Former Sen. Charles H. Percy, 91

CHICAGO - Former Sen. Charles H. Percy, a successful Chicago businessman once widely considered a top presidential contender, described himself as "a conservative on money issues but a liberal on people issues."

That unwavering commitment to moderate values often put the former Foreign Relations Committee chairman at odds with conservatives in the Republican Party, including former President Richard M. Nixon, but that didn't deter Sen. Percy in the nearly 20 years he represented Illinois in the Senate.

Sen. Percy sponsored a resolution calling for a special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal and became a critic of the Vietnam War.

He died Saturday in Washington at 91.

Sen. Percy's daughter, Sharon Rockefeller, announced in March 2009 that he had Alzheimer's disease. His death was announced by the office of his son-in-law, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller.

Elected to the first of his three Senate terms in 1966, Sen. Percy was mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. He was helped by handsome looks, a rich baritone voice, and the relaxed self-confidence of the successful business executive he once was.

But the silver-haired senator, a supporter of the GOP's Nelson Rockefeller wing, came to power when moderate Republicans were becoming unfashionable on Capitol Hill. He ended up backing former President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976 rather than pursuing it himself.

After that, his chances seemed to fade. He won one more term in 1978 but was narrowly defeated for reelection in 1984 by Democratic Rep. Paul Simon.

Sen. Percy's differences with conservative Republicans showed early on as he clashed with Nixon, opposing two successive U.S. Supreme Court nominees - Clement F. Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell.

But the engineer of a spectacular turnaround at camera maker Bell & Howell Co. was an apostle of free markets who sought to ease federal regulation of America's corporations. Sen. Percy often said that like President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he was "a conservative on money issues but a liberal on people issues."

Sen. Percy ran for governor of Illinois in 1964 but lost to Democratic incumbent Otto Kerner in an election year marked by a Democratic landslide.

Two years later, he unseated Democratic Sen. Paul Douglas, a classic New Deal liberal who had been one of Sen. Percy's economics professors at the University of Chicago in the 1930s.

A tragedy occurred in mid-campaign. One of Sen. Percy's 21-year-old twin daughters, Valerie, was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in her bed in the family's lakefront home in Kenilworth, Ill. Both candidates suspended campaigning for two weeks. No one has ever been charged in the case.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D., Ill.) said Saturday that he was with Douglas when he learned of Valerie Percy's death and that in the campaign's closing days, both candidates "showed a humanity and a respect which should be recalled in this era of venomous personal attacks and wild charges."

The surviving twin, Sharon Rockefeller, is president and chief executive of WETA, the public broadcasting station in Washington.