Duke Cunningham, war hero turned corrupt congressman, dies at 83

From ace fighter pilot to Vietnam War hero to member of Congress and finally federal prisoner, Randy “Duke” Cunningham lived an American dream before it crashed in scandal two decades ago.

Cunningham rose to the highest levels of public adoration — first as a decorated aviator sometimes credited with inspiring the Tom Cruise character Maverick in the hit 1980s movie “Top Gun,” later as an elected representative from California after winning his first campaign in 1990.

But like others before and since, Cunningham succumbed to the trappings of elective office. He pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in 2005 and spent eight and half years in prison for his crimes.

The seven-term congressman, who shared a nickname with the Hollywood icon John Wayne and served his final days outside his adopted hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, died on Wednesday in a Little Rock hospital from an undisclosed illness. He was 83.

“Duke was a wonderful guy, and he was a wonderful friend,” said former Rep. Duncan Hunter Sr., who served alongside Cunningham in Congress over many years. He visited his former colleague just last week and said his health was less than stellar.

“His legacy is as one of the great fighter pilots of his era, but Duke’s more special than that,” said Hunter, who retired from the House of Representatives in 2008. “He was flying off the Constellation on a daily basis even when the politicians had given up on the Vietnam War.”

Randall Harold “Duke” Cunningham was born in Los Angeles one day after Japanese fighters attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The son of a truck driver, Cunningham moved in the mid-1940s to Fresno, where his father opened a gas station. The family moved to Missouri, where Cunningham later enrolled in the University of Missouri and earned degrees in education and physical education.

Cunningham joined the Navy in 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, and began a flying career that landed him the coveted Navy Cross and a pair of Silver Stars for extraordinary bravery.

“With complete disregard for his own personal safety, he continued his attack through a hail of cannon fire to rescue his wingman,” the citation for one of his Silver Stars read.

Willy Driscoll, the only other naval aviator to earn the ace designation during the Vietnam era, said Cunningham was an outstanding flyer dedicated to his craft.

“We flew 170 combat missions together and we were in some pretty harrowing situations,” he said. “Randy was the consummate professional as an aviator, constantly working to improve his knowledge of fighter tactics and committed to excellence in the air at all times.”

Driscoll said Cunningham had high standards as a Navy fighter pilot.

“I tried to meet his expectations,” he said. “We became very good friends, brothers in arms.”

The ace flyer rose to the rank of Navy commander before retiring in 1987. He settled in the north San Diego area and quickly built on his heroic reputation. According to Hunter, he had a natural gift in public speaking and regaled audiences with stories of his aerobatics.

After his military service, Cunningham appeared regularly on national television as a political commentator and was quickly approached by local Republicans about running for public office.

In 1990, the rock-ribbed Republican in the era of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush decided to challenge incumbent Democratic Rep. Jim Bates, then mired in a sexual harassment scandal.

Cunningham campaigned across the left-leaning 44th District by promising to be “a congressman we can be proud of” and won office by a single percentage point.

He was outspoken and readily quotable, and in the 1990s, he was sharply criticized for remarks he made about gay military service members using a slur, and for separate comments he made about then-colleague Rep. Barney Frank, who was openly gay.

Even so, he was repeatedly reelected although his district and its boundaries were redrawn. He grew synonymous with Washington, D.C., politics, and relished opposing the brash young president, Bill Clinton, soon elected to the White House.

He became a fixture in the nation’s capital, even living on a boat — “The Duke-Stir” — that was owned by a defense contractor and kept on the Potomac River. He also became chair of a powerful subcommittee that put him in control of billions of dollars in defense spending.

Cunningham’s bravado and dealmaking took a darker turn in 2005, when The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that a defense contractor had purchased Cunningham’s home for $1.7 million — hundreds of thousands of dollars above what comparative homes were selling for at the time.

In barely five months, the Union-Tribune produced a series of additional reports on millions of dollars in bribes that Cunningham accepted, including a handwritten note in which he wrote out the payments he would demand to steer contracts to people who paid him.

In the end, Cunningham admitted taking $2.4 million in illegal bribes. He also issued a public apology and resigned from Congress.

The Union-Tribune and its sister news organization, the Copley News Service, were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

“There are a lot of people who respected him a great deal after his feats in the Vietnam War, but they became very disappointed about his corruption once he got into Congress,” said Marcus Stern, one of the reporters who broke the stories that led to Cunningham’s political demise.

“Probably the legacy he leaves is a reminder that the public square and public office can be very corrupting,” Stern said. “You go to Washington as a congressperson, and everything can become very tempting. He succumbed to it — but a lot of other people have as well.”

Cunningham was sentenced to federal prison, where he served more than eight years. He retired from public life to a small community outside Little Rock.

Rep. Darrell Issa, who served alongside Cunningham in the House of Representatives for years, said he has mixed feelings about his former colleague.

“Duke should be remembered for what he did best in life, not just where he fell short,” Issa said. “He was a friend and a colleague, and his courage under fire in combat fighting for our country, on this day, must not be forgotten.”

In January 2021, on the last day of his first term and years after the former congressman’s release from prison, Donald Trump issued Cunningham a presidential pardon.

Cunningham is survived by his wife, Sharon Cunningham of Arkansas, who could not be reached. He also is survived by three adult children, two daughters and a son.

He was married twice previously, to Susan Albrecht from 1965 to 1973 and then to Nancy Jones from 1974 until they separated in 2005.

No information about services or remembrances was immediately available.