Arthur Vivian Watkins

Arthur Vivian Watkins (December 18, 1886 – September 1, 1973) was a Republican U.S. Senator from Utah, serving two terms from 1947 to 1959. He was influential as a proponent of terminating federal recognition of American Indian tribes, in the belief that they should be assimilated and all treaty rights abrogated. In 1954 he chaired the Watkins Committee, which led to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had made extensive allegations of communist infiltration of government and art groups. Watkins voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.