Kenneth Harding, 93, Fixture on Capitol Hill for 30 Years

Kenneth Harding, the sergeant-at-arms in the House of the Representatives for most of the 1970s, died of pneumonia October 3 at Ormond Beach Memorial Hospital in Florida. He was 93.Harding, who worked on Capitol Hill for 30 years, became the chief security officer in the House in 1972 after 18 years as director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.When Harding became sergeant-at-arms, the Watergate scandal was just breaking, and by 1974, the House leadership briefly considered sending him to the White House to seize tape recordings that the House Judiciary Committee had requested after the Nixon administration had sent only edited transcripts.For the most part, Harding dealt with such issues as ending self-guided tours of the Capitol, which created “almost a logjam of humanity in the corridors,” and banning vendors from First Street in front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool. “It’s an unsightly Coney Island at the foot of the U.S. Capitol,” he said in 1976.He also alerted the leadership after the FBI began investigating a bookie operating a horse race and numbers betting operation just outside the cafeteria in the Longworth House Office Building. Harding wouldn’t tell a reporter what other actions were taken, but the bookie disappeared before the FBI could arrest him.“There’s very little that goes on on the Hill that the leadership doesn’t know about,” Harding said.The New York-born Harding skipped a college degree and graduated from George Washington University Law School in 1937. He worked as a bank examiner in San Francisco, served in the Navy before World War II, and spent 10 years in the Air Force Reserve, retiring as a colonel.Harding moved to Washington in 1946 to work in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He became executive director of the committee in 1954 and worked under four House speakers. His job, a contemporaneous newspaper account said, was to dole out campaign funds to Democratic House candidates, and he was considered an encyclopedic news source on House races.As sergeant-at-arms, Harding protected the decorum of the House and greeted the president and other dignitaries on their arrival, escorting them to the chamber.He also oversaw maintenance and security on the House side of the Capitol and served as co-chief of the Capitol Police. He retired in 1980 and moved to Ormond Beach.One of his four sons, Dr. Victor Harding of Windermere, Fla, said his father told stories of helping President Truman gerrymander Missouri.Later in life, when the White House was undergoing renovation, Harding secured wood from a discarded White House banister and had the wood made into gavels, his son said.He enjoyed travel and had just returned from a two-month cruise to Africa and Europe before his death.His first wife of 68 years, Jane Wedderburn Harding, died in 2005.Survivors include his wife of a year, Ruth Campbell Harding of Ormond Beach; three other sons, Kenneth R. Harding Jr. of Honolulu, Richard Harding of Walnut Creek, Calif., and Bruce Harding of New York; 14 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Kenneth Harding, 93, Fixture on Capitol Hill for 30 Years

Kenneth Harding, 93, Fixture on Capitol Hill for 30 Years

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