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Fred Thompson

Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) was the Senate Watergate Committee's chief minority counsel in 1973 and 1974. In 1975 he wrote a Watergate memoir entitled "At That Point in Time." Thompson chaired the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which held hearings in 1997 on the 1996 campaign finance controversies, from 1997 to 2001.

After Watergate, Thompson served as special counsel to former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander and special counsel to both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee. In his first foray into electoral politics, in 1994, he won the special election for former vice president Al Gore's Senate seat.

Thompson is also an actor, with roles in 18 feature films including "In the Line of Fire," "No Way Out," "Cape Fear," "The Hunt for Red October" and "Days of Thunder." He has also appeared in television movies and series including "Matlock" and "Roseanne." Thompson lives in Washington, D.C., and Nashville. After the death of his adult daughter in 2002, Thompson decided not to seek reelection.