NEWPORT — Claiborne deBorda Pell, 90, of Newport, died at home Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009, after a battle with Parkinson’s Disease. One of the most respected politicians to ever come out of Rhode Island, Sen. Pell was born in New York City on Nov. 22, 1918, and served as a United States Senator from Rhode Island from 1961 to 1997. He was elected in 1960 and re-elected in 1966, 1972, 1978, 1984, and 1990, and was the longest serving Senator in Rhode Island history.

Sen. Pell held influential Senate posts in the fields of human resources, education, arms control, health, employment, human rights, foreign relations, international operations, oceans, environment, arts and humanities, and Democratic policy. His Senate assignments were Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relationships; Chairman of the Subcommittee on Education, Arts and Humanities; member of the Committee of Labor and Human Resources; chairman of the Committee on Rules and Administration; and member of the Democratic Policy Committee.

He served on the Executive Committee of Environmental and Energy Study Conference, which directs the work of the conference and advises members in the Senate and House of Representatives on the environmental and energy issues facing Congress. He was an honorary Vice President of the American Bible Society, an honorary trustee of St. George’s School and trustee emeritus of Brown University. He had been a member of the board of visitors of both the United States Naval Academy and the United States Coast Guard Academy.

He was also the author of two books (Power and Policy, on foreign policy, and Megalopolis Unbound, on high-speed ground transportation) and co-author of a third (Challenge of the Seven Seas, on the oceans). He was a director of the Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue of Newport, and attended Trinity Episcopal Church in Newport. He was also a trustee of Save the Bay.

Born into a family with a long history of public service, his father, Herbert Claiborne Pell, was a Congressman, Democratic state chairman and, later, U.S. Minister to Portugal and Hungary. His forebears include five members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, one of whom, George M. Dallas, also served as vice president of the United States.

A graduate of St. George’s School in Middletown, he earned his A.B. degree (cum laude) in history from Princeton University in 1940 and his master’s degree from Columbia University. He received honorary doctorates from 51 colleges and universities. He received 20 decorations, including the Presidential Citizens medal — the second highest non-military award of the United States — and was awarded medals of both the Kingdom and the Republic of Italy, and four by Portugal, two by the Netherlands, and by France, Sweden, Greece, Liechtenstein, Austria, Luxembourg, Lebanon, Pakistan, The Knights of Malta, and by Cardinal Koenig of Austria.

He enlisted in the Coast Guard four months before Pearl Harbor and started as ship’s cook. He received a commission while aboard ship and served in the North Atlantic and in Sicily, where he helped rebuild the fishing industry. After the war’s end he continued in the Coast Guard Reserve, from which he retired in 1978 with the rank of Captain.

Claiborne Pell was arrested three times by Fascist governments and three times by Communist governments. After the war, he participated in the San Francisco Conference that created the United Nations. He then served seven years as a State Department official and foreign service officer. He was the only member of the Senate to have been a foreign service officer.

During his diplomatic career, he held posts in Czechoslovakia and Italy and established United States Consulate General in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, after that nation was taken over by the Communists.

After resigning from the foreign service, Pell spent eight years in business and political activities. During that time he also was vice president of the International Rescue Committee from which he directed Hungarian refugee activities in Austria following the Hungarian Revolution.

In 1960 he sought the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat of retiring Senator Theodore Francis Green and became the first unendorsed candidate in Rhode Island history ever to win a state-wide primary. He was elected in general election by the largest plurality in Rhode Island history up to that time.

Sen., Pell was the principal sponsor of the 1965 law establishing the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and was the Senate author of the National Sea Great College and Program Act of 1966, a program funded at about $40 million annually — including about $1.5 million that goes to the University of Rhode Island.

On the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was an early and outspoken opponent of the United States’ military involvement in Vietnam and was a vigorous supporter of arms control agreements, including a mutual, verifiable nuclear freeze. He took the lead in proposals to ensure peaceful uses of the oceans and international cooperation and protection of the environment.

His leadership, both in the Committee and on the Senate floor, helped secure overwhelming ratification for the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty to reduce nuclear weapons. He also fathered both a treaty prohibiting the emplacement of weapons of mass destruction on the seabed and a treaty prohibiting the use of environmental modification techniques as a weapon of war.

He also took a leading role in eliminating financial barriers to higher education. His legislation created the Basic Educational Opportunity Grants which Congress named “Pell Grants” in 1980.

A member of the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving, he was the original Senate advocate and driving force behind federal legislation to help crack down on drunk driving. A set of tough drunk driving measures, initially proposed by him, was signed into law in 1982.

He was also the originator and driving force behind the High Speed Ground Transportation Act to improve rail passenger service, and his efforts were instrumental in the implementation of the downtown Providence railroad relocation project and the construction of the Providence AMTRAK Station.

His legislation resulted in the establishment of a career service for Foreign Service Information Officers. Another of his bills authorized the creation of a National Police Memorial, dedicated to local, state and federal law enforcement officials who lost their lives in the line of duty.

He had been the primary sponsor of specialized bills dealing with such areas as environmental education, libraries, historical preservation education for the handicapped, and amendments to cushion the economic impact of severe defense cutbacks on Rhode Island.

He was appointed by President Eisenhower as a delegate to the initial meeting of the Internal Maritime Consultative Organization in 1959 and was a delegate to the 25th U.S. delegation for the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. He also was the first Senate advisor appointed to the Strategic Armed Limitations Treaty (SALT) talks and served as a member of the Commission on Improving the Effectiveness of the United Nations.

He was a Senate representative at the first world environmental conference in Stockholm in 1972. He was the only Senator who participated in the Stockholm meeting who also was a Senate representative at the follow-up United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio De Janeiro in 1992.

President Clinton appointed Claiborne Pell as a representative of the United States of America to the 51st Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1996. He was also appointed a Public Delegate of the United States of American to the 52nd Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1998.

On September 2, 1996, The Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy was established at Salve Regina University in Newport, by an Act of the United States Congress, to honor Senator Pell upon his retirement from the Senate.

Sen. Pell was married to the former Nuala O’Donnell. They have a son, Christopher and a daughter, Dallas. Their son, Herbert, died in 1999 and their daughter, Julia, died in 2006. He had five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, Jan. 5, in Trinity Church, Queen Anne Square, Newport. Burial will be private. Visiting hours are respectfully omitted.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Church Street Station, P.O. Box 780, New York, NY 10008-0780. See www.onhfh.com for online condolences.