Mike Mansfield and the Politics of Equality:
The Senate and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ranks among the most important and influential pieces of American legislation of the twentieth century. Yet the proposed bill divided the Senate into pro- and anti-civil rights factions which threatened irreparable damage to the Senate by exacerbating ideological differences. The fact that the civil rights bill passed at all, and that the debate did not divide the Senate beyond repair, is owed in no small part to the persistently fair and even-handed guidance of Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. Read more »
The Cambodian Campaign of 1970 and the Role of Mike Mansfield in
Expanding the Influence of the Senate in Foreign Policy
On April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon announced a limited U.S. invasion of Cambodia as the next phase in the ongoing war against communist North Vietnam. This action followed the overthrow of Cambodia’s neutralist government under Prince Sihanouk in March, and its replacement by a pro-Western regime under General Lon Nol. Nixon labeled the Cambodian campaign an “incursion.” He claimed that the limited invasion was necessary to clear out the North Vietnamese Army’s communist “sanctuaries” in the Fish Hook region of eastern Cambodia and bring about “peace with honor” in South Vietnam. Read more »
‘Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote’:
Mike Mansfield and the Eighteen Year Old Vote
On June 1, 1970, Democratic Senator and Majority Leader Mike Mansfield gave a commencement speech at Flathead High School in Kalispell, Montana. The title of the address was “Problems and Prospects,” a fitting theme during a turbulent period in America. During the late 1960s and early 1970s increasing numbers of the nation’s youth were protesting against racial injustice, gender discrimination and the war in Vietnam. Among the topics of Mansfield’s speech was the national campaign to lower the voting age to 18, a goal Mansfield had consistently promoted as Senate Majority Leader and one he was soon to play a prominent role in achieving. Read more »
China Revisited:
Mike Mansfield and the U.S. Opening to China in 1972
President Richard Nixon ended more than twenty years of economic and political isolation between Communist China and the United States in 1972 when he became the first U.S. President to visit the People’s Republic. Nixon’s historic visit, widely considered one of the most successful policy initiatives of his presidency, became the first step in the normalization of U.S.-China relations. President Nixon’s overture to China would not have been possible, however, without the efforts of Montana’s Senator Mike Mansfield, Majority Leader in the Senate and a longstanding policy expert on East Asian affairs. Not only did Mansfield receive an offer to visit the People’s Republic before Nixon—an offer which paved the way for Nixon’s own visit—but Mansfield’s view of the necessity of a Chinese overture largely accorded with Nixon’s own and helped launch a new era of peaceful Chinese-American relations. Read more »
Sticking to His Guns:
Mike Mansfield, the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Election of 1970
Mike Mansfield was a Democratic Senator from Montana and served as Majority Leader of the United States Senate from 1961 to 1976. As a representative of a state known for its frontier mentality and strong hunting traditions, Mansfield may have seemed an unlikely candidate to support gun control legislation. Nevertheless, in 1968 Mansfield co-sponsored legislation that the Congress passed and President Lyndon Johnson signed into law as the Gun Control Act of 1968. Despite pressure from many of his constituents to reverse his stance on the legislation, Mansfield never wavered in his conviction that the law was a necessary and appropriate measure to combat gun crime. His perseverance resulted in the first significant national gun control legislation since the Great Depression. Read more »
Stemming the Rising Tide of Japanese Auto Imports:
How Ambassador Mike Mansfield Helped Avoid a U.S.-Japanese Trade War
In the decades following the end of World War Two, Japan underwent a dramatic transition from a defeated empire to a world economic and political power. Japan became a key strategic ally of the United States during the Cold War era due to its geographical proximity to communist Russia, China, and North Korea, the increasing volume of U.S.-Japan trade, and its status as one of the few democracies in the Pacific region. The postwar U.S.-Japanese partnership, however, was not without difficulties. Starting in the late 1960s, growing Japanese auto and electronics exports, coupled with slowing economic growth in the United States, resulted in a trade imbalance in favor of Japan. Indeed, the trade deficit—which ballooned from almost $10 billion in 1977 to over $50 billion by the mid-1980s—became one of the main issues of contention in U.S.-Japanese relations. Read more »
The Man Who Reserved Judgment:
Mike Mansfield and the Watergate Committee
Watergate, perhaps the most notorious political scandal of the twentieth century, has had a lasting impact on American politics and society. The Watergate break-in, and the role of President Nixon and his administration in the subsequent cover-up, shocked the nation and resulted in a loss of faith in the executive branch of government that lingers today. The criminal trial and conviction of numerous government officials, the resignations of President Nixon and Vice-President Agnew, and President Ford’s controversial pardon of Nixon, all contributed to the sense that American government was corrupt, broken, and in need of repair. Read more »
The Campaign for Congressional Oversight of the CIA:
Mike Mansfield and Intelligence Reform
First elected to Congress as a Democrat from Montana’s western district in 1942, Mike Mansfield served in the House of Representatives from 1943 to 1953 and as a United States Senator from 1953 to 1977, with the added responsibility and prestige of serving as Majority Leader of the Senate from 1961 until his retirement. In Congress, Mansfield represented both Montana and the nation with a rare combination of fairness, modesty, and nonpartisanship. Mansfield’s tenure in Congress corresponded with some of the most chaotic times in the modern history of the United States, including the end of World War Two and the beginning of the Cold War, the United States’ involvement in conflicts in Korea and South Vietnam, the political turbulence of the 1960s, Watergate, and beyond. One of Mansfield’s signature and recurring issues of concern touched on all of the previous events in some way or another: the attempt to address what he perceived as the unchecked power and lack of oversight of the United States intelligence services, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Read more »