Tip O'Neill, American lawyer and politician, 55th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (b. 1912)
Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill Jr. (December 9, 1912 – January 5, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 47th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987, representing northern Boston, Massachusetts, as a Democrat from 1953 to 1987. The only Speaker to serve for five complete consecutive Congresses, he is the third longest-serving Speaker in American history after Sam Rayburn and Henry Clay in terms of total tenure and longest-serving in terms of continuous tenure (Rayburn and Clay served multiple terms in the Speakership).
Born in North Cambridge, Massachusetts, O'Neill began campaigning at a young age, volunteering for Al Smith's campaign in the 1928 presidential election. After graduating from Boston College, O'Neill won election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he became a strong advocate of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. He became Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1949 and won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1952 to the seat vacated by John F. Kennedy.
In the House, O'Neill became a protégé of fellow Massachusetts Representative John William McCormack. O'Neill broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson on the Vietnam War in 1967 and called for Richard Nixon's resignation in light of the Watergate scandal. He quickly moved up the leadership ranks in the 1970s, becoming House Majority Whip in 1971, House Majority Leader in 1973, and Speaker of the House in 1977. With the election of President Jimmy Carter, O'Neill hoped to establish a universal health care system and a guaranteed jobs program. However, relations between Carter and Congress collapsed, and the Democrats lost control of the presidency in the 1980 presidential election. O'Neill became a leading opponent of Republican President Ronald Reagan's conservative domestic policies. O'Neill and Reagan found more common ground in foreign policy, fostering the Anglo-Irish Agreement and implementing the Reagan Doctrine (despite considerable opposition to Reagan's support for the Contras in Nicaragua) in the Soviet–Afghan War.
O'Neill retired from Congress in 1987 but remained active in public life. He published a best-selling autobiography and appeared in several commercials and other media. He died of cardiac arrest in 1994.