Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Longtime U.S. Senator from New York Dies at 76

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was an American sociologist, diplomat and Democratic politician who represented New York in the U.S. Senate from 1977 to 2001. Born on March 16, 1927, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he shined shoes in Penn Station as a boy.

Moynihan was Assistant Secretary of Labor under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and wrote the controversial 1965 Moynihan Report on Black family poverty. He served Nixon as a domestic adviser and was U.S. Ambassador to India (1973-1975) and to the United Nations (1975-1976).

In the Senate he chaired the Environment and Finance committees and led a commission on government secrecy. He married Elizabeth Brennan in 1955 and had three children. He died in Washington, D.C., on March 26, 2003, at age 76, of complications from a ruptured appendix. New York's Moynihan Train Hall, which opened in 2021, is named for him.

Achievements: U.S. Senator from New York (1977-2001), Ambassador to India and the UN, author of the Moynihan Report (1965).

Birth: March 16, 1927 - Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Profession: Senator, sociologist and diplomat.

Interesting Facts: As ambassador to India he presented a check for about 16.6 billion rupees, listed by Guinness as the largest check ever written.