Showing 1 - 3 of 3 Items
Date: 2008-12-08
Creator: Lee E Lockwood
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Lee Enfield Lockwood was born February 17, 1946, in Cumberland, Maryland, to Sarah and Sam Enfield. She grew up in Houston, Texas, attending a local public elementary school and a private high school. She was graduated from Duke University in 1968 with a major in political science. She moved to Washington, DC, and was hired onto Senator Muskie’s staff. She worked for Muskie from 1969 to 1978, first sorting and reading the mail and eventually handling speech writing and legislation. She worked for Senator Mitchell when he was majority leader, handling correspondence in his Senate office from 1989-1993.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family and educational background; Muskie’s Senate office; Muskie’s 1972 presidential bid and working in the “boiler room” of that campaign; differences between Muskie and Mitchell related to the office environment; the process of handling the senators’ mail; Senator Mitchell’s relationship with his staff; the qualities that make a successful Senate staffer; what Mitchell will be remembered for; and the difference between academic discussion of politics and the interpersonal relationships that make it work.
Date: 2009-09-11
Creator: Eliot R Cutler
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Eliot Raphael Cutler was born in 1946 in Bangor, Maine. His mother was an economist and his father, a physician, was responsible for the reorganization of the Maine university system; the Cutler Health Center in Orono, Maine, is named in his honor. As a sophomore in high school, Eliot transferred from Bangor High School to Deerfield Academy. He attended Harvard University and Georgetown Law School. While at Harvard he was involved with the Harvard Lampoon. He worked as a legislative assistant and clerk for Senator Muskie from 1967 to 1972 and was a senior staff person at the OMB during the Carter administration. He has served on the Board of Visitors of the Muskie School for Public Service at University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine. At the time of this Interview, he was a member of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Cutler’s candidacy for governor; campaigns Cutler has worked on, including those for Muskie, Carter, and Mondale; Cutler’s connection to China; Cutler’s role as chairman of the Board of Visitors at the Muskie School; political attention to energy issues under Carter and today; Cutler's meeting George Mitchell as an intern in Muskie’s office; how Mitchell’s operating style differed from Muskie’s; Cutler’s role as press secretary in 1968 and contact with the media; Mitchell’s role in Muskie’s fund-raising in 1968 and 1972; the 1972 campaign; Muskie as a negotiator; Mitchell’s role in Ireland and the Middle East; and Marshall Stern.
Date: 2008-04-09
Creator: Donald 'Don' E Nicoll
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Donald Eugene "Don" Nicoll was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 4, 1927, and grew up in West Roxbury. He is the son of George and Mary Nicoll. He attended Boston English High School and was graduated from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, in 1949, majoring in history with a minor in government. Don met his future wife, Hilda Farnum, also a Colby student, in 1944 when they worked in the resort town of Ocean Park, Maine. Nicoll began his graduate work at Pennsylvania State College in 1949, concentrating on American history. Starting in 1951, he and his family settled in Buckfield, Maine, where he picked apples and taught part time at Stephen's High School, located in Rumford. After a brief career in radio in Lewiston, Maine, he became executive secretary of the Democratic State Committee at the request of Frank M. Coffin, who has just become chairman. When Coffin was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956, Nicoll went to Washington, DC, as his administrative assistant, continuing in that post through 1960. After Coffin’s defeat in the 1960 Maine gubernatorial election, Nicoll joined Senator Edmund S. Muskie staff, serving in various capacities until he left the Senate office in 1972. From 1972 until his retirement in 2005, he worked as a program and policy planner. He also volunteered for numerous public policy projects and served on a variety of boards and commissions, including the Maine Special Commission on Government Reorganization, the Board of Visitors of the University of Southern Maine's Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service, and the Governor's Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group. From 1998-2005, he was the director of the Edmund S. Muskie Oral History Project at Bates College.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: how George Mitchell was initially hired onto Senator Muskie’s staff; Mitchell’s duties in Senator Muskie’s office; Muskie’s 1964 Senate reelection campaign; the 1968 presidential primary campaign; anecdote about Nicoll’s debate negotiations with the Republican candidate; Muskie’s 1970 reelection campaign; tensions between campaigning and legislating, and the respective staff; the 1972 presidential primary; Mitchell’s role in these various campaigns; and discussion about acquaintances and colleagues who should be interviewed for the George J. Mitchell Oral History Project.