Anchorage Daily News

PART 1 OF 7: AUGUST 8, 1994

Big voice for Alaska

When Ted Stevens rose earlier this year to oppose a balanced-budget amendment on the floor of the U.S. Senate, he was also standing against the main political currents of his party and his state. The Alaska Legislature has supported such an amendment. So have Rep. Don Young and Sen. Frank Murkowski, Stevens' partners in the state's all- Republican congressional delegation. So did virtually all other Republicans in Washington.

PART 2 of 8: AUGUST 8, 1994

Formative years

A wooden surfboard stands amid the plaques and letters of appreciation in Ted Stevens' office in the marble-walled Hart Senate Office Building. Polished to a gleam and parked in the corner nearest Stevens' desk, the board is a memento of a rare mellow period in the life of a politician not known for mellowness.

PART 3 of 7: AUGUST 9, 1994

The road north

For Ted Stevens, the long, unexpected road to Alaska began in the Washington, D.C., law office of Mike "Northcut" Ely. Ely had been an assistant secretary in the Interior Department during the Hoover administration. Twenty years later, he had a high-profile law firm specializing in natural-resources issues. He recruited Stevens out of Harvard Law School in 1950.

PART 5 OF 7: AUGUST 11, 1994

Penchant for politics

Ted Stevens says he had no clue he would become Alaska's next U.S. senator when E.L. "Bob" Bartlett died in 1968. In fact, Stevens may have been the politician least likely to replace the popular Democratic incumbent. After completing a four-year stint with the Eisenhower administration, where he rose to be top lawyer at the Interior Department, Stevens had packed up his wife, Ann, and their five small children and headed for Anchorage in 1961.