Mike Mansfield
Encyclopedia : M : MI : MIK : Mike Mansfield
- This article describes the American politician. For the British lawyer, see Michael Mansfield.
Military service
Mansfield left home in 1917, before completing the 8th grade and joined the United States Navy at 14 years of age on 23 February 1918. During the First World War, ten of Mansfield’s nineteen months of service were spent overseas. He subsequently served a one-year hitch in the Army.On 10 November 1920, Mike Mansfield enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at San Francisco, California. Serving in the Western Recruiting Division at San Francisco until January 1921, he was transferred to the Marine Barracks at Puget Sound, Washington, were he remained until February. At that time he was detached to the Guard Company, Marine Barracks, Navy Yard, Mare Island, California. In April of 1921, Mansfield boarded the USAT Sherman for the Philippines. After a brief stopover at the Marine Barracks at Cavite, he arrived at his duty station on 5 May 1921, the Marine Barracks, Naval Station, Olongapo, Philippine Islands. After nearly twelve months of duty at Olongapo, Mansfield was assigned to Company A, Marine Battery, Asiatic Fleet. His month long tour of duty with the Asiatic Fleet took him up and down the coast of China before he returned to Olongapo in late May, 1922.
In August 1922, Mansfield returned to Cavite in preparation for his return to the United States and eventual discharge from the Marine Corps. On 9 November 1922, Private Michael J. Mansfield was discharged upon expiration of his enlistment. Awarded the Good Conduct Medal, Mansfield’s character was described as “excellent” during two years of service.
Education
Mansfield returned to Montana after his discharge where he worked in the Butte mines as a miner and mining engineer until 1930. Having never attended high school, Mansfield had to read and study to take the entrance examinations to become eligible to enter college. He attended the Montana School of Mines from 1927 to 1928 and Montana State University from 1930 to 1934. At the University he was awarded the B.A. and M.A. degrees and went on to teach there for ten years. Before being elected to his first term in Congress in 1942, he was the Professor of Latin American and Far Eastern History at the Montana State University.Congressional service
He served as a member of the Democratic Party in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1943 until 1953 and in the United States Senate from 1953 until 1977. During his tenure in the Senate, he served as the majority leader from 1961 to 1977; he is the longest serving majority leader in the history of the Senate.
An early supporter of Ngo Dinh Diem, Mansfield had a change of heart on the Vietnam issue after a visit in 1962. He reported to President Kennedy on December 2, 1962 that US money given to Diem's government was being squandered and that the US should avoid further involvement in Vietnam. He was thus the first American official to comment adversely on the war's progress. During the Johnson presidency, Mansfield became a frequent and vocal critic of US involvement in the Vietnam war. He hailed the new Nixon administration, especially the "Nixon Doctrine" announced at Guam in 1969 that the US would 1) honor all U.S. treaty commitments against those who might invade the lands of allies of the United States; 2). To provide a nuclear umbrella against threats of other nuclear powers; and 3). To supply weapons and technical assistance to countries where warranted but without committing American forces to local conflicts. In turn Nixon turned to Mansfield for advice and as his liaison with the Senate on Vietnam. By 1970, however, he adopted the position that the Congress ought to pressure Nixon more, especially by stringent legislative limitations on the use of American forces and appropriated funds for the war. Nixon reduced American forces by 95%, leaving only 24,200 in late 1972; the last left in 1973.
Mansfield introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan
Mansfield retired from the Senate in 1976, and was appointed Ambassador to Japan in April 1977 by Jimmy Carter, a role he retained during the Reagan administration until 1988. Mansfield is particularly renowned for describing the United States-Japan relationship as the 'most important bilateral relationship in the world, bar none'. Mansfield's successor in Japan Michael Armacost noted in his memoirs that, for Mansfield, the phrase was a 'mantra'.After his retirement as ambassador, he worked as an advisor to Goldman Sachs on east Asian affairs.
Honors
His wife was Maureen Mansfield and the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Memorial Library at the University of Montana, Missoula is named after them, as was his request when informed of the honor. The library also contains the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center which is dedicated to Asian studies, and, like the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, "advancing understanding and co-operation in U.S.-Asia relations".The Montana Democratic Party holds an annual Mansfield-Metcalf Dinner named partially in his honor. He retired in 1989, Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom the same year, and died on October 5, 2001 at the age of 98. The controversial Mansfield Amendment of 1973 expressly limited appropriations for defense research (through ARPA) to projects with direct military application.
References
- This article incorporates text in the public domain from the United States Marine Corps.
- Gregory A. Olson, Mansfield and Vietnam, a Study in Rhetorical Adaptation Michigan State University Press, 1995
- Don Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat (ISBN 1588341666), 2003.
- Francis R. Valeo; Mike Mansfield, Majority Leader: A Different Kind of Senate, 1961-1976 M. E. Sharpe, 1999
- Charles and Barbara Whalen, The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Cabin John, `Maryland: Seven Locks Press, 1985).
- [The Honorable Michael J. Mansfield], Who's Who in Marine Corps History, History Division, United States Marine Corps. (URL access on April 22, 2006)
External links
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