He also voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Congressional authorization for the Gulf War.

Moynihan then returned to Tufts, where he completed a second undergraduate degree in sociology[6] cum laude in 1948 and earned an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1949.

[7] He ultimately received a PhD in history from Tufts (with a dissertation on the relationship between the United States and the International Labour Organization) from the Fletcher School in 1961 while serving as an assistant professor of political science and director of a government research project centered around Averell Harriman's papers at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Moynihan first served in the Kennedy administration as special (1961–1962) and executive (1962–1963) assistant to Labor Secretaries Arthur J. Goldberg and W. Willard Wirtz.

Moynihan and his staff believed that government must go beyond simply ensuring that members of minority groups have the same rights as the majority and must also "act affirmatively" in order to counter the problem of historic discrimination.

[14] Some suggested that Moynihan was propagating the views of racists[15] because much of the press coverage of the report focused on the discussion of children being born out of wedlock.

Despite Moynihan's warnings, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program included rules for payments only if no "Man [was] in the house.

"[16][17] Critics of the program's structure, including Moynihan, said that the nation was paying poor women to throw their husbands out of the house.

[citation needed] Throughout this transitional period, Moynihan maintained an academic affiliation as a fellow at Wesleyan University's Center for Advanced Studies from 1964 to 1967.

After commencing a second extended leave because of his public service in 1973, his faculty line was transferred to the university's Department of Government, where he remained until 1977.

[20] While formulating the Family Assistance Plan proposal, Moynihan conducted significant discussions concerning a Basic Income Guarantee with Russell B.

Operational oversight of the Urban Affairs Council was given to Moynihan's nominal successor as Domestic Policy Assistant, former White House Counsel John Ehrlichman.

This decision was instigated by White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman,[21] a close friend of Ehrlichman since college and his main patron in the administration.

Haldeman's maneuvering situated Moynihan in a more peripheral context as the administration's "resident thinker" on domestic affairs for the duration of his service.

[25] Following the October 1969 reorganization of the White House domestic policy staff, Moynihan was offered the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations (then held by career Foreign Service Officer Charles Woodruff Yost) by Nixon on November 17, 1969; after initially accepting the president's offer, he decided to remain in Washington when the Family Assistance Plan stalled in the Senate Finance Committee.

[26] On November 24, 1970, he refused a second offer from Nixon due to potential familial strain and ongoing financial problems; depression stemming from the repudiation of the Family Assistance Plan by liberal Democrats; and the inability to effect change due to static policy directives in the position, which he considered to be a tertiary role behind Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger and United States Secretary of State William P.

[26] In 1973, Moynihan (who was circumspect toward the administration's "tilt" to Pakistan) accepted Nixon's offer to serve as United States Ambassador to India, where he would remain until 1975.

Under President Gerald Ford, Ambassador Moynihan took a hardline anti-communist stance, in line with the agenda of the White House at the time.

[31] Moynihan's wife Liz later recalled being approached in the UN galleries by Palestine Liberation Organization Permanent Observer Zuhdi Labib Terzi during the controversy.

Gerald Ford considered Indonesia, then under a military dictatorship, a key ally against Communism, which was influential in East Timor.

Nevertheless, Moynihan's tenure at the UN marked the beginnings of a more bellicose, neoconservative American foreign policy that turned away from Kissinger's unabashedly covert, détente-driven realpolitik.

In November 1976, Moynihan was elected to the U.S. Senate from the State of New York, defeating U.S. Representative Bella Abzug, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, New York City Council President Paul O'Dwyer and businessman Abraham Hirschfeld in the Democratic primary, and Conservative Party incumbent James L. Buckley in the general election.

[41] Shortly after election, Moynihan analyzed the State of New York's budget to determine whether it was paying out more in federal taxes than it received in spending.

His strongly anti-Soviet views became far more moderate when he emerged as a critic of the Reagan administration's hawkish tilt in the late Cold War, as exemplified by its support for the Contras in Nicaragua.

In a December 21, 1986 editorial in The New York Times, Moynihan predicted the replacement on the world stage of Communist expansion with ethnic conflicts.

[47] Joseph Stack, who flew his airplane into a building housing IRS offices on February 18, 2010, posted a suicide note that, among many factors, mentioned the Section 1706 change to the Internal Revenue Code.

[48][49] As a key Environment and Public Works Committee member, Moynihan gave vital support and guidance to William K. Reilly, who served under President George H. W. Bush as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in the 1990s, he strongly opposed President Bill Clinton's proposal to expand health care coverage to all Americans.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg compared his speaking style to that of William F. Buckley, Jr.[57] In the post-Cold War era, the 103rd Congress enacted legislation directing an inquiry into the uses of government secrecy.

After retiring from the Senate, he rejoined the faculty of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where he began his academic career in 1959.