Tuesday, August 14 at 2:00 pm
Speaking in Maine takes us one more time to the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor for our final talk from the recent 2018 Champlain Institute: International Affairs.
Today’s speaker is former Maine Senator George Mitchell who will discuss the issue of immigration—through world history to modern day America.
Senator George Mitchell was appointed to the United States Senate in 1980 to complete the unexpired term of Maine Senator Edmund S. Muskie, who resigned to become Secretary of State. He was elected to a full term in the Senate in 1982 in a stunning come-from-behind victory. After trailing in public opinion polls by 36 points, Senator Mitchell rallied to win the election, receiving 61 percent of the votes cast.
In 1988, he was reelected with 81 percent of the vote, the largest margin in Maine history. Senator Mitchell went on to an illustrious career in the Senate spanning 15 years and served on the Finance, Veterans Affairs, and Environment and Public Works Committees as well as serving as Senate Majority Leader, a position he had held since January 1989. He left the Senate in 1995.
In 1995, Mitchell served as a Special Advisor to President Bill Clinton on Ireland, and from 1996 to 2000 he served as the Independent Chairman of the Northern Ireland Peace Talks. Under his leadership, the Good Friday Agreement, an historic accord ending decades of conflict, was agreed to by the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom and the political parties of Northern Ireland.
In 2000 and 2001, at the request of President Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Chairman Yasser Arafat, Senator Mitchell served as Chairman of an International Fact-Finding Committee on violence in the Middle East. The Committee’s recommendation, widely known as The Mitchell Report, was endorsed by the Bush Administration, the European Union, and by many other governments. He served as the U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace from January 2009 to May 2011.
Source: www.coa.edu
Music by Our Alarm Clock, Lymbyc Systym, and This Will Destroy You