Ex-Sen. Alan Cranston Remembered

Wednesday, January 17th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) â€” Former Sen. Alan Cranston dedicated his life to serious causes like world peace and nuclear disarmament, but it was his sense of humor that resonated with friends and family gathered for a special church service.

Cranston died at his Los Altos home on New Year's Eve at age 86 and his body was cremated earlier this month. On Tuesday more than a thousand mourners gathered under Grace Cathedral's vaulted ceilings to remember him.

``He understood power not as a reflection of status but as a tool with a purpose,'' said Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, who served 20 years with Cranston on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

After a high-profile career championing left-wing issues for almost a quarter of a century in the Senate, Cranston largely dropped from public view.

He resigned his Senate seat in 1993 following questions about his involvement with Lincoln Savings & Loan President Charles Keating, who had just been indicted on securities fraud charges.

He did, however, continue to pursue the cause of nuclear arms control, the centerpiece of his political career. In 1996, he entered the private sector as chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation USA.

Cranston's son Kim remembered the tranquility and humor with which his father campaigned against nuclear weapons.

``There exists a small opportunity for us to act,'' he said. ``That is the task before our generation, and it is to that end that Alan devoted most of his working life.''

Cranston adhered to a philosophy espoused by Chinese sage Lao-tzu. ``A leader is best when people barely know that he exists,'' begins Lao-tzu's quotation that Cranston carried in his pocket.

Gov. Gray Davis joked that Cranston opted for that leadership style because he was not a backslapping, grip-and-grin politician.

``In this state, character, not charisma, is what people want most,'' Davis said. ``He became the patron saint of everyone with a charisma deficit ... including myself.''