Showing 1251 - 1260 of 3910 Items
Date: 2008-11-17
Creator: Leon G. Billings
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Leon Billings was born in Helena, Montana, on November 19, 1937. His parents, Harry and Gretchen Billings, were progressive journalists. He was graduated from high school in Helena, Montana, in 1955 and then attended Reed College for one year in Portland, Oregon. He completed his undergraduate studies and took graduate courses toward an M.A. at the University of Montana. Billings worked as a reporter and organizer for farm groups in Montana and California. He met his first wife, Pat, in California; they married in Montana and moved to Washington, D.C., on January 4, 1963. While in Washington, Billings worked for the American Public Power Association for three years as a lobbyist. In March 1966, he accepted a job on the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution on the Public Works Committee. He worked for Sen. Edmund Muskie helping to coordinate work on environmental policy. From 1966 to 1978, he served as Muskie’s chief of staff. He served on the Democratic Platform Committee staff in 1968 and in 1974 was co-chairman of a Democratic National Committee task force on Energy and the Environment. He later served as president of the Edmund S. Muskie Foundation, a tax-exempt foundation endowed with an appropriation from Congress to perpetuate the environmental legacy of Senator Muskie. Leon Billings passed away on November 15, 2016.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Edmund S. Muskie's political career and vice-presidential campaign (1968); Mitchell's 1974 Maine gubernatorial campaign (1974) and his U.S. Senate appointment (1980); environmental legislation; personal comparisons between Muskie and Mitchell and comparisons of their respective administrative offices; and Mitchell's decision to retire from the U.S. Senate.
- Between 2008 and 2011, the Bowdoin College Library conducted an oral history project to create a collection of spoken recollections and personal impressions from individuals who have known George J. Mitchell in a variety of ways. These oral histories document his life and career from early childhood onward, with particular emphasis on his public service to Maine and to the nation, and they complement his personal papers, which are also held by Bowdoin College. Interviewees include Senator Mitchell's Waterville (Maine) friends and acquaintances; family members; college classmates; Maine legislators; political associates and competitors; campaign supporters; U.S. Senate colleagues and staff members; public agency officials; foreign policy specialists; law practice associates; public policy advocates; board members of various affiliations; and friends. Because oral history recordings are intrinsically informal, spontaneous, and candid, they characterize events and personalities in ways that are otherwise silent in the historical record. In particular, they capture personal knowledge and institutional memory about people, occasions, and processes that are rarely documented elsewhere. Thus, these oral histories provide an invaluable resource in understanding both the recent past and how individuals have played essential roles in shaping the present. TRANSCRIPT GUIDELINES Every attempt has been made to create transcripts that reflect the recorded interviews accurately. Interviewees were given the opportunity to edit their transcripts to correct errors of transcription and fact (often, for example, a recollection might have included a misremembered date or place), or to enhance clarity of expression. Additions and minor deletions or changes are indicated in the transcript by closed brackets ([ ]); more substantive omissions are noted as: [p/o] (i.e. “[phrase omitted]”). ATTRIBUTION These recordings and transcripts are provided for educational use, private study, and research. Brief quotations for academic purposes and other uses that fall within “fair use” (Title 17, United States Code) require proper attribution customary to the discipline or community. All other uses not protected by “fair use,” including derivation, publication, and reproduction, require written permission from Bowdoin College. In citing these interviews, specify the interviewee, interviewer, and interview date following the style found in the example below: George J. Mitchell, interview by Andrea L’Hommedieu, 10 May 2011, George J. Mitchell Oral History Project, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine.
Date: 2009-08-11
Creator: Steven S Symms
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Steven Symms was born on April 23, 1938, in Nampa, Idaho. He earned his degree in agriculture in 1960 from the University of Idaho. He served in the Marines for three years, worked as a private pilot and a farmer, and was editor of the Idaho Compass. In 1972 he ran as a Republican candidate for Congress, serving for four terms in the House of Representatives until 1980, when he ran for the U.S. Senate and served two terms. After leaving the Senate, he founded the consulting firm Symms, Lehn Associates, Inc. At the time of this interview, he was a partner at Parry, Romani, DeConcini & Symms, a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Symms’s relationship with Senator Mitchell; Symms’s serving on the Environment and Public Works committee and the Senate Finance Committee with Mitchell; his and Mitchell’s work together on highway programs; their differences on the 1986 tax reform bill; partisanship; Mitchell’s efforts to get Amtrak to Portland, Maine, from Boston; the 1982 gas tax; Symms’s reaction when Mitchell was selected majority leader; characterizations of majority leaders Baker, Dole, Byrd, and Mitchell; Symms’s run against Frank Church; Symms’s decision to go from the House to the Senate; being a Republican minority in the Senate; New Republicans in the 1980s; how media has changed legislation; abortion as an issue in Congress; and Mitchell’s role in the Tower nomination.
Date: 2014-10-15
Creator: Sarah LeClaire
Access: Open access
Date: 2014-11-18
Creator: Anonymous
Access: Open access
Date: 2014-02-10
Creator: Madelaine Dominguez Miller
Access: Open access
Date: 2010-04-27
Creator: James 'Jim' R Sasser
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
James R. “Jim” Sasser was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on September 30, 1936. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he was awarded a law degree in 1961, admitted to the Tennessee bar, and became active in the Democratic Party; he managed Albert Gore Sr.’s unsuccessful 1970 campaign. In 1976 he sought election and won a seat in the U.S. Senate; he was reelected to two further terms, serving until 1995. He first met George Mitchell in 1972 when they were both working on Ed Muskie’s presidential primary campaign. He worked with Senator Mitchell on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Senate Budget Committee, which Sasser chaired. In 1995, President Clinton appointed him ambassador to China, where he served until 1999.
Summary
The interview includes discussion of: Budget Committee work; 1990 budget summit; DSCC 1986 (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee); Democratic National Committee; and the 1972 Muskie presidential primary campaign.
Date: 2009-09-29
Creator: Paul Sarbanes
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Paul Sarbanes was born on February 3, 1933 in Salisbury, Maryland. He attended Princeton University and continued his studies at Balliol College of the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, then attended Harvard Law School. He served as a Democrat from Maryland in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and in the U.S. Senate from 1977 to 2007. He was the first Greek American senator and notably co-sponsored the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, which strengthened corporate governance and created a federal oversight board for the accounting industry.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: George Mitchell’s personality; winning back the Senate majority in 1986; the Senate Majority Leader race of 1989; George Mitchell’s departure from the Senate; partisanship; and an anecdote about George Mitchell and Senator John Warner during an “old-style” filibuster.
Date: 2014-10-16
Creator: Sarah DeWitt
Access: Open access
Date: 2014-08-28
Creator: Tyneshia Wright
Access: Open access