Showing 361 - 370 of 997 Items
Date: 2014-12-15
Creator: John Hawkes
Access: Open access
Date: 2015-01-20
Creator: Anonymous
Access: Open access
Date: 2014-03-27
Creator: Tyneshia Wright
Access: Open access
Date: 2009-04-28
Creator: David E Johnson
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
David E. Johnson was born on July 20, 1947, to Evelyn Irene (Hale) and Frank Tivis Johnson in Hardtner, Kansas. His father operated a grain elevator and his mother worked at a department store. He was raised in Enid, Oklahoma, attending Enid High School, where he excelled at debate, and was graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism. He worked for Ed Muskie’s 1972 presidential campaign in the “boiler room” and on his Intergovernmental Relations Committee from 1972 to 1978, working with Al From. He then worked for the Carter administration and for the Department of Health and Human Services. He was administrative assistant to George Mitchell from 1981 to 1984. After a period of a few months in the governmental relations office of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, he became executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Since 1987 until the time of this interview, worked in a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm; he also held the position of chair of the Board of Directors of the Mitchell Institute.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: the Muskie 1972 presidential race; working for the Carter administration; his interview with Senator Mitchell for the administrative assistant position in the coffee shop of the Portland Airport; arriving in the Senate office without anyone having been informed that he was hired; hired as executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC); the 1982 U.S. Senate campaign; the challenges that Mitchell’s schedule and travel back to Maine presented; anecdote about Mitchell and a senator’s ID card; the tradition for the Senate staff to relax with a few beers in the office after their senator was safely out of the office for the weekend; the familial nature of the Senate staffs when members of the staff had long tenures; smoking in the office; Gayle Cory, how she took to “raising” Johnson, her expertise, and her role in holding the office together; the atmosphere of Mitchell’s office and his leadership style; Johnson’s role as chief of staff; criticism of Mitchell as a tax-and-spend Democrat and Mitchell’s index card response; answering the mail and how Mitchell enjoyed calling some of those who had written his office; Mitchell’s overall strategy of piecing many small elements together to accomplish his goals; and the development of the working relationship between Johnson and Mitchell.
Date: 2008-10-06
Creator: Alfred 'Al' Joseph
Ruth Ann Joseph
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Alfred “Al” Joseph was born on March 23, 1933, in Waterville, Maine, where he grew up and attended Colby College. He worked his way through college, paying the $500 tuition by working at the municipal pool during the summer and teaching swimming at the Boys Club during the school year. He and Ruth married while he was still in college, and their first child was born right before Al’s graduation. After college, he went into the military for two years and took a job at Hathaway Shirt, where he worked for thirty-seven years. He served as the chair of the School Board in Calais, Maine, when they lived there briefly, and upon returning to Waterville he also served as School Board chairman in Waterville for a time. Ruth Ann (Donovan) Joseph was born on October 9, 1933, in Melrose, Massachusetts. She was raised in Waterville, Maine, married Al Joseph, and took classes at Colby College. Governor Joseph Brennan appointed her to chair the Maine Commission for Women, and she also served seven terms as a state representative and two terms as mayor of Waterville. She also works with the Arab American Institute.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: growing up in Waterville, Maine, and being friends with George Mitchell; the Joseph family’s military service; attending school and playing sports with Mitchell; Al working his way through college; selling shirts to Mitchell and Cohen at Hathaway Shirt company; Ruth’s uncle Wally Donovan’s gatherings at his home in Waterville; Ruth Joseph’s experience growing up in Waterville; seeing George Mitchell due to her presence in the political world; her political career; U.S. Senate appointment (1980); calling Mitchell about Muskie’s Senate seat vacancy and sending her recommendation to Governor Brennan; staying in contact with Mitchell’s staff; Ruth Joseph Waterville HS basketball team press pictures; Mitchell’s experience of losing the governor’s race in 1974 and his campaigning style; Mitchell’s high school English teacher, Mrs. Whitten; get-togethers with Colby College alumni; Mitchell’s being well liked; Mitchell’s office helping them get Red Sox tickets for Al and their youngest son; and seeing Mitchell after the game.
Date: 2009-07-27
Creator: Charles L Kinney
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Charles Ludlow Kinney was born in Parksburg, West Virginia, on May 31, 1952. His father, David Whittemore Kinney, was born in Malden, Massachusetts, and his mother was also a Parksburg native. His parents met in the hospital during World War II; Charles is the third of four children. He grew up in Parksburg and was graduated from Georgetown University with a major in foreign service. He worked for Senator Byrd in the Senate Democratic Cloakroom in January of 1974. He was offered a position as a member of the floor staff for then Majority Leader Senator Byrd after taking the bar exam in 1979. When Senator Byrd left the position of majority leader to become chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1988, Kinney was offered a position on his staff. At the same time, the newly appointed majority leader, George Mitchell, offered him a position as a floor staffer, and he assumed that post until 1993. He eventually joined the Washington, DC, law firm Winston & Strawn.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: the Senate in the 1970s; working for Senator Byrd; George Mitchell’s working as an aide for Muskie; Democratic Policy Committee 1979; George Mitchell’s nomination to Muskie’s seat; Mitchell’s becoming majority leader in 1988; working as a floor staffer for Majority Leaders Robert Byrd and George Mitchell; the Republican Party; bipartisan friendships that Mitchell enjoyed during his Senate career; Bob Dole; the Clean Air Act; and Mitchell’s character.
Date: 2009-11-19
Creator: Brian J Kilroy
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Brian Joseph Kilroy was born on November 22, 1955, to Robert and Constance Ann (Greaney) Kilroy in Lewiston, Maine, and grew up in Delaware. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware and a master’s degree from the University of Maine. His father’s parents were Francis and Jane Kilroy, both from Portland. Francis Kilroy and George Mitchell, Sr. were brothers. Brian’s grandmother, Jane, served as a Democrat in the Maine legislature and on the Democratic National Committee.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Kilroy family background; George Mitchell’s father; Jane Kilroy’s career in Maine state legislature and as a member of the Democratic National Committee; Jane Kilroy’s relationship with Senator Muskie; Jane’s singing; Francis Kilroy; family stories; memories of George Mitchell’s father (George, Sr.) and mother (Mary); working on George Mitchell’s 1982 and 1988 campaigns; the role of family in Mitchell’s campaigns; and Kilroy’s personal relationship with Mitchell as compared to the national perception of Mitchell.
Date: 2014-12-17
Creator: Anonymous
Access: Open access
Date: 2009-03-24
Creator: Frederic 'Fred' C Hof
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Frederic C. Hof was born on July 14, 1947, to Alice and Frederic Hof in Brooklyn, New York. Before he was school-age his family moved to Port Washington, New York, on Long Island. In the summer of 1964, after his junior year of high school, he participated in an exchange program and went to Damascus, Syria. He completed high school in Port Washington and then attended the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. At Georgetown he participated in ROTC and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. He spent 1970 in Vietnam with the 101st Air Mobile Division (now the 101st Airborne), and returned to teach in the Civil Affairs School. He then entered the Foreign Area Officer Program to specialize in the Middle East, and as part of that program he attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and the Foreign Service Institute in Tunis to learn Arabic. He served as the Army attaché in Beirut, Lebanon, and in 1982 he was wounded while crossing the Green Line and was awarded a Purple Heart. He worked in the office of the secretary of defense in the International Security Affairs office. He retired from the Army and took a position at the State Department. He and Richard Armitage opened Armitage Associates, LLC in 1993. In late 2000, he was asked to join the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee and served on that committee from January 2001 until it completed its report the following May.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Hof’s education; Hof’s exchange program experience in Damascus, Syria; relations between Americans and Syrians; Hof’s military career in Vietnam, teaching in the Civil Affairs School, the Foreign Area Officer Program, and Lebanon; the role of the Defense Language Institute; working in the office of the secretary of defense; getting wounded in Lebanon and receiving the Purple Heart; working on the commission to investigate the bombing of the barracks in Beirut; working for the State Department under Secretary Baker and Richard Armitage; the effects of transitioning from the first Bush administration to the Clinton administration, and to the second Bush administration in 2001; opening Armitage Associates, LLC; being asked by Laurence Pope to join the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee; Pope’s reasons for leaving the project; the goals of the fact-finding committee; Hof’s role in the fact-finding committee, the relationship among the members and Mitchell’s role; working with the Israeli government and the change in that relationship when Sharon succeeded Barak; the approach that the working group took to meeting with principal people on both sides; setting up the committee’s visit; Hof’s contact with the Office of the Vice President; security in Gaza; the atmosphere of the visit; writing the Mitchell report; Mitchell’s ability to reconcile different views within the report and achieve a consensus within the group; a sense of a lost opportunity when there was little follow-through on the committee’s recommendations; Mitchell’s appointment to be special envoy to the Middle East; the prospects of a two-state solution and America’s role in it; and Mitchell’s political skill and optimism and how that can be brought to bear in international peacemaking.
Date: 2008-11-20
Creator: Charles 'Charlie' Jacobs
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Charles “Charlie” Jacobs was born on May 10, 1948, in St. Stephen, New Brunswick. His parents, Isabelle and Stephen Jacobs, were both teachers. He lived mainly in Buxton, Maine, until the age of ten, when his family moved to Bethel. He attended Gould Academy and the University of Maine, Orono, graduating in 1971. At Orono, Jacobs became politically active, joining the student government and supporting Eugene McCarthy’s presidential bid in 1968. After graduation, he worked for Governor Ken Curtis, serving on the Governor’s Council until it was abolished in 1976. He then worked on Senator Muskie’s 1976 Senate campaign, joining the Muskie’s Senate staff shortly thereafter. He stayed in Washington until 1979, when he moved to the Lewiston, Maine, Senate office. When George Mitchell was appointed to Muskie’s seat, Jacobs returned to Washington to serve as Mitchell’s executive assistant, where he remained until late 1983 when he transitioned back to Maine, leaving Mitchell’s employment in the spring of 1984. He later worked for the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for eleven years and for Maine Governor Angus King.
Summary
Interview includes discussions of: Mitchell’s transition to the Senate; the role of a senator’s executive assistant; Mitchell’s U.S. Senate campaign in 1982; comparing Mitchell with Muskie in terms of personality, office structure, and political talent; the disadvantages of being a junior senator; the Senate office’s organization and small dimension; how Mitchell worked to gain support within the Maine Democratic Party; getting Mitchell back to Maine on the weekends; developments of the 1982 Senate campaign; Mitchell’s jokes; the Elizabeth Taylor joke; Mitchell’s ad campaign beginning in 1981; the likability factor for politicians; Jacobs’s personal relationship with Mitchell; driving for Ed Muskie; Mitchell’s abilities in terms of patience, discipline, and teaching himself about politics; and the honorable tradition of Maine politics.