Columnist Benjamin Grove: Cannon’s legacy built on caring

Benjamin Grove

Friday, April 12, 2002 | 4:32 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- In 1973 an intern for Sen. Howard Cannon, D-Nev., was answering his voter mail when she ran across a letter from an ailing Northern Nevada woman, who sought his help.

The 21-year-old UNLV student sent the woman back a short response but she had not carefully noted the details of the woman's illness. Cannon later called her into his office, asking for more information.

"I'll never forget. He said, 'One of these days I'm going to go see this woman and she is going to start talking about this illness, and I want to know what she is talking about,' " the staffer, now 51, recalled.

The aide went on to become a current member of Congress, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. She said it wasn't until years after her internship that she fully appreciated the influence Cannon had on Nevada infrastructure and on national issues ranging from trucking deregulation to commercial aviation.

"I came to realize that not only was he having a national impact but that the most important thing he did was take care of his constituents," Berkley said.

Berkley shared the story about the letter with Cannon's daughter, Nancy Cannon Downey, this past week.

"Those letters may not have been important," Downey said. "But they were important to my dad."

Cannon, who died March 6 in Las Vegas at age 90, was interred Wednesday with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery just outside the nation's capital.

His legacy as a young sax-playing orchestra leader, who became a World War II pilot, and later a humble and well-respected four-term senator, will live on in Nevada -- and elsewhere.

Warren Cikens, a longtime Senate staffer, whose wife worked as an aide to Cannon when he was chairman of the Commerce Committee, said staffers all over Capitol Hill respected Cannon's leadership and humility.

"One mark of a good senator is the loyalty of his staff," Cikins said after attending Cannon's Arlington service. "He clearly had that."

Downey is now doing her part to document her father's legacy. She is striving to finish a book about him that she began years ago. She has a title in mind, but isn't ready to share it, she said.

In the month since her father's death, Downey has found lots of new research material among the keepsakes he left behind, including precious documents from his files.

"He kept everything," Downey said. "It's like a museum."

Among the materials: letters her father wrote to his mother while he was stationed in England during the war, as well as the U.S. Air Force telegram informing Cannon's family that he was missing in action. Cannon was shot down and spent 42 days in occupied Holland, making his way back to safety with help from local farmers.

Downey also found flight records of some of the jets the aviation junkie and combat pilot flew, complete with photos of Cannon and the planes. Among his other accomplishments, Cannon is credited with helping develop Nellis Air Force Base into one of the premier bases in the nation.

"You could just see the joy in his face when he was with those planes," Downey said.

Downey intends to give some of the materials to special collections at UNLV, as well as to McCarran International Airport's Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum.

Downey said she had been touched by the simple beauty of the Arlington ceremony Tuesday. Her father's flag-draped coffin was drawn by six powerful horses on a caisson. The flag, neatly folded into a triangle according to military protocol, was presented to Downey "on behalf of a grateful nation."

Downey told me that at times in the last month she had thought of Cpl. Matthew Commons, the 21-year-old Nevada soldier who was killed in Afghanistan March 4 and buried at Arlington a week later.

"We do need to honor our heroes," Downey said, "when they are alive, and when they are gone."