Mike Mansfield worked with some of the world's most powerful people as the longest serving majority leader of the United States Senate. Under tremendous pressure he maintained an open and inquiring intelligence, an ability to listen, an uncompromising integrity and a quiet humor. Working for Senator Mansfield I was inspired by his example. I began to realize that it was essential to listen to what people said and not only to what I wanted to hear.
I saw that help was available if I had the capacity to be open to it. One thing I know for sure. There are few American lives that match the one Mansfield has lived. He simmered inside for 45 years. Then two years ago he began to reveal himself and I realized what he meant to me. I began writing.
For almost thirty years she devoted her prodigious talent and energy to Mike Mansfield, a democrat representing the state of Montana. Her devotion to Mansfield came out of a passion they shared for providing the highest level of service to their Montana constituents. Underneath that passion, perhaps, was a deprivation early in their lives, different for each of them. They transformed these early experiences into a fierce commitment to honesty, integrity, and service.
They pointed the way for me, as they did for many. For example, a republican governor helped raise funds to erect a statue of Mansfield and Maureen in the Montana Capitol building while they were still alive. Mansfield conceived and brought about the creation of the Watergate Investigation Committee, enlisting Sam Ervin to head the investigation.
As the leading senate authority on Asia, he personally advised all four Vietnam presidents to withdraw from that disastrous war. He considered the ongoing loss of life there his greatest failure. His other legislative accomplishments during thirty-three years in congress were remarkable. This was the most politically important thing he did at home, remembered by Montanans for decades. To add to his accomplishments he made notes of all his meetings with presidents and other key leaders.
