Hastings Keith, 89; ‘Quadruple Dipper’ Opposed Pension Plan

Hastings Keith, 89, a former congressman who crusaded against the federal pension system that gave him a six-figure retirement income, died Tuesday in Brockton, Mass., his family announced.

Keith co-founded the National Committee on Public Employee Pension Systems in 1982 to combat what he called “ruinously high” federal pensions.

The “quadruple dipper” was open about how he benefited from cost-of-living adjustments on his pensions, and he calculated he had put about $34,000 into the system and received more than $134,000 a year as of 2001.

He attributed his stance partly to guilt: As a Republican congressman from Massachusetts, Keith had voted to increase pensions of federal employees but later said, “We’re mugging our children and grandchildren.”

After he gave the U.S. Treasury a check for $974 -- the equivalent of one month of his military pension in 1982 -- he said he would use his military pension to fund his lobbying group.

Born in Brockton in 1915, he graduated from the University of Vermont in 1938 and served on the staff of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower during World War II. He became a life insurance salesman and a one-term Massachusetts state senator in 1952 before serving in the House of Representatives from 1959 to 1973.