Joseph F. Dolan, an adviser to governors, senators and the nation’s attorney general during the turbulent civil rights movement, was remembered Thursday as an “indispensable” behind-the-scenes Democratic figure whose own political career may have been curtailed by the assassination of Robert Kennedy.
Dolan, who died at age 86 Wednesday at his Englewood home, was a member of John F. Kennedy’s administration, later an aide to Robert F. Kennedy and also held several key offices in Colorado state government.
Dolan also was the state’s top federal prosecutor during the Carter administration, served in the Colorado legislature and was head of the state highway and revenue departments under Gov. Dick Lamm.
Services will be private. Dolan had no close relatives. His wife, Marty Dolan, and sons, Peter Dolan and Tom Dolan, preceded him in death.
“He was probably the most significant political person living in Colorado that nobody ever heard of,” Lamm said. “At the height of his time (in politics), he was the guy making the wheels move because he was involved in every issue of our time.”
Another former governor largely agreed with Lamm’s assessment of Dolan’s place in history.
“He loved politics; he understood the process, the tactics and strategies,” Roy Romer said.
Romer, who served in the state legislature at the same time Dolan did, said, “Joe was a very strong player locally and always tied in nationally.”
“Joe was progressive, and that was not an easy thing in those days,” said former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, now president of the Association of American Publishers in Washington.
He worked for child care for working mothers and health care for middle-income as well as low-income people — topics that were not always on the front burner in the 1960s and ’70s.
“He was concerned about civil rights and housing and poverty. He was also a storyteller and a nice guy to hang out with,” Schroeder said.
Dolan started his political activity as a member of the Young Democrats, Lamm said — and didn’t stop for 40 years.
After graduating from St. John’s University in New York with a law degree in 1947, he worked for a congressional committee studying campaign finance, then moved to Colorado to open his own firm.
He was elected to the Colorado legislature and served there in 1959 and 1960 and became an early supporter of John F. Kennedy’s presidential bid. In 1960, he went to work for the campaign, and, after Kennedy’s election, became assistant deputy attorney general for new Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
While there, he helped write federal civil rights legislation in 1963. A story in The Denver Post called him “the point man” on the legislation.
Lamm said he recalled a photo of Dolan escorting a young black child into a Montgomery, Ala., school when the school was forced to integrate.
Later, he became administrative assistant to then-U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy, and, as the senator considered running for president, Dolan was dispatched to state Democratic leaders across the country to gauge support for the bid, according to Dolan papers in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. He is credited with encouraging Robert Kennedy to write a book about education, reasoning it would help his campaign. Kennedy wrote the book, “To Seek a Newer World.”
Kennedy’s bid for the presidency was ended by an assassin in 1968, and Dolan returned to Colorado.
“He was absolutely indispensable to the Kennedys and I’m sure would probably would have been chief of staff for Bobby Kennedy if he’d been elected,” Lamm said.
Dolan ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 1974. Gary Hart won the primary and went on to win the general election.
“I had enormous respect for him,” Hart said Thursday.
While he was director of the Colorado Department of Highways in the 1980s, he pushed the state legislature for $11 million for road repairs, saying that paved roads had once been gravel and if they didn’t get repaired, “it won’t be long until they’re all gravel again.”
He was an early advocate for light rail to reduce pollution and was disgusted with the state’s inaction. He once told a reporter, “After decades of studying the problem, the only thing we have to show for it is paralysis from analysis.”
Joseph Francis Dolan was born in Woodhaven, N.Y., on Nov. 21, 1921, and earned his bachelor’s and law degrees at St. John’s University.
He had a private law practice and, for four years he served as president of Shakey’s Inc., a pizza restaurant chain.
Memorial gifts should be be directed to The Joseph and Martha Dolan Public Policy Scholarship, University of Denver, Dept. 585, Denver, CO 80291.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
