GI Bill Co-Author : A.E. O’Konski; Ex-Legislator

KEWAUNEE, Wis. â€”  Alvin E. O’Konski, a fervent anti-Communist who represented Wisconsin in Congress for 30 years and was a co-author of the GI Bill of Rights, died Wednesday at 83.

The Republican, who also served as director of the World League to Stop Communism, died at his summer home here of heart illness.

He represented Wisconsin’s old 10th District and left the House of Representatives in 1973 after being defeated by Democrat David Obey, when reapportionment reduced Wisconsin’s representation to nine seats.

O’Konski was born to Polish parents on a Kewaunee County farm. He attended the old Oshkosh State College and did graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Iowa.

Before being elected to the House, O’Konski taught at high schools and at colleges in Minnesota, Oregon and Michigan.

While in Congress, O’Konski served on the Veterans Affairs, Public Works, Education and Labor and Armed Services committees.

He considered his co-authorship of the GI Bill of Rights, signed into law in 1944, his major congressional accomplishment.

In 1945, he denounced the Yalta agreement that placed Poland in the Soviet sphere and in 1952, charged that the United States had suppressed the Soviet massacre of 20,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in 1940.

Later, O’Konski threatened to resign from Congress when President Dwight D. Eisenhower invited Yugoslavian President Tito to Washington in 1956, but he backed down.