# Peter H. Dominick

Peter Hoyt Dominick (July 7, 1915 – March 18, 1981) was an American diplomat, politician and lawyer from Colorado. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the United States Senate from 1963 to 1975. His uncle, Howard Alexander Smith, was a U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1944 to 1959.

## Life and career

Born in Stamford, Connecticut on July 7, 1915, Dominick graduated from St. Mark's School in 1933, from Yale University in 1937 as a member of Scroll and Key, and Yale Law School in 1940. He practiced law in New York City with the law firm Carter, Ledyard and Milburn from 1940 until 1942. Dominick then joined the United States Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet at the outset of American fighting in World War II. He served until his separation from military service in 1945, as a captain. He briefly recommenced his legal practice in New York City in 1946, before moving that same year to Denver, Colorado, where he continued to practice law, eventually becoming a founding partner of the law firm Holland & Hart.

### Colorado House of Representative

Dominick entered politics when he was elected as a Republican to the Colorado House of Representatives, where he served from 1957 to 1961.

### Congress

In 1960, he made a successful run for the United States House of Representatives, defeating incumbent freshman Democrat Byron L. Johnson, and he abandoned his law career in 1961.
After a single term in the House of Representatives, Dominick was elected to the United States Senate, defeating one-term incumbent Democrat John A. Carroll, 53.6% to 45.6%. He was reelected in 1968 over Stephen L. R. McNichols, a former Governor of Colorado, 58.6% to 41.5%. Dominick voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. Dominick was also a supporter of major environmental legislation, supporting the enactment of the Wilderness Act in 1964, the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969, the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
Senator Dominick served as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the 92nd Congress from 1971 to 1973. In a good election year for Democrats, Dominick was defeated for a third term in 1974 by Gary Hart, 57.2% to 39.5%. By then Dominick was suffering from multiple sclerosis.
He also didn't help his case by saying, when asked a question about the value of U.N. Food Programs to certain countries, that Ugandans "would rather eat the people than the food", and by calling Watergate "insignificant."

### Ambassador

After leaving the Senate at the end of his term in 1975, he was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland by President Gerald Ford, but served only briefly.

### Retirement and death

He resided in Cherry Hills Village, Colorado until his death at Hobe Sound, Florida, on March 18, 1981. Senator Dominick's body was interred in Fairmount Cemetery, Denver.

## Legacy

Already a competent pilot, Peter Dominick solicited service with the US Army Air Corps on December 9, 1941. Unbeknownst to his family, Dominick had kept a meticulous journal of the entirety of his service during the war. Chronicling his flying "The Hump", the journal was discovered by his children and published by youngest son, Alexander Dominick, in 2018.