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(CNN) - Vice President-elect Joe Biden issued a statement Thursday responding to the death of former Sen. Claiborne Pell.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Pell family as they mourn the loss of one of our country's greatest public servants. Claiborne Pell was a man of extraordinary integrity, grace and decency. Chairman Pell was a mentor to me and one of our nation's most important voices in foreign policy for over 30 years," Biden said in the statement.

"He was a leader in the effort to reduce the size of the world's nuclear arsenal and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Few Senators have done more to expand opportunity in America. Because of Senator Pell and the Pell Grant, the doors of college have been opened to millions of Americans - and will continue to be opened to millions more. That is a legacy that will live on for generations to come."

Claiborne Pell, Rhode Island's senator from 1961 to 1997, has died.

(CNN) – Former Sen. Claiborne Pell, who was largely responsible for the Pell Grants for U.S. college students, died early Thursday morning at his home in Newport, Rhode Island, his family announced.

Pell, 90, "died peacefully in the presence of his wife Nuala and family members," the family statement said. He had suffered from Parkinson's disease for a number of years.

Born in New York City, Pell graduated from Princeton in 1940 and Columbia University in 1946, serving in the U.S. Coast Guard in between and later in the Coast Guard Reserve. Pell also worked for the State Department and as a foreign service officer from 1945 to 1952 in Czechoslovakia, Italy and Washington.

He was first elected to the Senate from Rhode Island in 1960, and served from January 3, 1961, to January 3, 1997, when he retired. He was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1987 to 1994, and was named U.S. delegate to the United Nations in 1997.

But Pell's great passion lay in education and the arts and humanities, believing that the country's people were its greatest asset. Largely through his efforts, Congress created the Pell Grants in 1973. He was the main sponsor of the bill creating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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