Showing 1 - 10 of 21 Items
Date: 2010-05-17
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: Iran-Contra and writing Men of Zeal; clean air; acid rain; long term health care; spousal impoverishment; how the press office operated; the national press; the “dugout” on the Senate floor; Clarence Thomas hearings; CODELs; Foreign travel: Canada, Mexico, Soviet Union, Germany, Middle East; health care debate; and relationship with Bob Dole.
Date: 2009-11-11
Creator: Alan K Simpson
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Alan K. Simpson was born September 2, 1931. He attended Cody, Wyoming, public schools and the University of Wyoming, taking a B.S. degree in 1954 and a law degree in 1958. In 1954, he married Susan Ann Schroll, who was a fellow student at the University of Wyoming. He practiced law in Cody, held positions as assistant attorney general and city attorney, and was a United States Commissioner from 1959-1969. He was elected to the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1964-1977. Subsequently, he served in the U.S. Senate as a Republican representing Wyoming from 1979-1997, first by briefly filling the seat vacated by Clifford P. Hansen, and then by election. His father, Milward L. Simpson, also served as senator for Wyoming (1962-1967), and as governor (1955-1959). Alan was Senator Bob Dole’s assistant (majority/minority) leader for ten years, including the six years when George Mitchell was majority leader. In addition to other committee service, he served as chair of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee from 1981-1987.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Edmund S. Muskie story; description of Senator Mitchell; Clean Air Act; Iran-Contra; speaking engagements with Mitchell; majority leader; senatorial relationships; Simpson-Mitchell relationship; Al Gore; George Mitchell’s sense of humor; and Mitchell’s legacy.
Date: 2009-03-12
Creator: William 'Bill' S Cohen
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
William S. Cohen was born on August 28, 1940, in Bangor, Maine, to Reuben and Clara Cohen. He attended Bangor High School and was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1962 with a major in Latin. He earned his law degree at Boston University School of Law in 1965. He worked at a law firm in Bangor, eventually becoming a partner. He served on the Bangor City Council and was mayor of Bangor from 1961 to 1962. In 1972, Cohen was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings. He was elected to the Senate in 1978 after serving as a representative for three terms. He was reelected in 1984 and 1990. He served on the Iran-Contra Committee. After retiring from the Senate in 1997, he was appointed to serve as secretary of defense by President Clinton, a position he held until 2001. In 2001 he founded the Cohen Group, a consulting firm specializing in East Asian affairs. He has authored several books, both fiction and nonfiction, including Men of Zeal, which he co-authored with George J. Mitchell about the Iran-Contra affair.
Summary
Interview includes discussions of: Bowdoin College; Mitchell’s entry into politics; qualities that made Mitchell a successful senator; the working relationship between Cohen and Mitchell; Cohen’s and Muskie’s relationship; Muskie’s temper; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; the cooperation among members of the Maine delegation in Congress; the Dickey-Lincoln Project; the Maine Indian Land Claims issue; the Maine Republican Party; cross-party values in Maine; the walk; Iran-Contra; Mitchell’s questioning of Oliver North; writing Men of Zeal and how the book tour upset Cohen’s Republican colleagues; the job of majority leader; how Senate Republicans viewed Mitchell; policies on which Cohen and Mitchell worked together; Mitchell’s decision to step down; Cohen’s decision to retire; becoming secretary of defense; the Cohen Group; Roll Call; The Singularity is Near and the health issues that interest Cohen today.
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: 2009-05-07
Creator: Patrick J Griffin
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Patrick J. Griffin was born June 22, 1949, in New York to Daniel and Edith Griffin. He attended St. Peter’s College in New Jersey, then the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for graduate studies in urban policy. He worked as a Health, Education and Welfare fellow for a year, then spent a year on the Senate Budget Committee staff before becoming a member of Senator Byrd’s leadership staff, the Democratic Policy Committee staff, and later a Senate Floor staffer, where he met Senator Mitchell. He held the position of secretary of the Democratic Caucus, an elected position. He later started a lobbying firm with David Johnson, returning to politics to join the Clinton administration.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family, educational, and career background; responsibilities of Senate floor staff; majority leader race an Inouye; Iran-Contra; Acid Rain and Senator Byrd; Crime Bill; Byrd’s decision to move to the Appropriations Committee; Griffin’s relationship with Senator Byrd; experiences in the Clinton White House; health care debate; Mitchell-Clinton relationship; background on the Northern Ireland appointment and Clinton conversation; comparison of several majority leaders; and Tip O’Neill.
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: 2009-09-11
Creator: Shepard 'Shep' Lee, George J Mitchell, Harold 'Hal' Pachios
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Shepard (Lifshitz) “Shep” Lee was born in Lewiston, Maine, on November 13, 1926, to Ethel and Joe Lifshitz. His parents were both Russian immigrants, his mother a housewife, and his father an automobile dealer. He attended Lewiston public schools, graduating in 1943. He then attended Bowdoin College, taking military leave from the college between 1945 and 1946 to enlist in the navy. He returned to Bowdoin after his service and graduated in 1947 with a degree in government and economics. At that time he and his brother changed their surname to Lee. Lee returned to Lewiston after graduation and went to work at his father’s automobile dealership. Soon after, he became active in Lewiston-Auburn Democratic politics. In 1956 he was campaign manager for Frank Coffin’s successful U.S. congressional campaign. In 1963, he bought out his father’s partner in the automobile dealership and eventually took over the entire business. Lee was an active Democrat during the political careers of Ed Muskie and George Mitchell. He was a key fund raiser for the Maine Democrats, and he lent many vehicles to campaigning candidates over the course of his career. He retired from his automobile dealership in the late 1990s. George J. Mitchell was born on August 20, 1933, in Waterville, Maine, to Mary Saad, a factory worker, and George Mitchell, a laborer. Senator Mitchell spent his youth in Waterville. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College in 1954, he served as an officer in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps until 1956. In 1960 he earned a law degree from Georgetown University. Mitchell worked for Senator Edmund S. Muskie as executive assistant and as deputy campaign manager during Muskie's 1972 presidential campaign. He later became U.S. senator (D-Maine) 1980-1995, Senate majority leader 1989-1995, and, upon his retirement from the Senate, special advisor on Northern Ireland 1995-1998. Since 1998, Senator Mitchell has served on many boards and committees and has received high profile appointments including: chairman of the Sharm el-Sheikh International Fact-Finding Committee on the crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (2000); overseer of the Red Cross Liberty Fund (2001); lead investigator into the illegal use of performance enhancing substances in Major League Baseball (2006); and special envoy for Palestinian-Israeli affairs (2009-2011). Harold “Hal” Pachios was born July 12, 1936, in New Haven, Connecticut, and grew up in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. He attended Princeton and Georgetown Law. He served for two years on a Navy transport ship, worked for the Peace Corps as a congressional liaison, then held numerous positions in politics and government including at the Democratic National Committee, VISTA, the White House (as associate White House press secretary), the Department of Transportation, and for Senator Edmund S. Muskie's vice presidential campaign. A long-time friend of Mitchell, at the time of this interview he practiced law at Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios, in Portland, Maine.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: personal recollections of Mitchell as a young man; traveling with Senator Muskie on the campaign trail; Senate election night at the Eastland Hotel in Portland Maine (1982); summaries and assessments of Mitchell’s career; interrogating Oliver North during the Iran-Contra congressional hearings; humility among politicians; paternal influence and reminiscences from Mitchell’s childhood; Mitchell’s early reading habits; anecdotes about Mitchell and his brother Robbie; street unrest at the Chicago Democratic Convention (1968) and sharing a cab with Jimmy Breslin; playing tennis and getting exercise; personal security while in the Senate, in Northern Ireland, and privately.
Date: 2009-10-28
Creator: David F Durenberger
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
David F. Durenberger was born August 19, 1934, in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He attended St. John’s University and the University of Minnesota Law School, graduating in 1959. Beginning in 1966, he was chief of staff to Minnesota Governor Harold LeVander. In 1978, he won a special election to finish the unexpired term of Senator Hubert Humphrey, was reelected twice, and held the seat until 1995. He served as chairman on the Select Committee on Intelligence, was vice chair of the Pepper Commission, and had a special interest in issues involving health care. At the time of this interview, he was a health policy fellow at the University of St. Thomas, and he sat on the advisory board for Energy Literacy Advocates.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: the Republican influx to legislature in 1980; first impressions of Mitchell and how Mitchell differed from Muskie; Mitchell as a colleague on committees; Iran-Contra; observations on Mitchell’s staff; reactions to Mitchell’s being elected majority leader; Clear Air Act; Mitchell’s ability to build consensus; Voting Rights Act; Mitchell’s reputation with the Republican Caucus; Warren Rudman; health care; the mainstream group on the Clinton health plan; Mitchell as a centrist on health care; Dole on Clinton’s plan; the future of political parties; and Mitchell’s legacy.
Date: 2008-12-19
Creator: Richard 'Rich' A Arenberg
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Richard A. “Rich” Arenberg, the son of Bernard and Mary Arenberg, was born on October 16, 1945, in Norwich Connecticut. He was a campus activist during his undergraduate years at Boston University, and worked on some local campaigns, including the campaign of Tom Atkins, the first African American city councilor in Boston. He received a Ph.D. in political science also from Boston University and has a background in survey research. He worked as the issues director for Paul Tsongas’s first congressional campaign in Massachusetts and continued on Tsongas’s congressional and Senate staff until Tsongas retired from the Senate in 1984. At that point he was hired as Senator Mitchell’s chief of staff and was involved with the Congressional Committee Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair. He later collaborated with Senators Mitchell and Cohen to write the book Men of Zeal. At the time of this interview he was working for Senator Carl Levin of Michigan.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: experiences as a staffer on Capitol Hill; Senator Mitchell’s decision-making style, in particular as compared to Senator Tsongas’s style; the role of a senator’s chief of staff; Democratic leadership positions in the Senate; the advantages of being a senator from a small state; Senator Mitchell’s ascent to the position of majority leader; the Iran-Contra Committee, Oliver North’s testimony, and Senator Mitchell’s questioning; the tension between pursuing justice and the public’s right to know regarding public scandals; collaborating with Senators Mitchell and Cohen on their book Men of Zeal and the two men’s distinct writing styles; the role of the deputy president pro tempore in the Senate; the tension between covert intelligence and democratic values, and the emphasis Mitchell placed on opening those issues up; the “Gang of Eight;” the congressional bunker at the Greenbrier Hotel; and the importance of pursuing solutions over partisan issues and the work Senator Mitchell did in that direction.
Date: 2010-01-21
Creator: Michael 'Mike' M Hastings
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Michael M. Hastings, a native of Morrill, Maine, graduated from Tilton School (NH) in 1968 and Bowdoin College in 1972. Following a year of graduate study in Public & International Affairs at George Washington University, he worked for seven years as a foreign and defense policy aide to Senator William S. Cohen (1973-1980) and for four years for Senator George J. Mitchell (1980-1984). In October 1984, he joined the international staff of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and moved to Africa. Over a span of eight years, he worked as a CRS development administrator in Kenya, Tanzania, Togo and The Gambia. During the same period, he assisted in the provision of emergency food for people displaced by civil wars in the Southern Sudan and Liberia. In 1992, he returned to Maine to direct a “center for excellence,” focusing on aquaculture and economic development. Since 2004, he has worked for the University of Maine as its director of Research and Sponsored Programs. Between 1992 and 2008, he also served on several civic boards and institutions including the Maine Fishermen’s Forum, the Maine Oil Spill Advisory Committee, the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission, the Down East Institute, and the Maine Sea Grant Policy Advisory Committee. Between 1996 and 2001, he was elected three times to be a member of the Town Council of Hampden, Maine, where he resides with his wife, a middle school teacher.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: his transition from Cohen’s staff to Mitchell’s staff; Cohen’s feelings about Hastings’s move to Mitchell’s office; state and national issues; Kahlil Gibran; Cohen’s and Mitchell’s leadership styles with their office staff; the staff atmosphere around Mitchell’s 1982 election; the Mikulski Commission; the 1982 election; Mitchell’s staff, including Jane O’Connor, Regina Sullivan, and Gayle Cory; relationship between the Mitchell staff and the Cohen staff; Men of Zeal and the Iran-Contra scandal; Pat Cadell; Jim Tierney; Mitchell and Arab American groups; John Linnehan; anecdote about placing a large photo of George Mitchell in his Maine campaign office during the 1982 campaign; driving Muskie around; and Margaret Chase Smith coming back to Washington to celebrate her birthday with Mitchell.