Kenneth William Hechler was born in Roslyn, New York on September 20, 1914. He received a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1935 and a doctorate in political science from Columbia University in 1940. He taught at Columbia College and Barnard College and took part in editing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential papers before his wartime service as an Army officer. He was a combat historian who visited the European battlefronts of World War II and interrogated high-ranking Nazis before the Nuremberg war-crime trials. His book, The Bridge at Remagen, was published in 1957. It was adapted into a movie in 1969. After the war, Hechler held an administrative post in the Bureau of the Budget and taught politics at Princeton University. He worked as a speechwriter and researcher for President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953.
He was teaching government at Marshall College when he decided to run for Congress. He served nine terms in the House of Representatives where he fought to improve safety standards in coal mines, provide health benefits for miners with lung disease, and curb strip mining as a despoiler of the environment and a threat to water supplies. After leaving Congress, he was West Virginia's secretary of state from 1985 to 2001. He died from a stroke on December 10, 2016 at the age of 102.
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