John William Warner III (February 18, 1927 – May 25, 2021) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States senator from Virginia from 1979 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the U.S. secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974.
Born~Died Feb 18, 1927 ~ May 25, 2021Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 3:25 PM
John William Warner III (February 18, 1927 – May 25, 2021) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States senator from Virginia from 1979 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the U.S. secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974. Warner is both the longest serving Republican Senator from Virginia, and the second longest serving Senator from Virginia behind DemocratHarry F. Byrd. He served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1999 to 2001, and from 2003 to 2007. Warner also served as the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee from 1995 to 1999.
As of 2025, Warner is the last Republican to represent Virginia in the Senate, as well the only Republican senator from Virginia to serve more than one term.
Early life and education
John William Warner III2 was born on February 18, 1927, in Washington, D.C., to Martha Budd and Dr. John Warner Jr., an obstetrician-gynecologist in Washington.3 He grew up in the District, where he attended the elite before graduating from in February 1945.
This page is based on “John Warner” from English Wikipedia, (r1378151635) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
After giving substantial funds and time to Nixon's successful presidential campaign in 1968, Warner was appointed Under Secretary of the Navy in the Nixon Administration in February 1969. On May 4, 1972, he succeeded John H. Chafee as Secretary of the Navy. Thereafter Warner was appointed by President Gerald Ford as delegate to the Law of the Sea talks, and he negotiated the U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea agreement which became a cause célèbre of pro-Détente doves in U.S.-Soviet relations. He was subsequently appointed by Gerald Ford to the post of Director of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration.6
U.S. Senator
Following Ford's defeat, Warner began to consider political office for himself. He entered politics in the 1978 Virginia election for the U.S. Senate. Despite the publicity of being Elizabeth Taylor's husband and the large amounts of money Warner used in his campaign for the nomination, he finished second at the state Republican Party (GOP) convention to the far more conservative politician Richard D. Obenshain. Much of this loss was due to his perceived liberal political stances, especially his soft approach to U.S.-Soviet relations. In contrast, Obenshain was a noted anti-Soviet, a hardline anti-communist, and an opponent of other liberal policies including the Great Society and much of the Civil Rights Movement. However, when Obenshain died two months later in a plane crash, Warner was chosen to replace him and narrowly won the general election over DemocratAndrew P. Miller, a former Attorney General of Virginia. He was in the Senate until January 3, 2009. Despite his less conservative policy stances, Warner managed to be the second longest-serving senator in Virginia's history, behind only Harry F. Byrd Sr. and by far the longest-serving Republican Senator from the state. On August 31, 2007, Warner announced that he would not seek re-election in 2008.7
Warner was quite moderate, especially in comparison to most Republican Senators from the South. He was among the minority of Republicans to support some gun control laws. He voted for the Brady Bill and, in 1999, was one of only five Republicans to vote to close the so-called gun show loophole. While Warner voted against the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban,8 he co-sponsored efforts by Sen. Dianne Feinstein to reauthorize the ban in 20049 and 2005.10
Warner supported11 the Roe v. Wade decision establishing abortion rights and supported embryonic stem cell research,12 although he received high ratings from anti-abortion groups because he voted in favor of many abortion restrictions.13 On June 15, 2004, Warner was among the minority of his party to vote to expand hate crime laws to include sexual orientation as a protected category. He supported a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but he raised concerns about the most recent Federal Marriage Amendment as being too restrictive, as it would have potentially banned civil unions as well.
In 1987, Warner was one of the six Republicans who voted to reject the nomination of Robert Bork by President Ronald Reagan and the only Southern Republican to do so.14 Warner was re-elected easily in 1984 and 1990, and faced his first real challenge for re-election in 1996 from political newcomer Democrat Mark Warner (no relation), a millionaire who vastly outspent the incumbent and produced an unusually close election. John Warner prevailed with 52% of the vote.
As was the case in 1990, Warner faced no Democratic opposition in 2002, winning re-election to a fifth term in the Senate by a landslide over Independent candidate Jacob Hornberger.17
On May 23, 2005, Warner was one of 14 centrist senators, dubbed the "Gang of 14," to forge a compromise on the Democrats' proposed use of the judicial filibuster, thus blocking the Republican leadership's attempt to implement the so-called nuclear option. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance", and three Bush appellate court nominees, Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William H. Pryor, Jr., would receive a vote by the full Senate.
On September 17, 2006, Warner said that U.S. military and intelligence personnel in future wars will suffer for abuses committed in 2006 by the U.S. in the name of fighting terrorism. He feared that the administration's civilian lawyers and a president who never saw combat were putting U.S. service personnel at risk of torture, summary executions and other atrocities by chipping away at Geneva Conventions' standards that have protected them since 1949. Following the Supreme Court ruling on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which was adverse to the Bush Administration, Warner (with Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain) negotiated with the White House the language of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, suspending habeas corpus provisions for anyone deemed by the Executive Branch an "unlawful combatant" and barring them from challenging their detentions in court. Warner's vote gave a retroactive, nine-year immunity to U.S. officials who authorized, ordered, or committed acts of torture and abuse, permitting the use of statements obtained through torture to be used in military tribunals so long as the abuse took place by December 30, 2005.18
Warner's "compromise" (approved by a Republican majority) authorized the President to establish permissible interrogation methods and to "interpret the meaning and application" of international Geneva Convention standards, so long as the coercion falls short of "serious" bodily or psychological injury.19 Warner maintained that the new law holds true to "core principles" that the U.S. provide fair trials and not be seen as undermining Geneva Conventions.20 The bill was signed into law on October 17, 2006, in Warner's presence.212223
In March 2007, after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Peter Pace spoke publicly about his views on homosexuality and the military, Warner said, "I respectfully, but strongly, disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral."24
On August 23, 2007, he called on President Bush to begin bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq by Christmas in order to make it clear to the Iraqi leadership that the U.S. commitment is not indefinite.25
On August 31, 2007, he announced that he would not seek a sixth term in the Senate in 2008.26
Warner was a cosponsor of America's Climate Security Act of 2007, also more commonly referred to as the Cap and Trade Bill, that proposed to ration (cap) carbon emissions in the U.S., and tax or purchase (trade) Carbon credits on the global market for greater U.S. alignment with the Kyoto Protocol standards and goals.
In September 2008, Warner joined the Gang of 20, a bipartisan coalition seeking comprehensive energy reform. The group pushed for a bill that would encourage state-by-state decisions on offshore drilling and authorize billions of dollars for conservation and alternative energy.27
In 2020, Warner, along with over 130 other former Republican national security officials, signed a statement that asserted that President Trump was unfit to serve another term, and "To that end, we are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States, and we will vote for him."40
Warner also served as an Honorary Director on the Board of Directors at the Atlantic Council.41
The annual Senator John W. Warner Award is given to a third year undergraduate student at the University of Virginia who exhibits a serious, convincing ambition to seek future election to public office. This award honors an individual who strives for service in an elected office, whether it is a part-time city council position or a full-time legislative or executive office. Successful candidates demonstrate the required courage to stand up and ask fellow citizens for their valued vote. The award of up to $3,000 funds a research project in an area that will inform the recipient's future career as an elected official. Award recipients include: John Jacob Nay, Casey Enders, James Linville, and Sarah Buckley.48
In August 1957, Warner married banking heiress Catherine Conover Mellon, the daughter of art collector Paul Mellon and his first wife, Mary Conover, and the granddaughter of Andrew Mellon. By his marriage, Warner accrued substantial capital for investing and expanding his political contacts. The Warners, who divorced in 1973, had three children: Virginia, John IV, and Mary. His former wife now uses the name Catherine Conover.51
Warner was the sixth husband of actress Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married on December 4, 1976, at his farm outside Middleburg, Virginia.52 They divorced in November 1982. Warner was the last surviving, as well as the longest-lived, of Taylor's seven husbands.
Warner was linked romantically to broadcast journalist Barbara Walters in the 1990s. In December 2003, he married Jeanne Vander Myde, a real estate agent and the widow of Reagan administration defense department official Paul Vander Myde.5354
Death and funeral
Warner died from heart failure at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, on May 25, 2021, at age 94.5556 Warner's funeral was held June 23, 2021, at Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, and Admiral Michael Mullen were among those who spoke at the funeral.57
John William Warner III (February 18, 1927 – May 25, 2021) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States senator from Virginia from 1979 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the U.S. secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974. Warner is both the longest serving Republican Senator from Virginia, and the second longest serving Senator from Virginia behind DemocratHarry F. Byrd. He served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1999 to 2001, and from 2003 to 2007. Warner also served as the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee from 1995 to 1999.
As of 2025, Warner is the last Republican to represent Virginia in the Senate, as well the only Republican senator from Virginia to serve more than one term.
Early life and education
John William Warner III2 was born on February 18, 1927, in Washington, D.C., to Martha Budd and Dr. John Warner Jr., an obstetrician-gynecologist in Washington. He grew up in the District, where he attended the elite before graduating from in February 1945.
After giving substantial funds and time to Nixon's successful presidential campaign in 1968, Warner was appointed Under Secretary of the Navy in the Nixon Administration in February 1969. On May 4, 1972, he succeeded John H. Chafee as Secretary of the Navy. Thereafter Warner was appointed by President Gerald Ford as delegate to the Law of the Sea talks, and he negotiated the U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea agreement which became a cause célèbre of pro-Détente doves in U.S.-Soviet relations. He was subsequently appointed by Gerald Ford to the post of Director of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration.6
U.S. Senator
Following Ford's defeat, Warner began to consider political office for himself. He entered politics in the 1978 Virginia election for the U.S. Senate. Despite the publicity of being Elizabeth Taylor's husband and the large amounts of money Warner used in his campaign for the nomination, he finished second at the state Republican Party (GOP) convention to the far more conservative politician Richard D. Obenshain. Much of this loss was due to his perceived liberal political stances, especially his soft approach to U.S.-Soviet relations. In contrast, Obenshain was a noted anti-Soviet, a hardline anti-communist, and an opponent of other liberal policies including the Great Society and much of the Civil Rights Movement. However, when Obenshain died two months later in a plane crash, Warner was chosen to replace him and narrowly won the general election over DemocratAndrew P. Miller, a former Attorney General of Virginia. He was in the Senate until January 3, 2009. Despite his less conservative policy stances, Warner managed to be the second longest-serving senator in Virginia's history, behind only Harry F. Byrd Sr. and by far the longest-serving Republican Senator from the state. On August 31, 2007, Warner announced that he would not seek re-election in 2008.7
Warner was quite moderate, especially in comparison to most Republican Senators from the South. He was among the minority of Republicans to support some gun control laws. He voted for the Brady Bill and, in 1999, was one of only five Republicans to vote to close the so-called gun show loophole. While Warner voted against the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban,8 he co-sponsored efforts by Sen. Dianne Feinstein to reauthorize the ban in 20049 and 2005.10
Warner supported11 the Roe v. Wade decision establishing abortion rights and supported embryonic stem cell research,12 although he received high ratings from anti-abortion groups because he voted in favor of many abortion restrictions.13 On June 15, 2004, Warner was among the minority of his party to vote to expand hate crime laws to include sexual orientation as a protected category. He supported a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but he raised concerns about the most recent Federal Marriage Amendment as being too restrictive, as it would have potentially banned civil unions as well.
In 1987, Warner was one of the six Republicans who voted to reject the nomination of Robert Bork by President Ronald Reagan and the only Southern Republican to do so.14 Warner was re-elected easily in 1984 and 1990, and faced his first real challenge for re-election in 1996 from political newcomer Democrat Mark Warner (no relation), a millionaire who vastly outspent the incumbent and produced an unusually close election. John Warner prevailed with 52% of the vote.
As was the case in 1990, Warner faced no Democratic opposition in 2002, winning re-election to a fifth term in the Senate by a landslide over Independent candidate Jacob Hornberger.17
On May 23, 2005, Warner was one of 14 centrist senators, dubbed the "Gang of 14," to forge a compromise on the Democrats' proposed use of the judicial filibuster, thus blocking the Republican leadership's attempt to implement the so-called nuclear option. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance", and three Bush appellate court nominees, Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William H. Pryor, Jr., would receive a vote by the full Senate.
On September 17, 2006, Warner said that U.S. military and intelligence personnel in future wars will suffer for abuses committed in 2006 by the U.S. in the name of fighting terrorism. He feared that the administration's civilian lawyers and a president who never saw combat were putting U.S. service personnel at risk of torture, summary executions and other atrocities by chipping away at Geneva Conventions' standards that have protected them since 1949. Following the Supreme Court ruling on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which was adverse to the Bush Administration, Warner (with Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain) negotiated with the White House the language of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, suspending habeas corpus provisions for anyone deemed by the Executive Branch an "unlawful combatant" and barring them from challenging their detentions in court. Warner's vote gave a retroactive, nine-year immunity to U.S. officials who authorized, ordered, or committed acts of torture and abuse, permitting the use of statements obtained through torture to be used in military tribunals so long as the abuse took place by December 30, 2005.18
Warner's "compromise" (approved by a Republican majority) authorized the President to establish permissible interrogation methods and to "interpret the meaning and application" of international Geneva Convention standards, so long as the coercion falls short of "serious" bodily or psychological injury.19 Warner maintained that the new law holds true to "core principles" that the U.S. provide fair trials and not be seen as undermining Geneva Conventions.20 The bill was signed into law on October 17, 2006, in Warner's presence.212223
In March 2007, after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Peter Pace spoke publicly about his views on homosexuality and the military, Warner said, "I respectfully, but strongly, disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral."24
On August 23, 2007, he called on President Bush to begin bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq by Christmas in order to make it clear to the Iraqi leadership that the U.S. commitment is not indefinite.25
On August 31, 2007, he announced that he would not seek a sixth term in the Senate in 2008.26
Warner was a cosponsor of America's Climate Security Act of 2007, also more commonly referred to as the Cap and Trade Bill, that proposed to ration (cap) carbon emissions in the U.S., and tax or purchase (trade) Carbon credits on the global market for greater U.S. alignment with the Kyoto Protocol standards and goals.
In September 2008, Warner joined the Gang of 20, a bipartisan coalition seeking comprehensive energy reform. The group pushed for a bill that would encourage state-by-state decisions on offshore drilling and authorize billions of dollars for conservation and alternative energy.27
In 2020, Warner, along with over 130 other former Republican national security officials, signed a statement that asserted that President Trump was unfit to serve another term, and "To that end, we are firmly convinced that it is in the best interest of our nation that Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next President of the United States, and we will vote for him."40
Warner also served as an Honorary Director on the Board of Directors at the Atlantic Council.41
The annual Senator John W. Warner Award is given to a third year undergraduate student at the University of Virginia who exhibits a serious, convincing ambition to seek future election to public office. This award honors an individual who strives for service in an elected office, whether it is a part-time city council position or a full-time legislative or executive office. Successful candidates demonstrate the required courage to stand up and ask fellow citizens for their valued vote. The award of up to $3,000 funds a research project in an area that will inform the recipient's future career as an elected official. Award recipients include: John Jacob Nay, Casey Enders, James Linville, and Sarah Buckley.48
In August 1957, Warner married banking heiress Catherine Conover Mellon, the daughter of art collector Paul Mellon and his first wife, Mary Conover, and the granddaughter of Andrew Mellon. By his marriage, Warner accrued substantial capital for investing and expanding his political contacts. The Warners, who divorced in 1973, had three children: Virginia, John IV, and Mary. His former wife now uses the name Catherine Conover.51
Warner was the sixth husband of actress Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married on December 4, 1976, at his farm outside Middleburg, Virginia.52 They divorced in November 1982. Warner was the last surviving, as well as the longest-lived, of Taylor's seven husbands.
Warner was linked romantically to broadcast journalist Barbara Walters in the 1990s. In December 2003, he married Jeanne Vander Myde, a real estate agent and the widow of Reagan administration defense department official Paul Vander Myde.5354
Death and funeral
Warner died from heart failure at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, on May 25, 2021, at age 94.5556 Warner's funeral was held June 23, 2021, at Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, and Admiral Michael Mullen were among those who spoke at the funeral.57