Archives and Special Collections Mansfield Library, University of Montana Missoula MT 59812-9936 Email: [email protected] Telephone: (406) 243-2053
This transcript represents the nearly verbatim record of an unrehearsed interview. Please bear in mind that you are reading the spoken word rather than the written word.
Oral History Number: 391-010 Interviewee: Mike Mansfield Interviewer: Don Oberdorfer Date of Interview: September 9,1999 Project: Don Oberdorfer Interviews with Mike Mansfield Oral History Project
Don Oberdorfer's notes prior to recorded interview of September 9,1999
Made me coffee automatically when I came in. Didn't look good - very thin and pale. Seemed to say (if I understood correctly) he had been having trouble regaining weight after his operation. Mind as good as ever.
Wearing a red (crimson?) US Marine Corps tie, with the Marine emblem, and Marine tie clasp. A lightly checked shirt. This tim e a belt rather than suspenders. Says he hasn't given up smoking his pipe, and still had a can of Prince Albert on his desk, but I haven't seen him smoke it for months.
Sits on the soft in his office, sometimes with his arms folded across his chest, hands on the opposite upper arm, in a posture that was often seen when he was majority leader. His legs often crossed in a relaxed way. Clearly he is comfortable with me.
Sophie Engelhard Craighead told me last night that Mansfield had called her himself to warn her of my call, and that he seemed quite interested in the project. I told him I had been in touch with her - "great girl, Sophie" he said.
As I left the office, he called out behind me, "Tap 'er light"
1 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. The following is the recorded interview with Mike Mansfield
Mike Mansfield: Drove home every summer with Anne. I stayed here.
Don Oberdorfer: Drove all the way across the country.
M M: Three thousand miles.
DO: Probably took three or four days.
MM: Went through Pittsburgh, then. You couldn't go around it. Went through Chicago then, you couldn't go around it. Five days, 3,000 miles. God. Hard to believe.
DO: And when she got home, she would probably do a little campaigning for you or something like that.
M M: Oh she did. She got me into politics.
DO: Well, I'm happy to tell you I'm making good progress. Yesterday I finished the first draft of the proposal that I'm sending up to New York to my literary agent for this book.
M M: You didn't make it before Labor Day then?
DO: No, I tried. Came close. Came close. But, this is 58 pages long, single spaced, 14-point type and then she will then circulate that to some publishers in New York and I'm sure before the fall is out I'll have a publisher who sounds like he's going to do a good job with the book and I'll go further. In the meantime, I talked to Sophie Engelhard Craighead out there in—
MM: Wyoming.
DO: In Wyoming, yes. And she's going to help me. She'll be—I don't know, sometime in the next few months—she'll be in Washington. She doesn't know when exactly, but we will get together.
MM: Great girl, Sophie.
DO: Yes. She was nice and she told me that you called you. That was awfully nice of you to do that. So, I'm coming along and in the process of putting my thoughts down for this outline I came across a number of things—questions—that I had which came out of these documents that I was looking at and so forth. So that's what I wanted to ask you about. One of them is, you wrote a letter to some woman in Connecticut about your parents and this is written in 1986. You said, "M y father was a construction worker in New York until he broke his leg, and then became a hotel porter." I was trying to pin this down with what happened first, whether he had this fall.
2 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. M M: What lady in Connecticut?
DO: Here's the letter.
MM: I don't even remember the letter. That's what I had heard. I haven't said it much because I only knew him as a hotel porter.
DO: But I do know that he had a fall in a construction site.
M M: He had a game leg. I have heard, I don't know where, that he had fallen from a roof. But didn't know it. I didn't remember it. But I do remember him as a hotel porter.
DO: Right. Yes. Okay.
MM: So I just know he was a hotel porter. I also heard he was a bartender, but I don't know.
DO: Here's another one. This I keep coming across and I don't know if there is any truth to this or how it got started: "Mansfield also spent six weeks on Pacific island, across the bay from Vladivostok." [during the period after the A.E.F. was withdrawn from Siberia.]*
M M: No. That was a lie.
DO: I didn't think it was true, but it keeps recurring. I guess once it gets into these papers it just keeps coming up.
M M: No, I think I said that once, but it was a lie.
DO: Somebody wrote that "with Maureen's encouragement, Mansfield considered running for office as early as 1936. In 1937 he became active in the University's Teachers Union," etc. etc.
MM: That's correct, but at that time I wasn't considering running for office, I was becoming more interested in politics because of my wife's interest in politics. About 1938 I really began to get interested and we began to do a little figuring. It seems to me that I was considering it first. I met a fellow called Pete Meloney [Meloy], I think he's still alive in Helena, an attorney; he's about 82 or 83. M-E-L-O-N-E-Y. [He mean Meloy.] He was a student, a law student. We got to be kind of friendly, politically speaking, and personally. We discussed running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Congress. I'm not sure, but I think Pete was interested in State Office of Public Instruction, and I was more so in Congress. We talked about it, that was about '38. When I say we, I mean me and Maureen. We ruled out State Superintendent of Public Instruction and thought about Congress. Pete, I think, became a State Senator from Helena. He was from Broadwater, or Thompson, towns in Broadwater County. Got to be a judge
3 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. in Helena. I had a letter from Pete, oh, several years ago, in which he told me he was in the 80s and retiring.
DO: He was living in Helena you think probably?
M M: Lived in Helena and I'm sure he would be in the phone book.
DO: Yes. I'll have to call him. Good. Now, here is one that may come as a surprise to you. When you set pesky reporters down the trail to trying to find out things, they do a little research. You had thought that you and [Senator] Elbert Thomas (were) called in by Truman to discuss the Japanese surrender.
MM: Not together.
DO: Yes, but I think the story is a little different. In August 10th, 1945, you went to see President Truman. Here are his notes on the meeting. [Shows him the notes. Long pause.]
MM: Sounds okay.
DO: The subject was, of course, as he said, your desire to make another trip to China. But that happened to be the day that the White House heard the news that the Japanese wanted to surrender. That particular day.
MM: Wouldn't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.
DO: But, I do know. And I think that you and he may have discussed this because you talked to an Associated Press reporter—maybe at the White House, or maybe back at the capitol, I'm not sure—but the AP ran the following story, little story: "Washington, August 10th, Congressman Mansfield said after a White House meeting that President Truman was determined that Japanese surrender must include the outright capitulation of the Kwangtung army in Manchuria and all other forces."
MM: Sounds right.
DO: So clearly you and he had some discussion about the terms of the surrender in China.
MM: I wouldn't disagree with that, but I couldn't give you any details.
DO: Then, about eight days later, you and Senator Thomas appeared on an NBC television program together to discuss the subject of Japan after the surrender. And there there was discussion about what to do about the Emperor. Okay, by that time the surrender terms had been agreed to, announced, and the question was, is it all right for the Emperor to remain. Thomas did see Truman that same month, however it was in company with a number of
4 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. medical experts, the purpose was to discuss the expiration of something of the Nurse Training Act. So he wasn't there to talk to him about the Emperor. He was there to talk about some other medical type of thing going on in Congress.
MM: No. My recollection is that we didn't go together—that I went down with a group and the question was raised, and I said I think it would be better to keep the Emperor, to keep the people together, to keep the country together, otherwise I think I predicted there would be nothing but chaos and confusion [without the Emperor]. I had heard that before I had gone down—this is afterwards—that Thomas had gone down and had been asked the question, whether as a single person or with a group, I don't know. But my reaction then, as now, is that I thought that Truman was asking all kinds of people the same question because that was an important factor in the settlement of the war and doing it the way which would least imperil our future relations. If the Emperor was overthrown or tried, there would be, speaking on my own, widespread confusion and chaos and fighting and difficulties, and my feeling was it might go toward the Communists.
DO: I think, though, that you went by yourself. This is the only meeting you had with Truman about that time, and I don't believe there was anyone else there.
MM: My recollection is I was with somebody.
DO: I don't think so.
M M: Okay.
DO: At least the records don't indicate you were.
M M: Let the record...
DO: I mean he might have had a secretary or somebody there, but I don't think there was any other. It was just to see the Congressman, as he says in his little memo there—"Saw Congressman Mansfield," etc. But it happened to be just at the time when the surrender issue was up, and I would not be at all surprised if he asked you about that, because you mentioned some of the terms when you talked to the AP reporter the same day.
MM: Well it must be true, but I have no recollection.
DO: Right. Okay. Here's one having to do with the question of Flathead Lake, which we've talked about before. And a writer says, "Following World War II, Mansfield learned more about the actual but unpublicized justification for raising the level of the lake. The increased energy production, which would have resulted, was to be allocated to the Atomic Energy Commission's Hanford Works in the State of Washington. Acknowledgment of the existence of an atomic
5 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. program was prevented by wartime restrictions. 'Had he been informed of the real military justification/ Mansfield later said, 'he would not have opposed the plan.'"
M M: That's news to me. My feeling was the reason they wanted to raise Flathead Lake was to provide additional power downstream. I don't recall making any statement about Flathead Lake in relation to atomic power.
DO: Okay. Good.
MM: (?) ** I don't know this. This was my first term.
DO: This says that you found out later that that was the purpose and that had you known that, you wouldn't have opposed the raising the water.
MM: No, if I did, I've forgotten it, but I don't think I said that. Not that I wouldn't oppose it even under those purposes.
DO: Another one: "During the Vietnam War Mansfield carried American casualty lists with him in indication of his deep concern over the loss of life." I don't know if that is true or not.
MM: I did. I used to carry them constantly. On one occasion, Bill Sellinger (?) was with the New York Times...I think. Retired now.
DO: Bill. You're not talking about John Finney?
MM: John Finney! [He] brought a bunch of school children from New York or Connecticut around, and he said, "M ike"—to the kids—"always carries these lists in his pocket. Why don't you show them?" I put my hand in my pocket [gestures to breast pocket of his short] and I didn't have them. But I did carry them. I was keeping up to date.
DO: These were the how many killed, how many wounded? Is that the sort of thing it was?
M M: Dead and wounded, yes.
DO: But the numbers, right?
MM: Oh, the numbers, I thought that was the important thing and the steady increase. And John lives somewhere around here.
DO: Yes, I know John. I've seen him. I haven't seen him since I started working on this.
MM: I was embarrassed. He was right, I did carry them, but that was the one day I didn't have them.
6 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DO: Where did you get them?
MM: From the newspapers. I got most of my stuff from newspapers.
DO: We talked about the genesis of the 18-year-old vote amendment. Your recollection was that you were sitting there, some legislation was up, [Warren] Magnuson was sitting behind you and he tapped you on the shoulder and said what about putting this into the bill-it is a good time for it.
MM: He said, "When I was in the state legislature in Washington I tried to do it and couldn't get anywhere."
DO: This is an account that's out of a biography of Magnuson. I don't know if this has any validity or not. It may be mostly true, but maybe not. I guess this is Magnuson's recollection or was. [From book says they talked about it in car]
MM: No. He leaned over, and said why don't you offer that amendment for 18 year olds. He said, "I tried for years in the state legislature to get it done and didn't get anywhere. Now's our chance." So I offered the amendment—I agreed with him—along with Magnuson. And it passed. But before it passed, the Senator from West Virginia —
DO: [Jennings] Randolph, yes.
MM: Yes. He was almost begging me publicly to withdraw it, because he had been working on it for years. I just couldn't do it. It was a little awkward. I found out later that Ted Kennedy had offered such a bill and was considering it. I said, put his name on it. I think Randolph and Kennedy's names were on the amendment. It passed. Kennedy was in Ireland. His office was in an uproar because it was one of Kennedy's really pet projects. Then Celler (?) was against it in the House but the House passed it anyway. Then somebody appealed to the courts. The Supreme Court—oh, then it went to the Judiciary Committee and Birch Bayh, I think, was the one who was responsible for getting it out, and the decision there I think—I might be mixed a little—was taken to the Supreme Court and upheld. So it is the 26th amendment to the Constitution now, I think, and Bayh was the one who did it, and Magnuson was the one who suggested it, and I was the one who offered it. Bayh's name was on the amendment later. (?) the committee. The real inspiration for it, as far as I am concerned, was Maggie, [Magnuson] who leaned over my shoulder.
DO: Here's another thing from the biography of Magnuson. This has to do with Senator Hugh Scott. It says, "Although it would prove less potent than the missile gap, Republicans still had the China card to play against Democrats. A nasty argument broke out inside Congress when Senator Hugh Scott, the Republican Minority Leader from Pennsylvania, is alleged to have called Senator Clair Engle, Gale McGee, William Fullbright, Mike Mansfield and Magnuson and
7 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Representative Charles Porter of Oregon jackasses for their tolerant attitude toward Red China."
MM: News to me. My relations with Scott were superb, as they were with Dirksen.
DO: Right. Okay. This is another one on China. According to Dean Rusk, when you went to see Jack Kennedy at his house in Georgetown, before he became President, but after he was elected, as President elect, you went with some suggestions about foreign policy. And one of the more prominent ones was to do something about China. You pointed out that a lot had changed in China, but that the Eisenhower administration had basically done nothing to try to improve the situation between the United States and China. And this was part of the discussion, according to your own notes. Now, Dean Rusk, in his memoirs, says that he was interested also in doing something regarding China, but that in May 1961—this is now four months after Kennedy became President—he and Kennedy had a private discussion about it.
MM: With whom?
DO: Between Rusk and Kennedy, between Dean Rusk and Jack Kennedy. And Kennedy said, "Look, I was so narrowly elected. I don't have much of a mandate. This thing would cause a big political problem if we move on this and I just don't think I can do anything about he subject of China, at least in my first term as President. It's just overloading the circuits, more or less." The question is, did you know that? Do you remember whether you knew that was his feeling that he'd like to do it, but he just couldn't do it?
MM: No, the answer to the two questions is no. I don't even recall being in Kennedy's house. And the Rusk thing is news to me.
DO: You made a speech on Berlin that caused a lot of comment in 1961. Was that in any way coordinated with Kennedy or was it purely on your own?
MM: No, just my own idea, to make Berlin itself a special city, as I recall, to rule all of Germany. Didn't get anywhere with it; got a lot of criticism. No support that I can recall. Don't know what the time factor was in relation to the action we took to keep Berlin open through an airlift. To shift attention to Berlin, to give it the recognition I thought it deserved, to make it German and to help bring about a better relationship between East and West, and hopefully a reconciliation. I'm not too certain even of what I've just said but that's the best I can give you.
DO: But it was not coordinated with Kennedy?
M M: Oh no. Nobody.
DO: According to the White House logs of the Kennedy Administration, you went to the White House on November 22, 1963, the day that Kennedy was killed, but he was already in Texas.
8 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. And I don't know if you recall why you were there or was this something after he was killed or was this routine meeting of some sort before he was killed? I don't know if you have any recollection of your recollection with Kennedy or why you were in the White House that day.
MM: I don't recall being in White House that day. I don't know what would have made me be there. If Kennedy was away from the White House, I was away from the White House. I didn't go down there to see anybody else. I don't think I was at the White House that day, because I was on the floor when—
DO: When you got the news.
M M: Spessard Holland, I think, who was in the chair. Was it?
DO: I don't know.
MM: From Florida. Made the announcement. Everything stopped then.
DO: There was a leadership meeting at the White House, which I am sure you attended just before he went to Dallas, tw o days before.
MM: That is probably true. I don't know what we discussed. I can't recall.
DO: You were interested in returning, well you were always interested in returning to China, and in 1967—the next to last year of the Johnson administration—you made a bid to return to China. And the question is, do you recall whether Dean Rusk interfered with it or discouraged it or what his attitude might have been toward your going to China at that time. This is the next to last year of LBJ's administration.
MM: Don't recall that. I never got along too well with Rusk. I have no recollection of discussing such a thing with Johnson and don't see any reason why I should because I could have—no, I couldn't have gone on my own then. That was before Nixon started. Not that I recall. Might be something to it. Check closer.
DO: Yes, I'll check into it, but I don't think there's any—this is reference I just found somewhere as I was doing this. And these things, I mean I know you won't remember all these things, but I thought I would just ask you in case you had some memory or you could say yes or no or whatever, I don't remember.
M M: Yes.
DO: Now, there's a really weird one. A friend of mine, who was a friend of your daughter, Anne, said that at some point in the Johnson administration she [Anne] was working for some overseas radio or television station, doing some work for them. She went to see Johnson.
9 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Johnson gave her an interview—probably because she was your daughter—as President. She went in there and to her surprise, Johnson starting putting the moves on her, trying to have her cotton up to Johnson and he chased her around the Oval Office according to this person who was a friend of Anne's. I don't know if that rings any bell at all with you.
MM: A faint one. She was working for some outfit. Wasn't staying home. We weren't getting along too well. She's supposed to have a meeting with Johnson, but what happened at that meeting, I don't know. And I don't know what the meeting was all about.
DO: I think it was an interview or something. Tom Foley, when I saw him in Tokyo several months ago, said that—now this is what he heard, it's not certifying it's true, but he heard the story—that early in your tour as Ambassador, you asked for contingency plan of what would happen in case of war, for example in Korea or someplace like that. You were told by the military that they weren't authorized to tell you that. He said, "He"—meaning Mansfield—"just smiled. Twenty-four hours later they received a message from the Pentagon saying that they would satisfy the Ambassador in all respects—repeat all respects, or be ready to be relieved of their jobs."
MM: What was that last part?
DO: Where I put that question mark. [Shows him papers.] This is Foley's recollection of what he heard. Not any good? Okay. Well you hear all kinds of stories.
M M: I'd expect that.
DO: Here's another one. I think I asked you about this last time, but in a rather garbled way and I may not have gotten the question clear. This is out of a Japanese newspaper, which got most of their information, it seems to me, from Dan Russell, because they quote him a lot in this newspaper article. Here, why don't you just read it. Here is where the quote begins, the question mark by it. [Japanese press report that after questions raised about whether M would be replaced, got a handwritten letter saying he could stay as long as he wanted to.]
MM: "When Reagan became the President, he made an unusual request for Mansfield to remain in office."
DO: That's correct.
MM: "Furthermore, when a rumor on his resignation came from a source close to the President, he"—the President?
DO: Yes.
10 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. MM: "Sent a polite hand written letter up to Ambassador Mansfield to decide whether to resign. Reading, 'I want you to do as you please.' No letter received. In response to this, the Ambassador said, to those around him, that 'It is not for me to say that I am going to resign and I have no intention of doing so.'" No.was It my intention to resign because I was a political appointee and I understood the rules; didn't disagree with them. No. This is wrong. "This being the case, it is widely implied, no means possible, to predict the accurate timing of his resignation."
DO: You know, when I was a correspondent for the Washington Post, covering U.S. diplomacy I said I had tw o jobs. One job was to get the best report of what was going onthat I could. The other job was equally important and that was to keep wrong information out of thenewspaper, because we get tons of stuff across the desk.
M M: Oh sure.
DO: So part of this is to keep wrong information—just because somebody has written it, you don't want to repeat it, if it's not right.
MM: I wouldn't attribute that to Danny Russell.
DO: Yes, well I don't know if it was his or not.
MM: He was as good as they came. Superior assistant. He is now a deputy chief of mission in Cyprus.
DO: That's right.
MM: Maybe you ought to check with him.
DO: I sent him—not about this—but I sent him a fax telling him how I was getting along in this project, because he and I have talked about it.
M M: Oh, you've met Danny?
DO: Oh, yes.
M M: Oh sure. He's a superb fellow.
DO: I knew him in Korea.
M M: Oh you did?
DO: When he was assigned in Korea.
11 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. MM: Then you probably knew all about him. Very trustworthy.
DO: Good man. Good man. In Washington, how many different houses did you have here?
MM: When we came here in the House, we went to a place called Fairfax Village, which was a new construction. You go to the end of Pennsylvania Avenue beyond the Capitol. At the top there used to be a—what is the (?) firm called out of Boston? They just sold their place to George Washington University across from the Watergate Hotel. Twenty something, about 27 or 28 figures.
DO: Oh, Howard Johnson.
MM: Yes. You go around down there about one block, a little bit more. I think you came to a place called, a street called, Minnesota [Avenue] and there is the village. All white. I would say, at least 20, maybe 30 members of the House lived there.
DO: This is on the hill? Capital Hill somewhere?
MM: Beyond.
DO: Oh, just beyond there.
MM: You've got Pennsylvania about a mile, then you hit this 27 or 28 Cleveland, then you turn right, and just about half way down there is the village. I understood it is all black now. And then when we got elected to the Senate, because of the longer term attached, we decided to buy a house. Maureen went around looking for houses.
DO: Fairfax, you were just renting that?
MM: Paying rent. Yes. We were there five and a half years, six, maybe a little bit more. Around six years anyway. She found a house. She went looking and she found this house. Funny thing happened. And we went out. Number was 4,500 [2,500 ?] Dexter Street. We bought it for 40,000 dollars, which took a lot of going to get. [Senate salary 1953 was 15,000 dollars.] When we went to Japan, we turned the house over to Anne. She sold it just before we came back, or just after we came back, and went to England. They didn't live there too much. I think they rented it out some, lived there some. So she got a good price for it. We paid the district taxes on it and she took the rest.
DO: You were living on your salary from the Senate completely?
MM: That's right. That's all we had. It was doing our first term [in the Senate] that Maureen thought we ought to really start saving money. First term in the Senate. So we started the
12 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. making of a trust. I think we started with 100,000 dollars at the American Security Bank there. Of course it's been getting easier.
DO: Do you know how much you were making as a Senator? I do.
M M: It was not much.
DO: 15,000 dollars.
MM: I think 10,000 dollars in the House maybe.
DO: No, the Senate was the same.
M M: While I was in the House.
DO: When you went there it might have been, but by the time—
MM: 15,000 dollars.
DO: As a freshman Senator. I knew because you told me about your conversation with Kennedy about his expenses—medical expenses—he had a 10-million-dollar trust fund.
M M: Well, they tell me he never had any money in his pocket.
DO: Yes, because he never paid for anything. Smathers complained to his father that whenever they went out Smathers ended up paying the bill. Joe Kennedy says, Well, he doesn't have any money. He just send the bill to me, I'll pay it.
MM: Well, Smathers could afford it.
DO: Yes. Then, when you came back from Japan this is the apartment you are living in now?
MM: Yes, Maureen when we found out we were going to be there for a second term, then I thought we should go. But, we stayed. After we had been assured that we would be kept on — 1985.
DO: 1981.
M M: Came back here and Maureen and I think Anne went around looking for apartments, and finally got one at 3900 Watson Place, where we now live, where I live. She lives at that other place. They wanted to get in the Westchester, but there were no vacancies. So we had this place since 1985, but we didn't really occupy it until we came back in 1988.
13 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DO: How big an apartment is it?
MM: It's one big room, three bedrooms, two showers and a tub. I guess she wanted a three- bedroom apartment. Incidentally, I think one of your old colleagues lives in the other building, a fellow by the name of Haynes Johnson.
DO: Oh, Haynes. Of course, yes.
M M: Building A, I think, we live in Building B. I think he lives there or was.
DO: He's a wonderful reporter.
MM: But he's not reporting.
DO: No. He's a television personality and he's written some books and so on. Yes, he's on this program often—the News Hour, about the best program on, Public Television. And they call him in to comment on one thing or another. These guys, like Haynes, whose face is familiar, charge big fees for elections and so forth. I'm sure he does. But, he deserves it, he did a lot of good work for the Washington Post.
MM: I think I met him once with one of my old students who lived in the same building. But, I don't remember.
DO: How did you come to work with Goldman Sachs? How did that happen?
MM: I had announced my resignation, and a representative of Goldman Sachs came to see me about working for them. I thought he was crazy, just kidding. I passed it off at a meeting.
DO: This is still in Tokyo? When you were still there?
M M: Yes, I was 85. And he came back again. I mentioned it to Maureen, and she couldn't believe it either. I figured this guy was serious, and I still didn't say yes because I couldn't quite believe it. Then he called on us some time in January '89 in our apartment. And he made the offer again. Somehow or other, Stan Kimmitt was with him at the time. I understand the original suggestion may have come from [Walter] Mondale, but I'm not certain about this job... So Maureen and I were there, and we discussed things: insurance, what kind of work—not really intimate financing, sort of general, concentrating on Japan and incidentally the rest of East Asia. It was the end of January '89. Finally we said yes. The first week of February they sent me a contract, which I signed and sent back. And the first of next month, I got my paycheck for the full month of February, because this was the end of the first week [that he went to work]. I'm still surprised I got the job. I just can't understand it. I never heard of hiring anybody at 85, and still keeping them on at 96. Best job I ever had.
14 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DO: What does the job actually entail? What do you really do?
M M: Report on Japan events when asked. Meet a lot of Japanese coming, and going. Meet with people like Jay McNaughton and Bill Breer and Danny Russell and a few others. Keep up to date. It was something I think I would have been doing anyway. But I wouldn't have access to news reports, etc. [tape turning over]
DO: I heard Mondale called you and told you this was a good outfit and you shouldn't worry about it and stuff like that.
MM: No. But I heard indirectly that Mondale was the guy who suggested it. What's his name? Gene? Goldman Sachs anyway. A fellow by the name of Gene Atkinson, I think was the one w ho—
DO: Came to see you.
MM: Back in Tokyo. He got Goldman Sachs started in Asia. Spent about 10 years out there himself, in Tokyo and I guess the rest of Asia as well, East Asia. I think he's still with them. Still can't get over it. But it happened.
DO: Yes. That's great. Have you given up smoking your pipe?
M M: Nope. I've given up traveling, because of Maureen. Last time I was in Japan was in 1993, but I could have gone anywhere at any time. Just couldn't do it. Satisfied.
DO: Yes. We're going to Japan at the end of the year for about two weeks. NHK [Japan's largest broadcast company] has a satellite channel or something that it's had all year (doing) a series of programs on the 10 greatest news stories of the 20th century. They asked me as an American to work with them, cooperate with them on this program. They asked a Russian journalist and they asked a German. The beginning of the year they had a program. They wanted me to come to Tokyo. I couldn't do it. But I went to New York and over a live satellite hook—this was at 4 o'clock in the morning, New York time, 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock Tokyo time—and then they came and filmed me twice on stories, which I participated in. One was the Vietnam War and the other one was the Civil Rights movement in the South. So on December 30th they are going to have the last program in this series, and I'm going to go out to Japan for the program. Take my wife and then there is a group of historians sponsored by something called the National Security Archive at George Washington University that's making some reports on various aspects of U.S. and Japan policy and I'm writing a report for them—I agreed to do it two years ago—on U.S. Japan policy towards Korea. So they're having a meeting on the 7th of January. So we're going to go out there on the 27th of December, do this program, stay over New Years, go to the thing on the 7th of January. In between time Laura and I, I think are going to go somewhere else out of Tokyo to get a good feel for some other place. We are thinking about going to Kanazawa, which is a town that we went.
15 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. MM: (unintelligible)
DO: I was in two-thirds of all the prefectures of Japan as a correspondent. And I loved Kanazawa. It's an old city. It was not bombed during the war. A lot of the old parts remain. I've been to Kyoto and Nara so many times I don't want to go back there. It's just too familiar. So we are going to have probably about tw o weeks in Japan.
M M: Why don't you go down to Nagasaki?
DO: Well, that's another possibility.
M M: Ask them when I passed through.
DO: Yes, right. You found out it was a different day, right? Or a different ship or something?
MM: Both. I think it was different month and a different general. They called the troop ships general this. I thought it was Logan, they said no, it was something else. I thought it was August, I think. They said, no it's September. So it's wrong.
DO: It's amazing they still have the records.
MM: I guess. I don't know how it survived the A-bomb. They check somewhere.
DO: As you know, it's a very hilly place.
M M: Beautiful place, though.
DO: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So we are going to do that and see some of Japan again. I expect I'm probably going to China for about a week in October as part of a discussion group that's between us and the Chinese. W e'll just go to Beijing. We'll get a sense of what they are thinking over there. I'm always interested in going to China and seeing what they have to say.
MM: I think we all should be interested in what's happening in China because it's there. We've got to get along with it.
DO: I think it's very unfortunate that it's now becoming again a partisan football.
M M: It's too bad. It's very delicate. After all China means a great deal to civilization. A superpower now, getting stronger all the time. A lot of trouble spots: North Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia. Apparently they are having difficulties in Xinjiang and other places such as Tibet. They've got their own problems too. But it's an unusual situation with the Communist government and capitalist economy.
16 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DO: Yes.
MM: Ought to be given time to work out. But if you take it into a WTO, bend the rules a little, get them on our side more, recognize that we extend to our citizens of many countries internal affairs. (?) Pay more attention to. That relationship is extremely important. In the meantime the Chinese have worked out a back door friendship pact with Russia and these other countries along the border there. Just met again last week. So they've got troubles too. Not just Tibet, but Xinjiang and other places. But the Paracels is occupied by the sub base in the Spratleys. (?) Six or seven nations fighting for them. And the northern territories. Pakistan.
DO: I'm talking to a group of military officers today at the National Defense University about Northeast Asia. I'm giving them a general, overall kind of talk about China, Japan and Korea, basically. My impression: You know, I'm not terribly worried about China. I don't consider China an aggressive nation. I can't imagine that the Chinese have any idea of dominating, let's say the Philippines or Indonesia or some other place. The areas, it seems to me anyway, where the Chinese are troublesome, is areas which they think of as theirs, such as Taiwan, which they consider a part of China, some of these islands in the South China Sea, which they believe rightly belong to them, Tibet, which they have their own claims on and so forth.
MM: Spanning over centuries.
DO: But I don't see it either in their mentality or in their interests or in their capability to be some expanding power that's going to try to dominate the rest of East Asia. I think the Japanese see it rather differently. They are more worried about the Chinese than I am.
MM: Well, I think they are worried about the past as well as the present. And their worry about China, I think, is their worry towards North Korea, though to a far lesser degree, and that's nuclear. But, China undoubtedly has designs on the Spratleys, but they settled the question of the Paracels by just taking them over. I think China is beginning to worry more about North Korea, strange as that may sound, and is becoming much more friendly with South Korea.
DO: Yes.
M M: The Japanese of course are very concerned about North Korea.
DO: I heard from an unofficial person and an official person—I haven't tried to check it out, but I heard—that in the middle of June the Chinese told us both unofficially and officially that the North Koreans were not going to have another missile launch. Apparently they had this word from the North Koreans in some conversation.
MM: Not now, later.
17 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DO: Well, maybe someday.
M M: Yes. They already had one anyway.
DO: That's right. They had one last August. They had it last August. They could do it if they want, but—
M M: You've got the U.S., Russia, China, Japan coming together.
DO: It's a very interesting part of the world. Thanks for your help, Mike.
M M: Okay.
DO: Who is this speaking up here in this portrait?
MM: Someone by the name of Fillmore.
DO: The President? The guy who become President?
MM: He was Vice President.
DO: Not Millard Fillmore?
MM: The President died, I forget who it was, Harrison?
DO: Yes.
M M: And he became President in 1853 and he sent Perry to Japan. This was given to me by the Democrats when I first came back at one of their luncheons. And that was in the old Senate Chamber.
DO: Yes. Where you made your speech that last year.
MM: And I think behind it, pasted or over there somewhere, we had the names of all these people.
DO: Is this an original?
M M: What do you call that, a lithograph?
DO: Beats me.
MM: A daguerreotype or what?
18 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DO: I don't know. Is this an original piece of (?)
MM: I don't know.
DO: I guess it probably is.
M M: An awful lot of room.
DO: That's presented by George Mitchell, 3-16-93.
M M: That's good. I just had a lunch.
DO: Beautiful. Lovely.
MM: But I don't know. Maureen has a picture at home. It's very dark. I don't know what it's called, of an Indian. What is a daguerretype?
DO: Yes, it's the predecessor of the modern photograph. I thought maybe it was given to you because of your making a speech. But no, this was done earlier.
[Lithograph (?) of Senate in session in 1850, presented to MM by Senate Democrats when he first returned from Japan. (Actually, legend says presented by George Mitchell, 3-16-93). MM says presented at a lunch. Shows Millard Fillmore, VP, speaking in Old Senate Chamber. Later became President on death of Harrison. In 1853 he sent Perry to Japan.]
* Information in brackets is the observations and/or comments of Oberdorfer. ** Question mark in parentheses reflects inaudible section of dialogue.
19 Mike Mansfield Interview, OH 391-010, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula.