Showing 2021 - 2030 of 2039 Items
Date: 2008-10-09
Creator: Charles 'Charlie' J Micoleau
Access: Open access
- Biographical NoteCharles J. “Charlie” Micoleau was born on February 2, 1942, in Englewood, New Jersey. He attended Bowdoin College, graduating in 1963. He earned a master’s degree in international relations at Johns Hopkins University in 1965 and received his J.D. from George Washington University in 1977. Micoleau worked in Maine for an anti-poverty program in 1965, and eventually worked his way into the Maine Democratic Party ranks. He was a scheduler for Senator Muskie’s 1970 campaign and was his administrative assistant from 1975 to 1977. From 1984 through 1992, he was a member of the Democratic National Committee. At the time of this interview, he was practicing law at the firm of Curtis, Thaxter, Stevens, Broder, and Micoleau. SummaryInterview includes discussion of: meeting Mitchell; getting involved in the Maine Democratic Party; Ed Muskie’s campaign for the vice-presidential nomination in ’68; working on Muskie’s 1970 Senate reelection campaign with Mitchell; working with Mitchell; working on Mitchell’s campaign for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee; knowing Mitchell as a practitioner of law; his involvement in the historic preservation tax credits; Mitchell’s 1974 gubernatorial campaign; and Mitchell’s appointment as a U.S district court judge in 1978.
Date: 2009-10-07
Creator: John L Martin
Access: Open access
- Biographical NoteJohn Lewis Martin was born on June 5, 1941, in Eagle Lake, Maine. At the age of three, his parents moved from Eagle Lake to Brownville Junction; he grew up speaking French and English. Martin was graduated from Fort Kent Community School in 1959 and afterwards spent two years at the University of Maine, Fort Kent before transferring to the University of Maine, Orono, graduating in 1963. While doing graduate work, he was elected to the Maine state legislature as a Democrat in 1964. He served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1964-1994 and was speaker of the house from 1975-1994. During that period, he also held a number of other positions, including teaching at various colleges and high schools in northern Maine and serving as a campaign aide to Senators Edmund S. Muskie and George J. Mitchell. SummaryInterview includes discussion of: working on Muskie’s campaign; the Dubord decision; working with Mitchell on Muskie’s staff; Mitchell’s 1974 gubernatorial campaign; Martin being elected speaker of the house in Maine state legislature; 1968 Muskie Vice Presidential campaign; 1970 Muskie Senate reelection campaign as treasurer; Martin working with Jim Longley; Martin’s reaction when Mitchell was appointed to replace Muskie; Mitchell’s ascent to leadership in the Senate; the importance of the Dickey-Lincoln project to northern Maine; the future of Aroostook County; the size of the legislature and the possibility of a unicameral legislature; and thoughts on Mitchell’s work in the Middle East.
Date: 2009-01-10
Creator: Carrie M Logan
J. Scott Logan
Access: Open access
- Biographical NoteScott Logan was born on February 17, 1977, in Exeter, New Hampshire. His father, Terence Logan, held a Ph.D. from Harvard University and taught English at the University of New Hampshire. Scott’s mother was from rural southern Maryland, and they met at Newton College of the Sacred Heart, in Newton, Massachusetts, where Terence was a professor and Scott’s mother was a student. Scott grew up in Kennebunk, Maine, and was interested in collecting and selling antiques, and in local history. For this business, he received a scholarship from the National Association of the Self-Employed. He was also one of the first Mitchell Scholars, in 1995, attending Bowdoin College and graduating in 1999. He first met his future wife, Carrie, at Bowdoin through their mutual membership in Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He worked at Christie’s Auction Company and then the auctioneering firm Skinner, Inc. He then attended law school at Boston College, and at the time of this interview, he was an attorney specializing in consumer bankruptcy. Carrie Logan was born on December 24, 1977, in Portland, Maine, to Donald McGilvery and Cheryl Poulin McGilvery. Her parents, both from Maine, met at Cony High School, and both were graduated from the University of Maine, Orono. Her father worked in architecture and construction management for the Maine State Housing Authority, and her mother worked in education and at the time of this interview was the secretary at William H. Rowe School in Yarmouth. Carrie grew up in Yarmouth, Maine, attended Yarmouth public schools, and was selected as a Mitchell Scholar. She attended Bowdoin College, where she met Scott, and was graduated with the class of 2000. Through the Teach For America program, she taught in Opelousas, Louisiana, for two years and then became an English-as-a-Second-Language teacher in Houston, Texas, before returning to Maine to study at the University of Maine School of Law. She took her law degree in 2007 and was practicing business and real estate law at Preti Flaherty in Portland, Maine, at the time of this interview. SummaryInterview includes discussion of: Scott’s family and educational background in Kennebunk; Scott’s antique bottle interest; Scott’s education; Carrie’s family and educational background in Yarmouth; the decision to go to Bowdoin College; paying for college; the Mitchell Institute and Mitchell Scholarship; life at Bowdoin and Alpha Delta Phi; Carrie’s work teaching in the South with Teach for America; coming back to Maine; Scott dealing antiques; and more recent involvement with the Mitchell Institute.
Date: 2009-03-12
Creator: Robert 'Bob' S Tyrer
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Robert Stanley “Bob” Tyrer was born on April 30, 1957, in Hamilton, Ohio, to James and Margaret Tyrer. He grew up in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. In 1974 he became interested in the Watergate hearings and went to listen to then Congressman Cohen give a talk in Birmingham, Michigan. In 1975 he began college at George Washington University and volunteered in Cohen’s congressional office. He worked on Cohen’s 1978 Senate campaign and stayed in Maine to manage the Bangor office, completing his last year of college at the University of Maine. He returned to Washington, D.C. as Senator Cohen’s press secretary in 1981. He became chief of staff in 1986 and remained in that position for the rest of Cohen’s tenure in the Senate. He was Susan Collins’s campaign manager for her 1996 Senate campaign. He went with Cohen to the Department of Defense in 1997 as chief of staff. At the time of this interview he was with the Cohen Group.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: first encounter with Cohen; interning in Cohen’s congressional office; working in Maine and for Maine interests without being a Mainer; a story about his confusion about a road called “the airline”; his job as press secretary; transitioning to the chief of staff role; Senator Cohen’s detachment from partisan politics; the division of labor in the Senate office; different management styles of Senators Cohen and Mitchell; partisanship; lessons learned from the 1974 gubernatorial race; Mitchell’s U.S. Senate appointment in 1980; the Iran-Contra affair; working together as the Maine delegation; the similarities between Mitchell and Cohen; the joint approach of the Mitchell and Cohen offices and the staff interaction between their offices; the change when Mitchell became majority leader and how he and Cohen would joke about it; the evolution of the leader’s job and the increased importance of fund-raising; Mitchell and Cohen’s respective decisions to retire; Cohen’s career after the Senate; the similarities and differences in Cohen and Mitchell’s voting records; the behind the scenes role of Senate staff; Cohen’s philosophy of letting the merits dictate his point of view; Mitchell’s legacy; Mitchell’s accomplishment in Ireland; an anecdote about the first time Tyrer and Mitchell met and Mitchell wanting to know how he could get The New York Times delivered early in the morning; Mitchell’s ability to always be the first to get in touch with constituents who were ill or had a death in the family; and Mitchell’s drive and detail-oriented approach.
Date: 2009-03-27
Creator: Harold M Ickes
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Harold M. Ickes was born on September 4, 1939, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Harold L. Ickes and Jane Dahlman. His father served as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior. He attended high school at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., was graduated from Stanford University in 1964 with a degree in economics, and earned his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1967. He was a civil rights activist during his student years in the ‘60s, spending the summers of 1964 and 1965 registering African American voters in Louisiana and Mississippi. In 1966, he became involved in the Vietnam anti-war movement. He later practiced labor law, joining the law firm Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein in New York in 1977. He served as White House deputy chief of staff under Leon Panetta for three years during the Clinton administration; he was substantially involved in the Clinton administration’s push for health care reform. He has worked on several presidential campaigns, including those of Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Ted Kennedy, and Bill Clinton; for President Clinton’s campaign he was the New York State campaign chair. He also worked on Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign in New York and later as the assistant to the campaign manager for her presidential primary bid in 2008. At the time of this interview, he was a registered lobbyist with the Ickes and Enright Group, a member of the Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee, and president of Catalist, a progressive voter file organization.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Muskie presidential campaign 1972 and Ickes’ first encounter with Mitchell; being assigned to the health care brief and Whitewater damage control; why health care reform drafted by the Clinton administration failed to pass; Senator Mitchell’s attempt to get the health care legislation through; the White House’s relationship with key members of the Senate and House; the errors committed by the White House in not getting the input of Congress; the view the White House took of Mitchell and the belief that if he could not get the legislation passed, then no one could; Senator Moynihan’s role as chair of the Finance Committee; the Republicans’ effective strategy and how that differs from typical Democratic strategy through repetition and better focus; and Ickes’ impressions of Senator Mitchell.
Date: 2009-02-17
Creator: Anita Jensen
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Anita Holst-Jensen was born in Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz), East Germany, on March 16, 1945, to Rasma Rasmanis and Arvids Lusis. Her mother emigrated from Latvia in September of 1944, and Jensen was born in a displaced persons camp, where she lived until she was four years old. Her family eventually emigrated to Australia in 1949, settling in Victoria. Jensen received all of her schooling in Australia and went to university in Melbourne. She married Henning Holst-Jensen, and in 1966 they moved to Perth. When immigration into the United States became possible in 1968, they relocated to the Washington, D.C. area, and Jensen took a job with Investors Overseas Services, later Equity Funding. In 1970, she went to work in Senator Ed Muskie’s office, where she continued until he became secretary of state. She transitioned to George Mitchell’s staff when he was appointed to Muskie’s vacated Senate seat and remained for his fourteen years of Senate service, becoming increasingly involved with speech writing and research.
Summary
Interview includes discussions of: writing newsletters and doing other tasks while working for Mitchell; handling the Judiciary Committee work; working for Mitchell; Mitchell’s self-made success in his campaigns and career; Mitchell’s achievements in the Senate and Judicial Committee; Mitchell’s work on the Civil Rights Bill of 1991 and tax bill in 1986; what went wrong with health care reform and the Harry and Louise ads; Mitchell’s environmental work; Mitchell’s involvement on the Iran-Contra issue; the 1988 Senate race; first meeting Mitchell; Mitchell’s Clean Air Act success; the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland; not defending Muskie’s “veterans” votes in 1982, and other early-day stories about Mitchell.
Date: 2009-01-13
Creator: Joanne A Hoffmann
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Joanne Amnott Hoffmann was born April 23, 1936, in Lewiston, Maine. Her father was the chief of police in Lewiston, and her mother was a housewife. Joanne graduated from Lewiston High School and continued her education at the Auburn School of Commerce, learning shorthand and typing. She became a legal secretary, first working for Harris Isaacson and then for the firm of Clifford & Clifford under William Clifford. In 1959, she moved to Washington, DC, as Senator Muskie’s personal secretary. She stayed in the Senate office until 1965, when she married Frank “Nordy” Hoffmann, a Washington lobbyist and sergeant-at-arms of the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 1981. The Hoffmanns and the Muskies maintained personal friendships in later years.
Summary
Interview includes discussions of: going to Washington D.C. in 1959; the early days of Muskie’s office; Kennedy’s election and assassination; working as Muskie’s personal secretary; meeting and working with George Mitchell when he was Muskie’s administrative assistant; Muskie’s temper; Mitchell’s courtship; Mitchell in Muskie’s office and his decision to return to Maine to practice law; involvement on the Muskie ’68 vice-presidential campaign; leaving Muskie’s office; comparing senators Muskie and Mitchell; Mitchell’s people skills; political wives and Jane Muskie; and connections to Maine and the environment.
Date: 2014-04-10
Creator: Shirley J. Cogswell
Access: Open access
Date: 2014-12-10
Creator: Anonymous
Access: Open access