Showing 1 - 10 of 65 Items
Date: 2009-07-13
Creator: J Bennett Johnston
Access: Open access
Biographical Note
Bennett Johnston was born June 10, 1932, in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was graduated from West Point United States Military Academy and served in the Judge Advocate Corps in Germany between 1956 and 1959. He won a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1964 and in the state Senate in 1968. In 1971, he ran for governor of Louisiana but was defeated in the runoff election. When the U.S Senate seat came up for election in 1972, he ran as a Democrat and won, receiving 54% of the vote, and he was continuously reelected to the Senate until retiring in 1997. He sought the role of majority leader in 1989 but lost to Mitchell. In 1997, he was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame. Since leaving the Senate, he has been a lobbyist in Washington, DC. At the time of this interview, he was serving as a government affairs and public policy advisor for Steptoe & Johnson and for his firm Johnston & Associates.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: coming into the Senate in 1972 and the campaign; the Senate becoming partisan; the Democratic Party in the South; partisanship and changes in the Senate; becoming chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; disappointments with Carter; the surprise of the 1980 election; the race against Mitchell for majority leader and Mitchell’s victory; Mitchell’s leadership and link to the White House; factions within the Democratic Party; the DG-51 Destroyer Maine-versus-Louisiana issue; the ’91 and ’92 energy bills; the BTU tax; reasons for leaving the Senate; and reflections on Mitchell.
Date: 2009-02-23
Creator: Mary 'M.C.' C Toker
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Mary Catherine “M.C.” Toker was born on August 13, 1959, in Miami, Florida, to Donald L. Toker and Mary Brennan Toker. Her father was a physician for the U.S. Public Health Service, and Mary Toker grew up in various locales around the world, including London, Hong Kong, and Japan. By the time she went to high school, her family had settled in Washington, D.C. After high school she attended Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and pursued a degree in international studies. She interned with the Department of Defense, where she worked on various policies regarding U.S. relations with other countries. She went to Maine to work on the 1982 Democratic coordinated campaign, and in 1984 she worked on the Mondale presidential campaign in New England. She then returned to D.C. in 1985 and began to work for Mitchell’s Senate office as a legislative correspondent. She dealt with foreign affairs issues for Mitchell’s office and moved to the deputy president pro tempore office when Mitchell moved there. She was involved in reviewing the schedule of visitors to ensure that Mitchell personally met with as many Maine constituents as possible and that VIPs were handled appropriately. In 1988, she left the Senate office to work for General Mills, where she served as vice president of government relations at the time of this interview.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: living abroad as a child; attending Mount St. Mary’s College; interning with the Department of Defense; working on the Maine Democratic coordinated campaign in 1982; working for the Mondale presidential campaign; working as a legislative correspondent; Star Wars (Strategic Defense Initiative); how correspondence in the Senate office was managed; out-of-state correspondence; the importance of handling the mail because Mitchell might know the letter writer; Mitchell’s role on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; becoming deputy president pro tempore; the esprit de corps of the Senate office; Monday morning legislative meetings; making sure that people from Maine who came to the Senate office got to see Mitchell; adjusting to the cramped office environment; Toker’s job search and how she ended up working for General Mills; Mitchell’s election to majority leader; issues that Toker deals with for General Mills; the role of lobbyists as stakeholders helping legislators; how Mitchell gathered information to prepare to deal with issues; anecdote about how Senator Durenberger came running down the hall to give Mitchell a congratulatory hug after he was elected to majority leader; Mitchell’s mentoring relationship to Tom Daschle; Mitchell’s priorities in terms of balancing his different roles; Toker’s surprise at Mitchell’s decision to step down; the Good Friday Agreement; running into Mitchell in Dublin; the effect that having worked for Mitchell has had on Toker’s subsequent career; how the job of lobbyists and the Senate have changed over the years; increasing partisanship in the Senate; and how Toker believes Mitchell should be remembered.
Date: 2009-09-16
Creator: Dennis W DeConcini
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Dennis W. DeConcini was born on May 8, 1937, in Tucson, Arizona. He was graduated from the University of Arizona in 1959 and earned his law degree in 1963. He worked as a lawyer on the Arizona governor’s staff until 1967, when he founded the law firm DeConcini, McDonald, Yetwin & Lacy and where he remains as a partner. He was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Arizona in 1976 and served until 1995; he sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee as well as subcommittees on Defense, Energy and Water Development, and Foreign Operations. He sponsored an amendment on the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 and is known as a member of the Keating Five. President Clinton appointed him to the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, where he served from 1995 to1999.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Senate class of 1976; democratic ideology; CODEL to the Soviet Union with George Mitchell; the Helsinki Commission; Mitchell’s run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Mitchell’s majority leader race; Democratic Steering Committee; DeConcini’s time as chair of the Intelligence Committee; leadership under Byrd, Baker, Dole, and Mitchell; Mitchell’s role in DeConcini’s 1988 reelection; first impressions of Mitchell; the role of the filibuster in the Senate; Mitchell and the Intelligence Committee; Mitchell and the NRA; North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); DeConcini’s reaction to Mitchell’s retirement; being a conservative Democrat; Keating and DeConcini’s retirement from the Senate; and Mitchell’s legacy.
Date: 2009-02-09
Creator: Berl Bernhard
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Berl Bernhard was born in New York City on September 7, 1929, to Morris and Celia (Nadele) Bernhard. He grew up in New Jersey, then attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1951, and took his law degree at Yale Law School in 1954. His law career began in Washington as a law clerk to Luther Youngdahl. In the late 1950s he took a position on the Civil Rights Commission, and he was appointed staff director by John Kennedy in 1961. In 1963 he returned to private practice and in 1965 became counsel to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. He met George Mitchell while working on Senator Muskie's 1968 vice presidential campaign. He served as national campaign manager for Senator Muskie's 1972 presidential campaign, accompanying the Muskie on his trips to Israel and the Soviet Union. From 1980 to 1981 he served as senior advisor to Muskie when he became secretary of state. He is a senior partner at DLA Piper law firm in Washington, D.C. He has given further interviews with the Muskie Oral History Project at Bates College and the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas.
Summary
Interview includes discussions of: working with George Mitchell on Muskie’s 1968 vice presidential campaign; comparing Mitchell and Muskie; end of the 1968 campaign; Mitchell’s talent for compromise; Muskie disliking campaigning story; Mitchell enjoying public service more than Muskie; Mitchell and Dole’s mutual respect; Muskie’s unwillingness to compromise; getting out the vote for Mitchell’s 1974 gubernatorial campaign and the Muskie presidential primary campaign in 1971-1972; difficulties within the 1971-1972 campaign; Berl’s contact with Mitchell as a senator; Mitchell’s ’88 campaign for senate majority leader; Muskie’s staff; social contact with Mitchell; conversation with Mitchell about retiring; Mitchell joining Berl’s law firm; Mitchell as chair of the firm; the matter of Mitchell being considered for secretary of state; investigating the American Red Cross Liberty Fund; Mitchell’s aspirations with regard to major league baseball; looking at broad trends and changes in politics; description of Mitchell.
Date: 2009-04-24
Creator: Sarah B Sewall
Access: Access restricted to use in the repository: George J. Mitchell Dept. of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, for more information contact sca@bowdoin.libanswers.com
Biographial Note
Sarah B. Sewall was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 21, 1961, the eldest of three children, and grew up in Falmouth and Portland, Maine. Her father, Loyall Farragut Sewall, Jr. was an attorney with Verrill Dana, a lobbyist, and worked with George Mitchell when Sewall was chairman of the Republican Party in Maine. Her mother worked for the Waynflete School in Portland, Maine. Sarah graduated Harvard and continued at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. During the Clinton administration, she worked as deputy assistant secretary for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance. She worked as senior foreign policy advisor to Mitchell from 1983-1993. She also worked as associate director on the Committee of International Security Studies at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has written on U.S. foreign policy and international security. She was one of President Barack Obama’s transition advisors for foreign affairs and oversaw national security program review. At the time of this interview, she directed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy’s National Security and Human Rights Program at Harvard as well as the National Mass Atrocity Response Operations Program, was a lecturer in international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and was on the secretary of defense’s Defense Policy Board.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Sewall’s father’s career in law and politics; her interests in high school; Harvard; junior year internship in politics in Washington, D.C. at the Institute for Policy Studies; internship for Olympia Snowe; internship at the Center for Defense Information; space weaponry and Reagan; thesis on anti-satellite weapons, arms, and arms control; Rhodes Scholarship; foreign travel to the USSR and Burma while at Oxford; first job at the Federation for American Scientists; working as a foreign affairs advisor for George Mitchell; Persian Gulf War Powers; traveling with Mitchell to meet Gorbachev in the USSR; work on the Democratic Policy Committee; Mitchell’s work on the nuclear testing moratorium and subsequent award from the Council for a Livable World; Sewall’s position as first deputy assistant secretary of defense for Peacekeeping; research on peace operations for a Council on Foreign Relations Fellowship at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard; work on the Committee on International Security Studies at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Sewall’s position as lecturer on public policy at the Kennedy School; and Sewall’s directorship and research at the Carr Center for Human Rights and Policy at Harvard.
Date: 2010-04-22
Creator: Kelly T Currie
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Kelly T. Currie was born on September 11, 1963, in Lewistown, Montana, to Edmund and Bette Currie, and grew up in Farmington, Maine. His father was a professor at the University of Maine, Farmington and his mother was a nurse. He attended the University of Virginia and was graduated in 1986, serving a summer internship with Senator Mitchell’s office between his junior and senior year. In the fall of 1986, he worked on Jim Tierney’s Maine gubernatorial campaign. He joined Senator Mitchell’s Senate staff full-time in January of 1987 as a legislative correspondent dealing with finance, defense, and veterans’ affairs issues. He later transitioned to the position of deputy press secretary, focusing on the Maine press and Maine issues. At the time of this interview he was deputy chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the eastern district of New York.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: childhood and educational background; summer intern in Senator Mitchell’s office; legislative correspondent and issues; deputy press secretary; driving for Mitchell and talking sports; Senate majority leader race; 1992 presidential campaign; extensive description of the Northern Ireland peace process; Iran-Contra; Sharm-el Sheikh; 1988 Senate reelection campaign; the Maine press; and Mitchell’s sense of humor.
Date: 2009-05-06
Creator: Sheila P Burke
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Sheila Burke was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She earned a B.S. in nursing at the University of San Francisco (class of 1973) and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University. She started working for Senator Dole in May of 1977 to handle health issues on the Senate Finance Committee. A Democrat from California, she was hired due to her prior experience as a nurse with a hands-on understanding of patient care. She became deputy chief of staff in the leader’s office when Senator Dole became minority leader in 1985 and rose to chief of staff in 1986, remaining in that role for ten years until Dole’s retirement; she served a dual role as secretary of the Senate from January to June of 1995. From 1996-2000, she was executive dean and lecturer in public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2000, she joined the Smithsonian Institution, where she rose to the position of deputy secretary and COO until 2007. At the time of this interview, she was a member of the faculty at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and lecturer at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute. She is married and has three children.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: George Mitchell and the Senate Finance Committee; Burke’s interest in working for Dole and how she came to be hired; first impressions of George Mitchell; the relationships between Senators Dole and Mitchell, Burke and Martha Pope; tax battles on the Finance Committee; Mitchell’s approach to legislating; Dole’s transition to leader; balancing Senate staff and leader staff interests; the easy working relationship between Dole and Mitchell as leaders and how that compared with Senator Byrd; health care reform and difficult issues surrounding the debate; the issues that Dole and Mitchell had in common and where they differed; Dole’s and Mitchell’s relationships to the White House; the role of partisanship and values; Burke’s experience of being criticized by conservatives in the Senate and the press; Mitchell’s expressing his sympathy for Burke on the occasion of Senator Packwood’s resignation; Burke’s reaction to Mitchell’s decision to retire; the Dole-Mitchell era in the Senate and how those two leaders maintained one another’s trust, elevated the discourse, and were evenly matched; where the Republican Party of 2009 will look for leadership; and Burke’s wish that Mitchell could return to work on the present attempt at health care reform.
Date: 2009-06-18
Creator: Robert 'Bob' W Packwood
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Robert W. “Bob” Packwood was born on September 11, 1932, in Portland, Oregon. He attended Willamette University, graduating in 1954, and the New York University School of Law, subsequently returning to Oregon to practice law. From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the Oregon legislature, and in 1968 he won election to the U.S. Senate, serving five terms as a Republican. He chaired the Senate Finance Committee from 1985 to 1987 and was active in passing the Tax Reform Acts of 1986 and 1995. He resigned from his Senate seat in 1995. Later he founded Sunrise Research Corporation, a lobbying firm based in New York.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: meeting George Mitchell; how committee assignments are given; Mitchell’s superior leadership abilities that earned him a quick rise to the Senate leadership; Packwood’s electoral history; similarities between Oregon and Maine; capital gains and the Tax Reform Act of 1986; the Republican caucus’s view of Mitchell; qualities that make a good Senate leader; comparing Mitchell to Byrd; Mitchell’s pragmatic and strategic approach to legislating; the different roles of the House and the Senate; what the majority leader job consisted of for Mitchell; Mitchell on the Finance Committee; 1990 Budget Enforcement Act; the Clinton administration’s struggle with health care reform, the Republican opposition, and Mitchell’s role; the Clean Air Act, the NAFTA, round two of GATT, and earmarks; Packwood’s 1992 reelection race; the 1994 elections and the Contract for America; Mitchell’s Senate retirement; the period of Packwood’s resignation; Packwood’s brand of Republicanism; how Packwood would describe Mitchell on the political spectrum; an anecdote about when Mitchell was dating Packwood’s chief of staff, Janet Mullins; and Mitchell’s ability to focus on the end result.
Date: 2010-02-17
Creator: Diane Dewhirst
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Diane Dewhirst was born on May 28, 1957, in Framingham, Massachusetts, to Joan Priscilla Audubon and Robert Thornton Dewhirst. She grew up in Boston and Philadelphia. Her father worked in sales for an energy firm. Majoring in journalism at the University of Ohio and then transferring to Northwestern, she was graduated with a degree in political science. She worked on Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign in 1976, as an intern for Common Cause, the Democratic National Committee, and briefly for ABC News on delegate selection rules, covering the 1984 presidential election. She then became press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which George Mitchell chaired, and later joined Mitchell’s press staff, where she served as his communications director for over ten years. At the time of this interview, she was senior advisor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family and educational background; early interest in politics; work on the DNC (Democratic National Committee); meeting Senator Mitchell as a part of the Compliance Review Committee of the DNC; her work for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) under Mitchell; Mitchell and the press; Mitchell’s relationship with the press in Maine; Mitchell’s divorce; and the transition from being a member of the personal staff to the majority leader’s staff; oil spill legislation; spousal impoverishment legislation; and linking clean air issues with the health care debate.
Date: 2010-06-03
Creator: Gary B Myrick
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Gary Blendon Myrick was born on July 20, 1967, in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, to Carol and Warren Myrick. He attended the University of Maine and worked as a page in the Maine legislature during his final year of undergraduate studies. He worked as an intern in Senator Mitchell’s U.S. Senate office, answering mail and telephones, and in 1990 he was hired as a staff assistant in the personal office, moved to answering phones in Mitchell’s leadership office, and then took a position in the Senate Cloakroom. He earned his law degree from American University. From 1995-2003, he joined the Senate Floor Staff under Senator Tom Daschle. At the time of this interview he was chief of staff for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family and educational background; internship in Senator Mitchell’s office; answering phones in the leadership office; description of the Senate Cloakroom and job responsibilities; majority leader comparisons and changes; Mitchell’s strength of speaking on the Senate floor; transitions from Republican to Democratic White House and vice versa; Mitchell’s decision to retire from the Senate; scheduling; Senator Tom Daschle; Senator Harry Reid; filibusters; and changes in the Senate culture.