An influential U.S. senator for 30 years, Henry Martin Jackson (1912-1983) was an ardent proponent of an anti-Soviet foreign policy. He championed increased defense spending and a more activist U.S. international role.

Henry Jackson was born in Everett, Washington, on May 31, 1912, the youngest of five children. His parents had immigrated to the United States from Norway in the late 19th century, eventually settling in the Puget Sound area of Washington. Jackson's father, Peter, was a building contractor and a long-time officer in the local plasterers' union; his devoutly religious mother, Marine, was instrumental in forming a local Norwegian Lutheran church in Everett and had selected his middle name to honor Martin Luther. Nicknamed "Scoop" when a teenager by an older sister after a popular comic strip character, Jackson carried this nickname through his adult life. Somewhat radical in his youth (having joined the Democratic Socialist League for...