Marlow Webster Cook (July 27, 1926 – February 4, 2016) was an American politician from Kentucky who served as a member of the United States Senate from his appointment in December 1968 to his resignation in December 1974. He was a Rockefeller Republican.

He also ran the lobbying firm Cook and Henderson with former Democratic Party United States House of Representatives member David N. Henderson from North Carolina, and the two were the primary political lobbyists for the Tobacco Institute in the early 1980s.

Early life

Cook was born in Akron, New York, a town in Erie County, New York. He moved to Louisville, Kentucky at 17. Also at that age, he joined the United States Navy and served on submarines in both the European Theater of Operations, United States Army and Theaters of Operations in the Pacific War during World War II. After the war, he enrolled at the University of Louisville and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948 and a law degree in 1950. He practiced law in Louisville until 1957.

Political career

Kentucky House of Representatives

Cook was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1957 and again in 1959. He served on a special committee analyzing education in the state and also on a planning committee. Following the election, Cook resigned his seat early, in December, so that Ford could resign and be appointed senator by his successor, Julian Carroll, thus having greater seniority in assuming the office. (Morton had done the same for Cook, in 1968.)

Later career

Following his political career, Cook practiced law in Washington, D.C. until 1989, when he retired to Sarasota, Florida.

Some of his former aides went on to congressional careers. Mitch McConnell, later the Senate Minority Leader, was Cook's chief legislative aide from 1968 to 1970, and John Yarmuth, then-chair of the United States House Committee on the Budget, was an aide to Cook in the 1970s, later becoming a Democrat before running for office.

Cook, however, opposed McConnell in the 1984 campaign. McConnell defeated the incumbent Democratic senator, Walter Dee Huddleston.

In later years, Cook was uncertain about what he considered McConnell's turn to the right. McConnell had helped Cook to advance the unsuccessful Equal Rights Amendment, but Cook opposed his former aide on several other pieces of legislation, particularly his opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

Cook died on February 4, 2016, in Sarasota, Florida from complications from a heart attack, at age 89.

References

  • Guide to the Marlow Cook moving image and audio recordings, 1969-1974, undated housed at the University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center

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