Emilio Q. Daddario congressional papers

Chronology List

• September 24, 1918: Emilio Quincy Daddario born, Newton Center, Massachusetts
• 1934: Graduated from Tilton (New Hampshire) Academy
• 1934-1935: Attended Newton (Mass.) Country Day School
• 1935-1939: Attended Wesleyan University. In college Daddario studied under such politically active professors as E. E. Schattschneider and Wilbert Snow. He majored in government, was a member of Eclectic House, and active in extra-curricular affairs. Daddario played varsity football at Wesleyan for three years and broke or established most of the team's modern day records with his broken field running and drop-kicking ability. He was captain of the football team as a senior. He twice won the C. Everett Bacon award for outstanding athletic ability, which included three years as a varsity shortstop on the baseball team. Later, to pay his way through law school, Daddario played professional football with the Providence Steamrollers and the Hartford Blues, the latter as captain, star and coach. He also coached the Wethersfield State Prison football team. In 1963 he was named to the "Sports Illustrated Silver Anniversary All-America Award" for college players who have achieved success in their lives since. In 1964 his early athletic exploits were honored by Connecticut Sportwriters' Gold Key Award.
• 1939-1942: Daddario attended Boston University Law School for two years, 1939-1941. He then transferred to the University of Connecticut Law School for the final year and received the LL.B. degree in June 1942.
• 1940: Married Berenice Carbo of Middletown, October 20, 1940.
• 1942: Daddario passed both the Connecticut and Massachusetts Bar Examinations and began the practice of law in Middletown in the summer of 1942. His office was in the Middletown Savings Building, 164 Court Street. In 1953, he moved his practice to Hartford.
• 1943-1945: Daddario enlisted in the United States Army in February 1943, and was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services in the Mediterranean Theatre. Entering as a private he underwent intensive training for ten months and eventually served with partisans in Italy, behind the lines. For remarkable service during the war, he was awarded the U.S. Legion of Merit and the Italian Medaglio d'Argento medals. This brief description of his exploits documents this aspect of his career: "But it remained for a 24-year-old OSS officer who had infiltrated into Milan to top all these other exploits by waging a brief but highly successful war of his own. During the last five days of the Italian campaign, this one man task-force, Captain Emilio Q. Daddario of Boston, Mass., maneuvered single-handed the surrender of the Nazi S. S. Headquarters at Villa Locatelli in Cenobbio; arranged with the German General in command at Como to confine his troops to the barracks of Italy, made a prisoner of Marshal Graziani, Chief of the Italian Fascist Army as well as Generals Bonomi and Sorrentino and other leaders who were to be turned over to Allied intelligence."
  
  "This last proved to be a ticklish business. The bodies of Mussolini and other prominent Fascists were dangling upside down in the main square of MIlan, and the frenzied populace demanded Graziani as well. But Captain Daddario had orders from Allied Headquarters to bring Graziani back alive. Somehow he managed to spirit his prize prisoner out of Milan. Several times the OSS party was under fire from excited Italian Partisans; the car which was assigned to the Marshal was dynamited and an OSS lieutenant badly wounded, but Graziani was delivered intact."
• 1946-1948: Daddario was nominated by the Democratic Town Committee to run for mayor of Middletown and was elected on October 8, 1946. His vote was 4,686 over the Republican Salvatore T. Cubeta's total of 4,306. Cubeta had served as mayor for two terms. Middletown's population in 1940 was 26,495 and rose in 1950 to 29,711. Members of the Common Council during the Daddario administration were four Republican holdovers from the 1944 election (Rosindo Amato, C. Marsden Bacon, Joseph P. Chester and A. Pickett Hull) and five Democrats elected in 1946 (Herbert C. F. Bell, William J. Scanlon, Irving R. Segal, Fiorie DeToro, and Leo Zieller). Daddario assumed office as Middletown's 64th mayor on October 10, 1946 and at age 28 he was the youngest mayor in Connecticut history. Although the office was then considered a part-time position that enabled, or obliged, the officeholder to continue other private employment, Mayor Daddario's administration was a highly active one: the water system was restructured, new parks added, low cost housing built, and collective bargaining for city employees instituted. Mayor Daddario's efforts in reforming the school system in Middletown have been recalled by Wilbert Snow: "We ran him for the office of Mayor in October 1946 and while Mayor, he did me one favor I have never ceased to be grateful for. In Middletown we had not one but two School Boards, one a City Board for the four square miles within the city, and one a Town Board, for the 44 square miles outside the city limits. For eleven years I was chairman of the Town Board. The teachers in the City schools, operating under a special state charter, were receiving from two to four hundred dollars a year more than the teachers in the Town School District, even though they ate in the same restaurants and shopped in the same stores. I acquainted my former student with the disparity and he saw to it that the salaries were equalized."
  
  In September, 1948 Mayor Daddario announced that he had "informed a nominating committee of the Democratic Town Committee that I would not seek reelection in the coming city election due to the obligations which I owe my family and business." (The Middletown Press, September 13, 1948) He praised the new Democratic slate headed by a Wesleyan University Professor of History, Herbert C. F. Bell, who was subsequently elected to succeed Daddario as mayor.
• 1949-1950: E. Q. Daddario was appointed by the Governor of Connecticut to be Judge of the Municipal Court of Middletown. The Middletown Court was in a class with larger cities of the state and had civil jurisdiction not exceeding $1,000 and criminal jurisdiction not exceeding penalty of $400 fine, or imprisonment for one year or both. Small claims jurisdiction was $100 or less [Conn. Gen. Stat., Rev. 1949, Chapters 4 and 377, and Sec. 92]. During his brief tenure, Daddario was elected Vice President of the Assembly of Municipal Court Judges (Conn. State Register and Manual, 1950, p. 203). Daddario resigned his judgeship when recalled military duty in the Korean War.
• 1950-1952: After World War II Daddario had continued reserve service in the National Guard in the 43rd Infantry Division located in Connecticut. This division was activated soon after the outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950. Daddario served as a major with the Far East Liaison Group in Korea and Japan.
• 1952: Resumed legal practice in Hartford, Connecticut as partner in firm of Daddario, Burns, Eddy, & Slitt.
• 1952 Memberships: Trustee and member of Alumni Council, Wesleyan University. University of Connecticut Law School Alumni Association. Theta Nu Epsilon. Phi Nu Theta. Knights of Columbus. Elks Club. Member of Board of Directors, Long Lane School in Middletown, Middlesex Hospital in Middletown. Member of Board of Regents, University of Hartford, Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• 1958: Elected as Democratic Member of the United States House of Representatives from the First District of Connecticut in November. Took office on January 7, 1959 when the 86th Congress began.
• 1959-1971: Under the original Constitutional Apportionment in 1788 the state legislature established the First Congressional District in the center of Connecticut with Hartford as its focus. This has continued to this day through numerous reapportionments and redistricting actions. Originally the House had 65 members, 5 from Connecticut. Since 1930 Connecticut has had 6 seats in a 435 member House of Representatives. The District was changed slightly during Representative Daddario's tenure and does not embrace all of Hartford County. Towns included in the First District: Bloomfield, East Hartford, East Windsor, Glastonbury, Hartford, Manchester, Marlborough, Newington, Rocky Hill, South Windsor, West Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor. Its population in 1960 was 422,766; in 1970, 505,418.
• 1959-1970 COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP IN CONGRESS: Daddario sought and won membership on the House Committee on Science and Astronautics in January 1959 and served continuously on this committee until the end of his service in December 1970. When the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development was created in 1963, Daddario became its first chairman. During his chairmanship, the Subcommittee covered a wide range of topics in trying "to develop a capacity for detecting well in advance some of the Nation's problems involving science and technology." Topics covered during the first eight years of the Subcommittee included federal science policy, federal research and development programs, aeronautics, science education, the National Science Foundation, science informations systems and handling, standard reference data, environmental quality, fire research, technology assessment, management of federal scientific activities, international science, and systems studies.
  
  Daddario's Subcommittee colleagues changed over time. Among its members besides himself were John W. Davis (D-Georgia), Joe D. Waggonner (D-Louisiana), George E. Brown, Jr. (D-California), Earle Cabell (D-Texas), Bertram L. Podell (D-New York), James W. Symington (D-Missouri), Alphonzo Bell (R-California), Charles A. Mosher (R-Ohio), D. E. (Buz)Lukens (R-Ohio), and Larry Wynn, Jr. (R-Kansas).
  
  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION: The Subcommittee held numerous hearings into national policy regarding scientific research and development (R & D). Reports were issued on government research and development expenditures and on the geographic distribution among the states of federal research grants in 1964. The National Science Foundation (NSF) was under intensive scrutiny, and the Subcommittee was responsible for hearings on appropriations to the NSF. In March 1966, Daddario issued a bill modifying the NSF's organizational structure and scope, based on the Subcommittee report issued in the previous December. That bill became law in July 1966 [An Act to Amend the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, 82 Stat. 360]. By 1970, the Subcommittee recommended and acquired for the NSF a budget of $477,605,000 [National Science Foundation Authorization Act, 1970, 83 Stat. 203]. The Subcommittee then proposed a bill for the "collection, compilation, critical evaluation, publication, and dissemination of standard reference data" through the Secretary of Commerce. This bill, which authorized $1.86 million for fiscal 1969 became law [Standard Reference Data Act, 82 Stat. 339]. In 1969, Congress approved an authorization of $6 million for a standard reference data system in the National Bureau of Standards [Standard Reference Data Act - Appropriations, 83 Stat. 273].
  
  ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: Hearings on the state of the environment and the ability of technology to save it were held in 1966, and the Subcommittee called a joint House-Senate "colloquium to discuss congressional strategy." From this came a report, "Congressional White Paper on a National Policy for the Environment," which was later incorporated into the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 [83 Stat. 852].
  
  FIRE RESEARCH AND SAFETY: Daddario's Subcommittee of the Science and Astronautics Committee held hearings in May of 1967 on fire research and safety program appropriations. Their proposed bill was altered by the Congress, but eventually authorized $5 million for research [Fire Research and Safety Act of 1969, 82 Stat. 34]
  
  TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT: One of the more active roles Daddario played was in the proposal to establish a Technology Assessment Board. Its purpose was "to provide a method for identifying, assessing, publicizing, and dealing with the implications and effects of applied research and technology" [U.S., Congress, House, Congressional Record, vol. 113, p. 5748]. A seminar on technology assessment resulted in continued hearings by the Subcommittee into that area before any legislation could be drawn up. Three special studies were requested from the Legislative Reference Service, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering. A fourth report, made by the National Academy of Public Information dealt with administrative facets of technology assessment in the Executive Branch. A report from the Science Policy Research Division of the Library of Congress (April 1969), a report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science on ecological effects of chemical defoliants in Vietnam, and a crucial meeting in February, 1969 of the Panel on Science and Technology paved the way for H.R. 17046, a bill introduced by Congressmen Daddario and Mosher (R-Ohio). Subsequently, the "Technology Assessment Act of 1972" was adopted to establish an Office of Technology Assessment "for the Congress as an aid in the identification and consideration of existing and probable impacts of technological application." [Public Law 92-484; 86 Stat. 797]. The official legislative history of the Technology Assessment Act of 1972 states the following: "The House Committee on Science and Astronautics provided early leadership in designing this proposed institution, and its Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development, under the chairmanship of Emilio Q. Daddario and later John W. Davis, created a substantial literature on the subject. "[Senate Report No. 92-1123, in U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, 1972, p. 5195].
  
  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: The Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development also recommended that greater use be made of federal laboratories. In a related area, the Subcommittee heard reports and testimony on the federal governments organization of scientific activities. "On April 15, 1970, Representative Daddario transmitted to Chairman Miller a report recommending certain centralizations of federal science responsibilities" [Summary of Activities, p. 70]. The report recommended establishment of the National Institutes of Research and Advanced Studies (NIRAS), strengthening of the science superstructure in the President's office, promotion of the funding of academic science and higher education, continuation of support to research, and consolidation of congressional committees' jurisdiction dealing with research and education at the graduate level in all fields of learning. Daddario also served as Chairman of a select subcommittee to review patent provisions of the Space Act [72 Stat. 426].
  
  THE INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION: Congressman Daddario and Senator Philip A. Hart of Michigan served as the two United States Representatives to the Interparliamentary Union Council. Mr. Daddario was the single American member of the Interparliamentary Executive Committee. [Officers of the United States Group for each Congress are listed in the Congressional Directory.] "Founded in 1889 by the representatives from the parliaments of nine European and North American countries, the Interparliamentary Union now represents 75 nations around the world, including Communist governments. Currently, the IPU is concerned with research and prevention of world conflicts, and the establishment of a durable international peace. The IPU began efforts in 1965 to arrange negotiations to end the war in Vietnam." [For the Statutory basis for participation in the Interparliamentary Union by the United States Congress, see 49 Stat. 425, 22 U.S.C. 276.]
• 1970: In June 1970 the Connecticut Democratic State Convention nominated Daddario to be its candidate for governor. He was defeated in the November general election by Thomas J. Meskill, Republican, by a vote of 572, 505 to 492, 037. Meskill thus obtained 53.8 percent of the vote while Daddario had 46.2 percent.
• 1971: Daddario named vice president of the Gulf and Western Corporation, a conglomerate, in Manchester, Connecticut and Washington, D.C. His particular job is to develop new scientific programs and determine new sites for Gulf and Western operations. He also resumed his law practice in Hartford.