We lost another significant antiwar protester this week
Jane was a wondrous ally to all of us.
Jane B. Hart, strong-minded wife of senator, dies at 93
Jane B. Hart was a helicpoter pilot, mother of eight and the wife of Sen. Philip Hart (D-Mich.). (UPI)
Jane B. Hart, whose conscience, determination and personal convictions prompted words and actions on public issues that sometimes
went beyond those of her husband, a sitting U.S. senator, died June 5 at a care facility in West Hartford, Conn. She was 93.
Mrs. Hart, who was called Janey, was the wife of Philip Hart (D-Mich.), one of the most respected members of his party. He was
sometimes described as the “conscience of the Senate,” in which he served from 1959 to 1976. A Senate office building is named for him.
According to Michael Hart, one of the couple’s sons, Mrs. Hart had complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
Few spouses of high-ranking public officials were as well known for their outspokenness on public matters as Mrs. Hart.
At various times during the fighting in Southeast Asia, she visited North Vietnam, was arrested at the Pentagon and proclaimed
her refusal to pay taxes to support the war.
She also worked for equal rights, became a pilot and flew her husband to campaign events in a helicopter. She raised eight children,
was one of 13 women who passed an astronaut screening test and graduated from college in her late 40s.
Mrs. Hart’s vigorous and independent activism could at times be “a little bit . . .
complicated” for the senator, Michael Hart said.
On occasion someone would demand of him, “Can’t you control that wife of yours?” their son recalled. But the senator would respond,
“Why would I?”
At the Pentagon in 1969, Mrs. Hart was arrested with dozens of others during a peace demonstration. The convictions were overturned
on appeal. She made a trip to Hanoi in 1972 to meet American prisoners and to gauge for herself the effects of the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.
In 1972, Mrs. Hart reportedly stopped paying her federal income taxes to protest the U.S. role in the Vietnam War.
“I cannot contribute one more dollar toward the purchase of more bombs and bullets,” she wrote to the Internal Revenue Service.
She placed the funds in a special bank account.
Philip Hart told his wife that he did not think withholding taxes was the best form of protest. Earnest discussions ensued, but
she remained resolute. Her conscience, she said, would not permit her to accept the “killing of innocent people without cause.”
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