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Eugene

(62,736 posts)
Mon Aug 6, 2018, 09:03 PM Aug 2018

Margaret M. Heckler, congresswoman, HHS secretary and ambassador, dies at 87

Source: Washington Post

Margaret M. Heckler, congresswoman, HHS secretary and ambassador, dies at 87

By Matt Schudel
August 6 at 7:08 PM

Margaret M. Heckler, an eight-term Republican congresswoman from Massachusetts who later became an embattled secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Ronald Reagan before serving as U.S. ambassador to Ireland, died Aug. 6 at a hospital in Arlington, Va. She was 87.

The cause was cardiac arrest, said her daughter-in-law, Kim Heckler.

Throughout much of her career, Ms. Heckler was a groundbreaking figure who often forged her way in law and politics as one of the few women in the male-dominated fields. In 1966, she unseated a former speaker of the House to win the Republican nomination for her district in suburban Boston.

She was the first woman elected to Congress in her own right from Massachusetts and, when she took office in 1967, was one of only 11 women in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/margaret-m-heckler-congresswoman-hhs-secretary-and-ambassador-dies-at-87/2018/08/06/d221a7de-9993-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html
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