“The Negotiator,” a memoir by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, is less a full autobiography than a collection of vignettes from the life of a man with a tower of accomplishments.
‘The Negotiator: Reflections on an American Life’
by George Mitchell
Simon & Schuster, 304 pp., $27
George Mitchell had a remarkable career: lawyer, U.S. Attorney, federal judge, U.S. Senator, Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate and ultimately a special envoy who successfully brokered peace in Ireland after 800 years of conflict. There are few public figures who could even come close to matching that record.
In “The Negotiator,” Mitchell tells stories from his long career. It’s not really a comprehensive autobiography but more of a series of short, mostly self-congratulatory, vignettes. That’s interesting, to be sure, but disappointing at the same time. With a career like this, Mitchell could have provided a far more substantive history of his public service. This is more amuse-bouche than main course.
Mitchell was the fourth of five children. His mother was a Lebanese immigrant; his father an orphaned son of Irish immigrants. He was raised in small-town Maine, and his love of the state and its people shines through these pages.
Mitchell worked for U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie, where he learned politics from a master of the craft. He briefly served as the U.S. Attorney for Maine in the Carter administration before being named to the federal bench by President Carter, at Senator Muskie’s recommendation.
He didn’t serve long in that position. Senator Muskie resigned from the Senate to serve as President Carter’s Secretary of State, opening up a seat in the Senate. Joe Brennan, then the Governor of Maine, appointed Mitchell to the seat in 1980. He served for 15 years, the last six as Majority Leader.
Mitchell’s Senate actually worked to get things done. Senators from opposite parties felt obligated to work together, to compromise even strongly held positions, in order to accomplish things. It’s a far cry from today’s U.S. Senate, largely shut down from accomplishing much of anything significant by partisan bickering.
His inside stories are at times compelling. He fought a bitter dispute with Senator Robert Byrd over amendments to the Clean Air Act, ultimately winning an amendment to strengthen its provisions. The next day, Byrd, then the Chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, obtained the tally sheet of votes, “had it framed, and hung it next to the door leading into his Appropriations Committee office. For years thereafter anyone who entered his office was reminded of that vote.”
Mitchell left the Senate in 1995 but he was hardly finished. Joining the board of directors of the Walt Disney Corporation, he rose to become Chairman of the Board. He was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a special envoy to Ireland and, over the course of five long years, helped to negotiate the “Good Friday Accords” that achieved a lasting peace in Ireland. He served, as well, as a special envoy to the Middle East during the Obama administration, where he tried but failed to negotiate peace between Israel, the Palestinians and others in the region.
One of the most hotly debated issues in the Senate today is immigration reform. George Mitchell’s story, a son of immigrants on both sides, provides eloquent testimony to the power of the American dream and the strength — not weakness — that immigration has always provided the United States. His story is worth reading for that reason alone.
