On the Occasion of the First Annual Mark O. Hatfield Lecture A Tribute with the screening of “Little Town of Bethlehem” Tom Getman address - October 19, 2011

Introduction: Thank you to Rich Gathro and Nyack College for your DC presence. You mean a great deal to many of us. Keep up the excellent work. It is a privilege to give this opening of what I hope will be a series for many years of memorial lectures to Senator Hatfield.

A brief word about the “spiritual memory” of the Senator in his last days…even deep in dementia he was able out of his heart of hearts to pray “The Lord’s Prayer” out loud. I’ll never pray it again without having him with me in spirit holding my hands!

After disciples questioned Jesus on behalf of John the Baptist about “if he was the one to come” the Lord responded, “go back & report what you hear & see” and then he says what is lessor known:

“The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing & forceful men (sic women) lay hold of it”. – Matthew 11:1-12

The gift Mark O. Hatfield gave to country, family & colleagues was, surely not that he was the first “forceful” follower of Jesus in American political life, but I posit maybe he was the first to so fully express a radical progressive evangelical discipleship in the rough & tumble of USA discourse that we can dare to say that we saw in and through him, “The kingdom of heaven forcefully advancing”. For surely he knew who he was & whose he was as he lived out his calling.

President Bill Clinton once said, “Mark Hatfield loves his enemies so he has no enemies”.

My predecessor and mentor colleague as the Senator’s legislative director, Wes Granberg- Michaelson, wrote about him at the time of his memorial service:

“There was a sweetness & a grace that touched people, a directness that was so compelling that it caused colleagues & opponents alike to want to do the right thing.”

In my many years in public life no one whether a president, Member of Congress or local politician, so faithfully lived out the law of love as the Apostle Paul defines it in First Corinthians 13.

He was “patient and kind”:

Thankfully in my refusal to say “I don’t know; I will have to check”, on an occasion when he needed quick information, I experienced personally this grace as he covered for me. He came rushing to me desk to ask for an accurate figure about how much he had gotten into an appropriations measure for the Health Sciences Center. And I guessed wrong, as I recall with a $32 million figure. Trusting as he was he promptly announced in a press conference my errant figure even while I was calling the Committee to confirm. A room full of TV and print reporters heard and recorded, as I stood in the door with the proper figure in my hand. I heard him say, “I am very pleased to tell you today that….” And he said the wrong number! I nearly fainted. So when the cameras were in close and he was answering questions I slipped him a note saying “I misspoke it was $52 million”. He didn’t look down…until 20 minutes later. Then as the press secretary said, “the Senator has another appointment”, he said calmly. “oh, by the way I think I misspoke…and after a pause for the cameras to turn back on he said, “I am very pleased today to be able to report that we got $52 million into the appropriations bill”. As he walked by me I apologized and said “thank you for saving my ‘bacon’ “. He responded with genuine kindness, “not a problem…any time I can be of assistance just let me know”. What a life lesson from a man who I never heard raise his voice to any one, staff, colleague or political adversary.

He didn’t “boast” or exude self -serving pride:

In my presence he never bragged about his successes but rather he gave credit to others. No one likes a person, especially a senator, who is inflated with the brief authority as an elected, for maybe one term, official. Rather I often witnessed his using his influence for others rather than extolling himself. One occasion was when a little known black leader from South Africa came into our offices without an appointment in 1977. No one knew him in the Senate and he could not find someone to provide a briefing on what Congress was doing on African issues. In my thinking I had rather senior authority I told the gentleman that I had 15 minutes before my next appointment and that the Senator was too busy to see him. An hour and half later when Desmond Tutu left the office Senator Hatfield had invited him to lunch and we were invited to be his guests in Johannesburg. And in both mens‘ reflection of the hospitable and embracing Jesus we became life long friends. It is a friendship that changed my life and that of my family…and it changed in a critical way, without Mark Hatfield taking credit, how the Senate saw the South African apartheid system as something other than the “last line of defense against communism in Africa”.

He was never in my experience “rude & self-seeking” –

As in the story above he taught me another lesson about the rudeness of inflated sense of self that can come from knowing “to much”. Once when the president of a major NGO called the office weeping and demanding assistance to save boat people on the South China Sea and making an outlandish request for the Senator to demand a currency exchange certificate from Treasury, I impatiently informed him by saying abruptly “well that is just not the way it is done”. When I informed the Senator the request made by saying “you will never believe what the NGO president is asking for now!” He narrowed his eyes but with immense grace said, “I don’t care what that godly man asked for you get it done!” With a quickly facilitated call from the Senator to the Secretary of Treasury the certificate was promptly acquired, many boat people were saved and the world was alerted to their plight.

The Senator was equally charming without succumbing to rudeness when the whole conservative Christian world seemed to rise up as one to condemn him to hell for not supporting “God’s anointed” on the amendment that would require Prayer in Schools. One day alone we had over 1000 phone calls calling Senator Hatfield “a tool of the devil” using the worst profanity including in a massive deluge of mail excoriating him and signing off “Your brother/sister in Christ”! Our receptionist left the front desk weeping and promptly resigned so upset that Believers would treat a brother in that manner. He patiently explained to his staff and accusers the critical “church – state” implications and offered a wisely argued alternative in the “Equal Access Bill” that provides for students who want to choose a place and time of prayer in schools.

He kept “no record of wrong doing” or had “delight in evil”.

After a long and painful Friday negotiation in Ed Meese’s office at the with Senator Jesse Helms on the bill we came to an agreement that Mr. Helms would, against the demands of his constituents, allow abortion in the event of rape, incest, or threat to the life of the mother. Senator Hatfield left the meeting to go directly to the airport and I rode back to the Senate with Senator Helms. I asked him if we should put the agreement in writing for 15 anti-abortion activists were waiting in the Hatfield office for a report on the meeting. He indicated there would be no need as the senators had shaken hands on the deal. The following Monday when the vote was taken Senator Helms voted “no” on the Hatfield amendment. I was stunned to the point of weeping by the betrayal and breaking of trust. When I was with Senator Hatfield after the vote he calmly said “Don’t worry…we did what we could and cannot judge another for his actions. That is the Lord’s business for we do not know the pressure Senator Helms is suffering”.

Love “always protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres”. I am still sometimes overcome with Senator Hatfield’s capacity in this regard, as I seek in a stumbling way to live out his modeling witness.

At the staff reunions around his memorial services there were many similar stories from a number of staffers and associates about how he would take suddenly one of us out of the office to another member’s home or Senate/ House quarters to give comfort unannounced when there was a scandal , egregious misstep, or grief. I will never forget the look of surprise on members’ secretaries’ faces when Mark Hatfield would turn up in these times of paralysis or fear and sweep into inter sanctums to embrace a fallen colleague. What a gift to be included in these interventions. Lessons sealed and repeated in our own ways for a lifetime.

The most famous of these events among associates was when Senator John Stennis, a Hatfield nemesis , was shot and crippled by an attempted assassination. Senator Hatfield arrived at the hospital without identifying himself to ask as a friend if there was anything he could do to help. The nurse at the desk indicated that they were overwhelmed with phone calls of concerned family and friends and it would be helpful indeed if he would answer them. He spent the night offering this service for the senator who had been the deciding vote against the Hatfield effort to stop funding for the Viet Nam war.

The passage of Scripture that was often read to colleagues and friends in these situations was II Corinthians 4:

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed; always caring in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies”

Mark Odum Hatfield was not perfect. He was a human with all the faults and struggles the rest of us face. And in his desire to reach out he did make some decisions that could be perceived as border-line, as he associated with sinners who took advantage of his graciousness and trust. Sometimes his non- partisan and indiscriminate compassion for needs of family, friends and even the famous caused him to put trust ahead of good counsel, for someone so public. I was grieved when the timing of his visit to President Marcos in the Philippines coincided with the assassination of Begnino Aquino shortly after Aquino’s brother visited us in the office. Similarly when one of us in the office would write a letter asking over his signature for a federal agency to look at an appeal letter from someone who could be suspected of using the Senator’s access, like college presidents or international business people, he put himself in harms way. But never was he convicted of ethics violations in large measure because his colleagues knew his compassionate heart and discerned his motives.

In a word Mark Hatfield restored respect for the term “evangelical” by being a faithful incarnational follower of Jesus in having his beliefs expressed through his finger tips not through political ideology or narrow denominational creed.

Among his most praiseworthy accomplishments:

1. He never gave up on staff and gave us freedom, and led us, to satisfy the desires of hearts in our callings rather than being bound for life long service to the Senate or him. 2. He opposed war in all its forms & never once voted for military appropriations measures and especially opposed funding that undergirded the military industrial complex. 3. He was the longest serving most beloved politician in Oregon history and gave himself unstintingly to the advancement of health sciences and services. 4. He placed principle before advancement and as a result made himself ineligible for a vice president or presidential nomination. 5. He and staff played little known major roles in peace building in Viet Nam, Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa, and spoke often on behalf of the refugees from war. 6. He was wise and pivotal in managing separation of church state issues especially with the influence with equal access instead of imposed prayer in schools. 7. He drove the founding of the Evangelical Council for Accountability, rather than authoring or allowing government intervention and oversight of fundraising by faith based NGOs. 8. Unbeknown to most he helped to establish and fund the DC Mitch Snyder and Portland Baptist Homeless shelters. 9. He constantly supported programs for the poor and hunger at home and abroad and he served faithfully on the boards of agencies that pursued biblical justice. 10. He was faithful to his wife Antoinette and their children when pressures upon him were greater than most will ever know. He was accountable to his Lord and his covenant fellowship brothers.

“Ideas are often poor ghosts; our sun filled eyes cannot discern them; they pass athwart us in thin vapor and cannot make themselves felt. But sometimes they are made flesh; they breathe upon us with warm breath, they touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at us with sad sincere eyes; and speak to us in appealing tones. they are clothed in living human soul, with all its conflicts, its faith and its love then their presence is a power, then they sake us like a passion and we drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame”.

-SCENES OF A CLERICAL LIFE – JANET’S REPENTANCE - GEORGE ELIOT-

And so it was with the life and witness of Senator Mark O. Hatfield. Thank God for his presence in our midst for such a time.

Mr. Getman served as Legislative Director to Senator Mark O. Hatfield from 1976 to 1985. He was World Vision’s executive director for international relations with tenure until March 1, 2009. Getman lives in Washington, DC, and is an international consultant to the United Nations and non-governmental organizations.

The Institute for Public Service & Policy Development is sponsored by Nyack College.