Transcripts For CSPAN2 Former Senator George Mitchell D-ME O

Former senator majority leader train for attacks about his Senate Service as a diplomat investigator and chairman of the Walt Disney Company. He spoke at politics prose in washington d. C. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] so the evening. And bradley graham, cowinner politics prose and on behalf of the entire staff welcome. Very few quick administrative tidbits. When we get to the q a part of the session as you can see we have ceased in tv with us this evening. If you have a question to be heard, it would really be great if you could make your way to the microphone right there. At the end before you come up to get your books signed our staff would be grateful if you could fold up the chairs you are red and leaned them against something that wont fall over. By way of introducing this evenings guest, let me just say theres a lot of talk these days about the American Dream not be what it once was. There may be some truth in that for younger generations. George mitchells life is certainly one example of how someone in america could rise to smalltown origins of modest means and become a person of considerable accomplishment and influence. A lawyer for main senator mitchell arrived in 1989 years later took over as majority leader, a post he held for six years. In that time he was among the most respect did members in the senate. Actually there is a Bipartisan Group of senior congressional aides who repeatedly voted him the most respect member. The story of George Mitchells career as an elect a politician only gets you a little more than halfway through his new book the negotiator. That is because he has shown the guy with the integrity and problem solving skills can continue to achieve much even after stepping down from one of the governments most morten positions. Since retiring two decades ago senator mitchell has taken a leading role, negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland and in the middle east. Hes also served as chairman of the Walt Disney Company as well as several other entities. He headed an investigation in to the bribery of International Olympic Committee Members and let another prointo use of performanceenhancing drugs in the u. S. Baseball. In fact, all a section of senator mitchells new book is titled no time for retirement. Hes authored for previous books. One dealt with experiences in Northern Ireland, another with the irancontra investigation and he intends to devote a future book to his work in the middle east including his time as the special envoy under president obama. Said this and other key parts of his life dont quite care full treatment in the negotiator. As he says in an authors report, this memoir isnt meant to be a complete autobiography but a collection of an dose coupled with a series of lessons at the end about the art of negotiations and knows lessons alone are very instructive reading. I wasnt quite sure. We were talking before he came out exactly how to refer to senator mitchell on second reference whether by senator mitchell and also a chancellor in ambassador. So he asked something to explain about that which he will in just a second. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming george mitchell. [applause] thank you very much for the very generous introduction. I thank you all for being here, for your warm reception. The title, when i began the negotiations in Northern Ireland i was the chairman at the request of the british and irish government. There is quite vocal opposition to my serving in opposition by several of the parties in Northern Ireland walked out when i came in to take the chairmans seat. In the middle of the night we had a very controversial in stormy beginning. I called a meeting later that day and after the meeting finished i told the leaders of the parties that it walked out of the talks, lucky major point got all kinds of publicity yelling at me and so forth. But why dont you guys come back now. They thought about it and grumbled, but they did come back. However, they wanted to make a further point so they announced although they were returning to the meetings they still do not want to recognize my legitimacy as chairman said they would reduce to calm a chairman. I said well, that is up to you. I said what you want to call me . They said senator. Well why not. That is what ive been called most of my life and ive been called a lot worse things than senator. So since then people say to me how do you want to be introduced. Senator is as good as anything else i was. I meant to comment briefly on the time introduction by bradley. Asthmatics act and speak often. I am on this tour this week so three or four times a day i get up and talk. So the highlight of the program for me is the introduction. [laughter] they always begin by saying i will be brief. You dont have to be. But there is a danger to it of course. If you hear this stuff often enough you begin to believe it and its unhealthy for your mental state. So i like to begin with a story about introductions and how i was brought back down to earth. I served in Northern Ireland and i chaired three separate sets of discussions over a period of five years. When i returned to the United States i wrote a book about my experience. I think that is the last time i was here when that book was published. And not a tour around the country, i received a very large number of invitations for irishamerican groups understandably. But i learned in the process than in the united stated there are more irishamerican organizations than there are irish americans. [laughter] i couldnt do all these requests but i picked out several. As i traveled around the country attending these events, they developed among them an informal competition as to who could give the longest, most extravagant sometimes rather fantastic introductions of me. The proper reaction of course wouldve been to show some humility, to urge them to keep it short, dont be repetitious. I had an improper reaction. I loved it. I encourage them. I scolded them when they left some rainout. One guy took 35 minutes reading the long litany of everything at done in my life which included several things i had not previously been aware of. When he finished a criticizing or leaving out the fact that at my junior year in high school among the science award. By the time i got to the last stop on this tour, it was the irishamerican societies for connecticut. I was very impressed with myself. My head was so swollen i could barely fit in the front door. When i walked in the first person i encountered was an elderly woman who rushed up to me very excited and nervous, vigorously shook my hand and then you praise on me say what a great man i was and how she didnt live anywhere near stamford. She drove three and half hours to come their come to shake my hand and tell me how much she admired me and asked me if i would sign her poster and she handed me a cardboard with a photograph on it and a pen and i like that inside id be happy to sign your poster but before i do there is something i should tell you. She said was his. I said im not Henry Kissinger. [laughter] is a photograph of Henry Kissinger. She said who are you anyway . So when i told her, she was obviously disappointed. She said that she was terrible. I go three and half hours to meet Henry Kissinger and i like it is a nobody like you. Is that i wish there was something i could do to make you feel better. She said there is. I said what is it. Shes leaned forward and a conspiratorial manner. I land forward. She said nobody will ever know the difference. Would you mind signing Henry Kissingers name to my poster. [laughter] so i did and it is hanging today in eastern connecticut as a daily reminder not to take these introductions to seriously. Now most of you have heard Henry Kissingers beak. So heres the best part of the story. About a year ago he and i appeared jointly on a conference in manhattan and there is a moderator into chairs and he asked us questions about world affairs. I thought it would be a good time to tell this story. And baghdad and the crowd laughed in henry seemed to enjoy it. Then we went on with the program. After the program we found ourselves in the elevator going to the ground floor together. If you think you have heard you speak often of a new Senate Majority leader. It appeared together several times. I have to tell you, never have i heard you better than you were tonight. Was it my answer in china, the middle east . No it was that story told in the beginning. Thats a great story. You should tell it all over america. I do and i keep the lists. Every time i see that my hand on a database and politics prose is on the next list in washington d. C. Its great of you to be here. I have been here before so i know that this is a crowd that is full of questions. So while having served in the senate for many years i am fully capable of speaking at indefinite planks on any subject with no prior notice usually neither possessing or conveying any knowledge but i can take up all the time possible. I am not going to do that tonight because i do enjoy the questionandanswer period. Just a couple words about the book because id like to read from it. When i did my previous book books. At an event in new york on monday night a great author and a good friend of mine a wellknown irishamerican novelist came to the event. He introduced me and said what are you going to read. I said im going to give a talk and answer questions. He said doctors should read from their books. I will maybe im an author now so i should find something to read. At that time i did it spontaneously. Since then ive had a few days to think about it. Whether or not you like the book im now an author so i read from the book at the beginning of the program and ill do that before i take your questions. I wrote the book for several reasons. One is i wanted to recognize and pay tribute to the role of my parents and my life. Almost all human beings are greatly influenced by your parents on with most of us they are in fact the dominant fact theres in shaping what and who we are. In my case my mother was an immigrant from lebanon. She came here when she was 18 and what was a small town in maine where her sister had preceded her in emigration and where many immigrants were pouring in because the textile industry was booming. My father was the author and son of irish immigrants born in boston, never knew his parents. He was raised in an orphanage and after several years was adopted by an elderly couple and happen to live next door to my mothers sister. It began a life of long hard work mostly as labor and janitor. My parents earned very little and what a hard life but i had a dream. Each of their five children they would perceive the education they never had a chance to get. As is often the case, those with no education. Have a profound belief in some respects an exaggerated belief in the value of education and in my parents were among that group. If we went to college we would be what seemed like a life of luxury. Although he died penniless they achieved the dream. Each of their children went on to graduate from college in each of us have lived a life that would be wholly unrecognizable to my parents because of that. But only because of them of course. We were very fortunate that they ended up in this country, the United States, which despite many serious imperfections remains in my judgment the most free, the most open, but most just society in all of Human History. The closest any society has ever calmed to a true meritocracy where everyone no matter the background by status has a chance to go as high and as far as talent is willing to work willing to risk. I said in the book so i wrote it so that others would feel they too have a chance come. But the reality is they feared that respect our countries moving backward. That we are increasingly not one america where two or more and what i call the middleclass working class is disappearing. When i was a boy growing up in the town of waterloo, maine which now has a population of 15,000 people, they were to textile mills, one paper mill a Large Railroad repair shop and within a onehour drive there were 20 factories at one time or another. Theres not one today. I think thats a microcosm of what has happened in communities all over america. The Technological Communications and information revolution through which not just me that societies are passing will in my judgment seen by future historians as much a turning point in history as was the industrial revolution. Each of us benefits enormously from it in our daily lives. As a society it has displaced work for many and we have not figured out how to replace those jobs that are gone forever. It seems to me higher levels of knowledge, skill and therefore education are necessary to enable us to have more mine workers instead of mine workers in the future. That means every american child should have the early care early intellectual stimulation and good education that will enable each of them to go as high and as far as their talents will take them. It is not just that we would be helping the individuals because of course individuals comprise a society. We as a society will benefit from the talents of all the members of our society. One of the revolutionary things about the American Revolution was that it established what we now take so much for granted that the only legitimate source of the 34 in a government anywhere is the informed consent of the governor. That was not the case for most of Human History. But if that principle is to be vindicated and the democracy which is a demanding form of government is to take root particularly in what are now deeply troubled areas around the world, education and informed citizenry is my judgment crucial to the task. So it is here at home and abroad that i think we have to do better. Do better at drawing on the talents of every member of our society and i hope in some tiny way one drop in the notion that this book will contribute to that. I would like now to just read about a page and a half the end of the boat which i talk about my parent. The book is a collection of many things. A lot of panic does come to some of which i hope youll find humorous in a couple are included at the very end. I described my work in Northern Ireland, the difficulty of it and i have a chapter in the middle east as well and then i would like to read the last page and a half of the book. It is pure coincidence my mother was born in lebanon. And my fathers parents reported ireland. Traveling to and working in ireland in the middle east enabled me to learn about it. Heritage to a filling of my ancestors to meet the people among whom they lived. To learn their hopes fears aspirations. It helped me fill a void i didnt know existed before i traveled to ireland into lebanon all of this i came to regard as an extra benefit from serving my country. On hundreds of long flights to and from ireland to the middle east i try to imagine my mothers early days. What was it like for young growth growing up in the hills of southern lebanon. Melissa parents lifelike. Arabic speaking questions in the muslim majority land. I asked the same questions about the treatment about my father who never knew us. And one from a catholic orphanage in the center of boston to the cold forests of northern maine whereas the boy he works among men. I wondered about his parents. Much has been written about irish immigrants who succeeded in this new land little about the many who failed. Their lives often whereas hardin baronet rock formations on the west coast of ireland. Had that been the fate of my grandparents and their parents. Im a recent flight across the atlantic i saw the sun rising in dublin as the plane touched down. I was drowsy but my mind was awake with thoughts dreams fantasies about those whose blood is now mine. And then i thought of stories familiar stories that always make me smile when they come to my mind. I was at a reception in my honor at a resort hotel just below the border between Northern Ireland and ireland. A bridge had been destroyed during the troubles. It had been rebuilt and was now called the peace bridge and named after me. The large part of wellwishers peppered me with questions about my father and his family. Most reacted with surprise and disbelief when they answered that it really did know much about his Family History because of them history is a living part of the president. A couple of them in the crowd suggested that i retain them both in the business that specializes in genealogy, mostly for wealthy irishamericans and with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face, the local officials said senator if you pay them enough but connect you to brian probert. An ancient irish warrior king well known in irish history that we noticed 10. So we all laughed. In left. In other words its all open. On the other hand maybe its not. The other story is about my mother. When she was growing up she often said to her children usually around the Kitchen Table softly and with great nostalgia, often with mixed in her eyes, you should be lebanon. It is so beautiful. The air is pure water is clear mountains, forests and all better. A lebanon, may lebanon. After arriving in the United States at the age of 18 she returned only ones laid in her life after my father died. My sister accompanied her as he returned to the village where she grew up where they attended a reception and dinner with relatives and friends in the house in which she had been raised. Late in the evening my mother was asked to say something. My mother stood, paused, looked out at the large happy crowd and with great emotion and a broad smile said you should see america. [laughter] it is so beautiful. The air is pure. The water is clean. The mountains, forests, even the flowers smell better. America, my america. She had little formal education. She couldnt read or write english, spoke with a heavy accent. She worked her entire life life on a night shift in a textile mill issue is generous and loving, strong and wise and understood clearl