Michigan politician Joe Schwarz has died. He was 88.
Schwarz served more than a dozen years in the Michigan state Senate, before being elected to Congress.
Near the end of his life, the Battle Creek Republican lamented how politics has grown more partisan during the past four decades.
“We’ve got to talk to each other,” Schwarz said in 2020, “We’ve got to come to common solutions. My radical solution and your radical solution aren’t going to work. So let’s get someplace in between. “
As a young man, Schwarz earned a medical degree and served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam and with the Central Intelligence Agency in Southeast Asia during the 1960’s.
Schwarz said he was proud of his work with the CIA to counter the Soviet Union’s attempt to lure Indonesia into the communist bloc.
“Because it worked. And the results are still there today. Indonesia is what it is...but it’s the fourth most populace country in the world. And it is a democracy,” said Schwarz.
