By Lookout Staff

September 7, 2010 -- Pulitzer Prize-wining political cartoonist Paul Conrad -- whose sculpture of a nuclear mushroom cloud has become an icon of Santa Monica's Civic Center -- died Saturday in his Rancho Palos Verdes home. He was 86.

The 26-foot-tall sculpture made of chain link and titled "Chain Reaction" was narrowly approved by a 4 to 3 vote by the City Council in 1990 after a two-year process and after the Beverly Hills Fine Arts Commission turned it down.

Paul Conrad attended a number of City meetings when the issue was debated, recalled Jerry Rubin, who with Roger Genser, who is now on the Landmarks Commission, led the campaign to approve the controversial sculpture.

"He was a really charismatic and extremely nice human being as well as a most talented and creative artist," said Rubin, a political activist and council candidate. "This all was taking place at the height of the 1980's anti-nuclear movement, which was very active in Santa Monica."

A life-long liberal, Conrad, who was more proud of making Richard Nixon's enemies list than he was of winning three Pulitzer Prizes, spent most of his career at the Los Angeles Times but always kept his sharp satirical pen aimed at the nation's capitol.

Among his main targets were Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who he liked to portray in a clown's outfit when the former actor was governor of California, spurring early morning calls from Nancy Reagan to the paper's publisher.

"Armed with superb drawing skills and a finely honed sense of moral indignation, Mr. Conrad took aim at pomposity, injustice and corruption," Matt Schudel wrote in his obituary Monday for the Washington Post. "He believed a cartoon could be beautifully drawn but was useless if it didn't illuminate the state of the world."

Survivors include his wife since 1953, Kay King Conrad, of Rancho Palos Verdes; four children, Jamie Conrad and Carol Conrad, both of Menlo Park, Calif., David Conrad of Lake Arrowhead, Calif., and Libby Conrad of Falls Church; and a granddaughter.

His family did not provide a cause of death.