Maurice Robert Gravel (born May 13, 1930), better known as Mike Gravel, was a Democratic U.S. Senator (1969-1981) from Alaska and is primarily known to history as the person who published a large portion of the Pentagon Papers. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention he raised some eyebrows by nominating himself for the Vice Presidential spot on the party's ticket (typically this is done by someone else). He was defeated in the Democratic primary in 1980, whereupon his Senate career came to an end.
As of 2003, he is leading an effort to get a United States Constitutional amendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives. Sen. Gravel maintains Americans have the ability to legislate responsibly and the Act and Amendment his organization has authored would allow for American citizens to become "law makers".
He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and during his first term in the Senate he became the author of a book entitled Citizen Power. In the book he advocated the implementation of numerous social democratic schemes, including a guaranteed annual income (which he termed a "citizen's wage") of $5,000 per person, irrespective of whether the person worked or not.
According to the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, Mike Gravel appeared as a speaker on his National Initiative for Democracy at the June 2003 conference of a Holocaust-deniers' publication, The Barnes Review [1].