1. Mayer Jacob Hecht was an American Republican politician and diplomat who served as a United States Senator from Nevada from 1983 to 1989, and as US Ambassador to the Bahamas from 1989 to 1993.
16 Facts About Chic Hecht
1. 2.
Chic Hecht was born into a Jewish family in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
3.
Chic Hecht's mother was born in Kiev and his paternal grandparents were from Poland and Germany.
4.
Chic Hecht received a Bachelor of Science degree in retailing from Washington University in St Louis in 1949.
5.
Chic Hecht attended Military Intelligence School at Fort Holabird and served as an intelligence agent with the US armed forces during the Korean War, from 1951 to 1953.
6.
Chic Hecht was a member of the National Military Intelligence Association, and was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 1988.
7.
Chic Hecht was a state senator from 1967 to 1975, serving as Senate minority leader from 1969 to 1970.
8.
Chic Hecht served only one term, from 1983 to 1989, having been defeated for reelection in 1988 by Democratic Governor Richard Bryan.
9.
Chic Hecht urged Reagan to ask Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to ease emigration requirements for Soviet Jews, including those on a list that had been prepared by a member of the Council for Soviet Jewry.
10.
Chic Hecht said that Reagan was told by Gorbachev, "as long as nothing is in the paper, there is no publicity, and we don't hear about it," Jews on the list would be quietly released.
11.
Chic Hecht credited the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, for prompting him to undertake the effort.
12.
Chic Hecht's name reappeared in the news in the course of the 2004 presidential election because of an event during his term in the Senate.
13.
On July 12,1988, Chic Hecht was leaving a Republican weekly policy lunch when he began to choke on an apple slice from his lunch of fruit salad and cottage cheese.
14.
On May 24,2016, his brother, businessman and philanthropist Martin Chic Hecht, died in Palm Springs, California.
15.
Chic Hecht died of the cancer on May 15,2006, at the age of 77.
16.
Chic Hecht was survived by his wife and two daughters, Lori and Lesley.