<p>Former Gov. S. Ernest Vandiver, who won office vowing to fight the integration of Georgia schools yet went on to preside over their peaceful desegregation, died on Tuesday after a long illness. He was 86.</p><p>Vandiver was governor from 1959 to 1963.</p><p>Elected on a promise that "no, not one" black child would go to school in Georgia with whites, Vandiver retreated from the pledge after taking office, a step credited with sparing the state the turbulence that swept much of the South in that period.</p><p>But after leaving office in 1963 when his four-year term expired, his political career was finished. Keeping the schools open was "my political suicide," he said years after leaving office.</p>
