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Senator who made Tibet a part of US foreign policy dies

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Former Senator Claiborne Pell in a 2005 photo. Pell, an aristocratic Rhode Islander who spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate and was best known for championing better education for the poor, died on 1 January 2008. He made the Tibetan issue a part of the US foreign policy, while he was chairman of the senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1987-1994.File photo/Reuters/Brian Snyder/US

Claiborne de Borda Pell, a United States Senator from Rhode Island, died on 1 January. He served six terms from 1961 to 1997, and was known for making Tibet a part of US foreign policy. He also helped establish humanitarian assistance for Tibetans living in Chinese-ruled Tibet.

Pell, who was 90, was best known as the sponsor of the Pell Grant, which helped millions of Americans attend college. A Democrat, he was Rhode Island’s longest-serving senator.

He died peacefully at his home surrounded by family shortly after midnight on 1 January, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

In 2005, he welcomed the Dalai Lama to Salve Regina University, in Newport, Rhode Island, Pell’s home town. The two leaders first met back in 1980, while Senator Pell was chairman of the powerful senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1987 to 1994.

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