William Bader, a Senate staff member who investigated the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and CIA abuses and held high-level policy positions at the Defense and State departments, died March 15, 2016, at age 84.
Bader graduated from Pomona College in 1953 and served in the Navy before earning a Ph.D. in history from Princeton in 1964.
As a member of Sen. J. William Fulbright’s staff, in 1967 he started to investigate the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (authorizing President Johnson to protect U.S. interests, which led to the military escalation in Vietnam). Fulbright suggested the resolution had been passed under false pretenses. Such accusations by Fulbright and Bader were confirmed almost 40 years later when relevant documents were declassified.
In the mid-1970s, Bader was on the staff of Sen. Frank Church’s investigating committee, where he helped expose many objectionable CIA practices. Later, he was at the Defense Department before returning to the Senate as chief of staff of the Foreign Relations Committee from 1979 to 1981.
After working at SRI International, he was assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs from 1999 to 2001.
Bader was predeceased in 2014 by his wife of 60 years, Gretta. He is survived by four children (including Christopher ’79) and six grandchildren.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.