George Mitchell

Outgoing Special Envoy to the Middle East, Obama administration (since January 2009)

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Why He Matters

Mitchell is an expert dealmaker who combines international negotiating skills, a powerful sense of empathy and great stature as a senior statesman. He brought instant international gravitas to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's foreign policy team.

Mitchell honed his negotiating skills as Senate majority leader from 1989 to 1994 and later as a special envoy to Northern Ireland during the Clinton administration and lead investigator into steroid use in Major League Baseball.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Chairman Emeritus of the Global Board of DLA Piper (since 2003); Chairman, Independent Investigation into the Illegal use of Performance Enhancing Substances (2006 to 2007); Chairman, International Fact-Finding Committee to examine crisis in Middle East (2000 to 2001); U.S. Senator (1980-1996)
Birthday: Aug. 20, 1933
Hometown: Waterville, Me.

Alma Mater: Bowdoin College, B.A., 1954; Georgetown University, J.D., 1960
Spouse: Heather MacLachlan
Religion: Roman Catholic

Path to Power

Mitchell was born on Aug. 20, 1933, and grew up in Waterville, Maine, where his dad worked as a Colby College janitor and his mom raised five kids while working nights at a textile factory. Mitchell was an altar boy in an Arabic-language Maronite Catholic church and even learned a few words in Arabic.

Mitchell earned his undergraduate degree at Bowdoin College in 1954. After college, he joined the Army, serving in Berlin with the counter-intelligence division. After returning to the U.S. in 1956, he attended Georgetown Law School part-time. Mitchell graduated in 1960 and then worked as a trial lawyer in the Justice Department for two years before accepting a job with former Sen. Edward Muskie (D-Maine).

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In 1974, Mitchell failed in a bid for the Maine governorship. President Carter appointed Mitchell as U.S. attorney from Maine in 1977 and he became a U.S. district judge in 1979.

Mitchell launched his federal political career in 1980, when he was appointed to the Senate after Muskie was tapped as secretary of state in the Carter administration. Despite an early reelection challenge, Mitchell quickly earned the respect of senators and voters alike. He was voted "the most respected member of the Senate" six years in a row by a bipartisan group of congressional aides. His popularity paid off; Mitchell was elected Senate majority leader in 1989.

In 1994, Mitchell turned down an offer from President Clinton to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice. He said he wanted to help Clinton pass his universal health-care plan. When that failed, Clinton asked the lawmaker to chair the 1996 peace negotiations in Northern Ireland. The grueling process took nearly two years, but eventually Mitchell was able to convince both sides to sign a peace accord that was endorsed by voters in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Elder Statesman

Mitchell left politics in 1996 to practice law. However, he has remained involved in government activities. In 2000, he presided over a year-long study of the causes of violence in Israel. In 2006, he chaired an independent investigation into the illegal use of performance enhancing substances in Major League Baseball.

He was tapped to join the Obama administration in 2009 as a special envoy to the Mideast. His nomination was generally well-received. "He is eminently qualified," said Ziad Asalin, president of the American Task Force on Palestine. Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official, seconded the praise, saying Mitchell brings both experience and a fresh perspective. He's "not one of the peace processors," he said.

But some Jewish leaders questioned the pick. Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation league, praised Mitchell as "fair and decent," but said that his even-handedness might cost Israel the privileges that it should be afforded as a friend and ally of the United States.

The Issues

Mitchell's first task was to maintain the shaky peace between Israel and Hamas after early 2009 hostilities. Israel withdrew from Hamas in January 2009 after a three-week offensive that left about 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers dead. He has also focused on planting the seeds for an enduring peace deal between Israeli and Palestinian officials.

At a speech in Jerusalem in December 2008, Mitchell outlined the challenges of permanent peace in the region. "Israel has a state, but its people live in unbearable anxiety, so security for the people is an overriding objective. The Palestinians don't have a state and they want one, an independent, economically viable and geographically integral state; that is their overriding objective," he said. "I believe that neither can attain its objective by denying to the other side its objectives."

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Palestinian Statehood

Mitchell has said that in order to negotiate a lasting Middle East agreement, Palestinians must be granted a state. Israelis need to believe they can live securely.

"The Mitchell Report"

According to the Jerusalem Post, Mitchell "formed the basis for the road map for Middle East peace" in his 2001 report - commissioned by President Clinton - on the violence between Israel and Hamas. In 2000, Mitchell led a fact-finding group studying violence in the Middle East.

His recommendations, contained in the Mitchell Report, suggested peace was possible if both sides affirmed their commitment to existing non-violence agreements and take steps to prove their commitment to the process. He also called on Israel to freeze all "settlement activity" and to consider whether "settlements which are focal points for substantial friction are valuable bargaining chips." Palestinians, he said, needed to immediately declare terrorism "unacceptable" and to make a "100 percent effort to stop attacks.

Mitchell's report was notable for its even-handedness. "Some Israelis appear not to comprehend the humiliation and frustration that Palestinians must endure every day some Palestinians appear not to comprehend the extent to which terrorism creates fear and undermines their belief in the possibility of co-existence," the report reads.

Mitchell's position on freezing new settlements angered some Israeli officials. One told the Post that Mitchell was "too balanced" and that his zero-tolerance policy "would likely put Israel and the new administration on a collision course."

Diplomacy

Mitchell has spoken hopefully about diplomatic efforts around the world, saying that all conflicts can be solved. "I understand the people in the Middle East are discouraged," Mitchell told the Jerusalem Post. "I understand your feelings. But from my experience in Northern Ireland, I share the feeling that there is no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended."

Major League Baseball

In 1996, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig commissioned Mitchell to lead the investigation into steroid use and other banned substances in Major League Baseball.

Mitchell released his 403-page report on Dec. 13, 2007, and the first line read: "For more than a decade there has been widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances by players in Major League Baseball, in violation of federal law and baseball policy." In response, MLB revised its drug-testing standards.

Mitchell was attacked by some for his close relationship with Major League Baseball (he directed the Boston Red Sox at the time he was asked to chair the commission and had at one time also been a director for the Florida Marlins). Mitchell called the criticisms unfounded. "Judge me by my work," he told the LA Times. "Take a look at how the investigation was conducted, read the report. You will not find any evidence of bias, of special treatment of the Red Sox or anyone else, because there is none."

The Network

As special envoy to the Middle East in the Obama administration, Mitchell worked with a 'who's who' of foreign-policy heavyweights. In addition to Obama and Hillary Clinton, Mitchell works closely with National Security Council member and Middle East expert Dennis Ross.

NSC member Samantha Power wrote a glowing profile of Mitchell in Time magazine's 2008 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

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Additional Resources