation has lost one of its most visionary and thoughtful legislative leaders, and his hallmark, the Pell Grant, exemplifies his efforts to promote education and opportunity for all Americans. His commitment to public service and his notable contributions to Rhode Island and our nation continue to inspire people of all generations.''

U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin, a fellow Democrat, said in a statement released by his office: “Rhode Island has lost one of its greatest statesmen, one who embodied the highest ideals of public service. Senator Pell was a gentleman and champion for those who needed their voices heard, and his work truly made a difference for our state and the nation. I considered Senator Pell a friend and a mentor and had the honor of interning in his Washington, DC office during my studies at Rhode Island College. As I began my own career in government, Senator Pell was there – offering advice and support. He is, and always will be, a role model for me as I work to serve the people of Rhode Island just as he did, with courage and integrity.''

Rhode Island General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio said in a statement, "Senator Pell's career in public service shaped national and international policy over the decades, but he never forgot his first priority was the state of Rhode Island."

Pell is survived by his wife of 64 years; his son, Christopher T.H. Pell, of Newport; a daughter, Dallas Pell, of New York City; five grandchildren and five great grandchildren. His son, Herbert Pell, died in 1999 and his daughter, Julia Pell, died in 2006.

THE PELL YEARS

*1960: Claiborne Pell wins three-way Democratic primary, then beats Republican Raoul Archambault Jr. for U.S. Senate seat held since 1938 by Theodore Francis Green.

*1962: On tour of Southeast Asia, Pell forms view that Vietnam conflict could become "an American war," as he warns in 1963 report to the Senate.

*1965: President Lyndon Johnson signs into law Pell bills creating the National Endow

ment for the Arts and Humanities and launching a program of federal subsidies for high-speed rail transit.

*1966: National Sea Grant College program is created. The Pell-sponsored law directs ocean research money to schools, including the University of Rhode Island. Pell wins second term over Ruth M. Briggs.

*1967: Pell begins drive for a treaty banning nuclear weapons tests on the ocean floor. The arms treaty, ratified by the Senate in 1972, is one of several in which Pell plays a major role.

*1972: President Nixon signs higher education amendments creating college tuition subsidies (later named Pell Grants) for low-income students and expanding student loans and other aid. Pell wins third term over Gov. John Chafee.

*1978: Pell wins fourth term over James G. Reynolds.

*1984: Pell wins fifth term over Barbara Leonard.

*1987: Pell becomes chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

*1990: Pell wins his sixth term over Rep. Claudine Schneider.

*1991: Frustrated by the job and under pressure from colleagues, Pell concedes much of his chairman's power in a skakeup of the Foreign Relations Committee.

*1994: As Republicans take control of the Senate, Pell loses chairmanships of the Foreign Relations Committee and the Education and Arts Subcommittee. Pell is diagnosed with mild form of Parkinson's Disease.

*1995: Pell announces he will retire at the end of his term in 1996.

-- With Journal reports