The Negotiator: A Memoir

by George Mitchell Narrated by Norman Dietz

Overview

Compelling, poignant, enlightening stories from former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell about growing up in Maine, his years in the Senate, working to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and what he's learned about the art of negotiation during every stage of his life. It's a classic story of the American Dream.



George Mitchell grew up in a working class family in Manie, experiencing firsthand the demoralizing effects of unemployment when his father was laid off from a lifelong job. But education was always a household priority, and Mitchell embraced every opportunity that came his way, eventually becoming the ranking Democrat in the Senate during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.



Told with wit, frankness, and a style all his own, Senator Mitchell's memoir reveals many insights into the art of negotiation. Mitchell looks back at his adventures in law and politics-including instrumental work on clean air and water legislation, the Iran-Contra hearings, and healthcare reform-as well as life after the Senate, from leading the successful Northern Ireland peace process, to serving as chairman of The Walt Disney Company, to heading investigations into the use of steroids in baseball and unethical activity surrounding the Olympic Games. Through it all, Senator Mitchells incredible stories some hilarious, others tragic, all revealing offer invaluable insights into critical moments in the last half-century of business, law, and politics, both domestic and international.

Editorial Reviews

Bangor Daily News

The memoir includes many lighthearted and oddball anecdotes not normally associated with high-profile conflict resolution and political debate.

Buffalo News

"Not many authors can use their life as an American as a subtitle for a memoir. But when you’re a former federal judge, Senate majority leader, leader of the peace talks in Northern Ireland, chairman of the board of the Disney Corp. and investigator of illegal use of stimulants by baseball players, it seems a perfect fit.

Seattle Times

"Compelling. George Mitchell’s story... provides eloquent testimony to the power of the American dream."

Booklist

"A natural storyteller, Mitchell offers fascinating stories from his long and varied careers."

Booklist

"A natural storyteller, Mitchell offers fascinating stories from his long and varied careers."

JULY 2015 - AudioFile

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitchell occasionally evokes empathy from listeners relative to the complex challenges he’s taken on in his life. It’s all here: his coming-of-age in Maine in a working-class family, his public service in the U.S. Senate, and his negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East (both of which yielded mixed results). Narrator Norman Dietz sounds clear and quite crisp in his enunciation, though his delivery of information reflects Mitchell’s methodical communication style. This audiobook will likely appeal to those who enjoy books on world history and politics. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171359409
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	05/05/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Negotiator

Right over there, just across the tracks, in what used to be Head of Falls, the senator was born.”

As he said those words, Tom Nale, the mayor of Waterville, pointed to his left. The few people in the crowd, standing in the November cold, instinctively turned to look. From the square in front of City Hall, where the Veterans Day ceremony was taking place, they could see little: a railroad track, across it a parking lot, and then a short, grassy slope down to the Kennebec River. As I too looked toward the river, I thought about living “right over there” many years ago.

Head of Falls, usually pronounced “hedda falls,” was the informal name given to a small triangle of land along the banks of the Kennebec River in Waterville, Maine. Bounded roughly by a railroad track, the river, and a textile mill, it consisted of about two acres of land onto which were crammed dozens of buildings, most of them apartment houses. Inside were jammed scores of families, almost all of them immigrants. It was the lowest rung on the American ladder of success.

Prior to 1900 most of them were French Canadian from Quebec. As families established themselves, they moved up and out of Head of Falls and were replaced by more recent immigrants. After the turn of the century, as the number of immigrants from what is now known as Lebanon grew, they gradually displaced the French Canadians, who in turn moved to a section of Waterville called The Plains. By 1933, when I was born, almost all of the families living there were Lebanese immigrants; a few French Canadian families remained, in homes adjacent to the textile mill.

The Head of Falls has since been cleared and turned into a parking lot. If it still existed, it would be described as a slum. But to me and the many children who lived there it was just home. On one side was the Kennebec River, rising in northern Maine and flowing southerly to the coast. The river is now clean, used by rafters, boaters, fishermen, and even some swimmers. Seventy years ago it was a stinking, open sewer; the towns located on the river dumped their sewage into it, and many industries added their wastes. Directly across and just up the river from Head of Falls, in the neighboring town of Winslow, the Hollingsworth and Whitney paper mill daily discharged huge volumes of wastes, as did the textile mill on the Waterville side. As a result the river usually was covered with scum and foam. It looked terrible and smelled worse.

The name Head of Falls comes from a nearby point in the river where it drops sharply. A dam now marks the spot. Just above the dam, a railroad bridge spans the river. It carries a main track of what was then the Maine Central Railroad. As it crossed into Waterville, that track formed one long boundary of Head of Falls, separating it from the town center. In the 1930s Waterville was a rail center, with a large repair shop located less than a mile to the north of the bridge. Large trains regularly rumbled past, shaking every building and covering the area with soot.

The third, short side of the triangle, across Temple Street, was a large textile mill, the Wyandotte Worsted Factory. Since its discharges occurred on the Waterville side, just a few feet up river, the water directly adjacent to Head of Falls was particularly foul. The Wyandotte mill, also since torn down to make way for a parking lot, was noisy, the clatter of its looms filling the air around the clock. Combined with the whine of the paper mill’s huge saws cutting trees into wood chips and the rumble of the trains, it made Head of Falls a very noisy place.

It sounds bad now, but it didn’t seem so then. That was just the way it was. Not until I left home to go to college, at the age of seventeen, did I realize what it’s like to sleep through the night without the sound and feel of a passing train.

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