NASHVILLE (AP) — Jim Sasser, who served 18 years in the U.S. Senate and six years as ambassador to China, has died. He was 87.

Gray Sasser, his son, said his father died Tuesday evening at his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., of an apparent heart attack.

Sasser, a Democrat, represented Tennessee in the Senate from 1977 to 1995. President Bill Clinton then appointed him ambassador to China, a post he held until 2001.

Sasser was elected to the Senate by defeating Republican Bill Brock in 1976, and worked his way up the party leadership, serving as chairman of the budget committee from 1989 to 1992. He had a chance of becoming Senate majority leader before he was defeated for re-election in 1994 by Republican Bill Frist, who at the time was a political unknown making his first run for public office.

After he retired as ambassador, Sasser became a consultant.

Gray Sasser and his sister Elizabeth Sasser said of their father in a written statement, "He believed in the nobility of public service and the transformational power of government."

He was proudest of his "quiet achievements" for ordinary Tennesseans, like helping with a disability claim or VA benefits.

Sasser, a native of Memphis, Tenn., was raised in Nashville. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1958 and from Vanderbilt Law School in 1961.

He practiced law in Nashville and became a Democratic activist, managing the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Sen. Albert Gore Sr. in 1970. He was chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party from 1973 until 1976, when he got a measure of revenge by winning election to the Senate over Brock, who had unseated Gore in 1970.

Sasser was re-elected rather easily in 1982 and 1988 before losing to Frist. Sasser was the last Democrat to represent Tennessee in the Senate.

After leaving the Senate, he was a fellow at Harvard University.

Sasser's children wrote of their father, "As his friends and former staff will attest, Dad loved his family, the State of Tennessee, his years serving in the US Senate and old cars too, and loved them in that order."

Other survivors include Sasser's wife, Mary and four grandchildren.