The Negotiator

by George Mitchell

  Part of the answer must come from ordinary Israelis and Palestinians. Will they, like the people of Northern Ireland and elsewhere, eventually tire of fear and anxiety, death and destruction? If and when they do, we must encourage them to make their desire for peace clear to their leaders. And we then must provide all the assistance necessary for them to achieve the greatest gift of all: peace to those who for years have known only war.

  * * *

  I. At the Madrid Conference in 1991 the United States devised a formula to overcome Israeli objections to meeting directly with the PLO by accepting a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation whose liaison committee was led by Faisal Husseini. Though his lineage and family profile tied him to Jerusalem (he was the grandson of a former grand mufti) and the fight against the Zionist groups in 1948 (his father was a chief commander of the Arab forces), the Israelis could point to the fact that he was born in Baghdad rather than explicitly or implicitly acknowledge any historic Palestinian claim to Jerusalem.

  II. Prior to the 1967 war, Jerusalem was a divided city. East Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan. It was a relatively small area of just over six square kilometers, including the Old City. After that war Israel added all of Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem, which it had controlled prior to 1967. Israel subsequently expanded Jerusalem’s boundaries in all directions by including some of its own sovereign territory and sixty-five square kilometers of West Bank territory. East Jerusalem, then, is a political more than a geographic term and refers to the part of Jerusalem earlier controlled by Jordan and then expanded by Israel to the east, north, and south, using West Bank territory. Neither the United States nor any other country has ever recognized these Israeli annexations. So the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians over Jerusalem includes disagreement over its boundaries.

  III. Israel’s view appears to be that prior agreements that defined the issues and referenced UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 provide sufficient terms of reference.

  IV. But that was the previous government, under Prime Minister Olmert. As noted above, Prime Minister Netanyahu, to the contrary, strongly opposed, in public and in private, before and after his becoming prime minister, the descussions on security and Jerusalem by Olmert and the Palestinian Authority in those earlier negotiations.

  THE SCHOLARS

  Stephanie Littlehale had a rough childhood, growing up in a dysfunctional family in a small town in Maine. At the age of seventeen she found herself alone and homeless. Many of her nights were spent in the back of her 1992 Mazda in the parking lot at a nearby Walmart. Luckily some nights were spent on couches in the homes of friends. She always had big dreams of what her life could be one day; she wanted to change the world. But in the real world she wasn’t sure if she had enough gas to get to school in the morning or enough money to buy a bagel. She later described the feeling as “suffocating.” It was hard for her to even think about college when questions like “What will I eat?” and “Where will I live?” raced through her mind. She still had all those childhood dreams, but they were now hidden behind a fog of uncertainty, and they were slowly drifting away.

  One of the great things about living in Maine is the sense of community. Mainers protect their own. Stephanie had big dreams, but she lived in difficult circumstances. She needed support and direction, and her community delivered. Her high school guidance secretary paid for the dress Stephanie wore on the day of her high school graduation. Her English teacher comforted her when she came to her class in tears, worrying about the month’s rent. Anonymous gift cards were left for her in the front office of her high school so she could buy groceries and supplies. Most touching, however, was when one of her teachers and her husband invited Stephanie into their home to become a part of their family. As Stephanie later put it, “With the support of my community I am here today. I’m lucky. I was saved.” Stephanie graduated from college and now attends the Georgetown University Law School in Washington, DC.

  Eric Haskell grew up on Deer Isle, which is one of the most beautiful and isolated places in the state. After visiting the area, John Steinbeck wrote, in Travels with Charley, “One does not have to be sensitive to feel the strangeness of Deer Isle.” Today it remains predominantly a fishing community where most of Eric’s family continues to live and work. When Eric was growing up, his grandfather was a proud lobsterman who loved the sea. Eric later recalled standing on a milk crate at the helm of his grandfather’s boat, the Margaret Lee, trying his best to steer between the brightly colored lobster buoys. Unfortunately the sea claimed his grandfather’s life on a gusty August day when Eric was seven. That changed Eric’s life. It was thus and forever made clear that he and his siblings would forge their paths with their minds and not their hands. This was instilled by his parents, both high school graduates who aspired to a higher education but never were able to achieve it. They wanted a better and easier life for their children. Eric became the first in his family to earn a college degree, going back nine generations from one tiny island. He is now a physician who cares for families in southern Maine at Family Medicine and Maine Medical Partners.

  When Jessica Boyle was born, her mother was eighteen, still in high school, unmarried, and she wasn’t ready to care for a child. Growing up, Jessica and her mother moved often, to towns large and small across central Maine. Every few months she was the new student, with a new teacher and a new home. They moved for a variety of reasons, mostly financial. As she got older, Jessica made many moves on her own, to group homes and to friends’ spare bedrooms and couches. By the time she was sixteen, she had moved out of her mother’s care, and at seventeen, she was officially considered an unaccompanied homeless youth.

  She attended Bangor High School. That gave her access to life-changing teachers: her yearbook advisor teamed up with the school social worker and found her a housing program for homeless youth; her honors chemistry teacher made sure she applied to Colby College, where she ultimately enrolled. They helped her pay for admissions tests and gave her rides to college interviews. They were there to help her with the little things that would have otherwise been insurmountable obstacles. Through all of this, though, she was still very much on her own. She graduated from high school in a class of over four hundred, many of whom she felt were more deserving of the Mitchell Scholarship. But she was chosen.

  As she later said, “At Colby—I’ll be blunt—I was in no way prepared for the world I encountered when I arrived on campus. I brought a very unique background to a place that is otherwise fairly homogenous. And as I got to know my peers, sharing certain things became uncomfortable. Talking about our parents’ professions, for instance, or comparing where our summer homes were located, quickly became a minefield through which I had to carefully navigate—not so much because I was embarrassed to share my story, but because of the way my peers reacted when I told it.

  “I believe that all high-performing students deserve the opportunity to attend a great school, and I wanted to make sure that low-income and first-generation college students at a small, predominately upper-middle-class school like Colby got the support they needed to successfully navigate that challenging environment. So I began chipping away at policies that hindered success and creating and building programs that would promote it.

  “This effort evolved from a personal project to a student government task force, and led to many leadership opportunities on campus that allowed me to ensure these changes would live beyond my tenure as a student. By the time I graduated, the First Generation Program was in place, complete with funding.”

  Jessica is a now a development coordinator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she works with first-generation students.

  Stephanie, Eric, and Jessica were recipients of college scholarships from a program I established when I left the Senate. Its origin can be traced back to my appearance at a conference called The Aspirations of Maine’s Youth, held at the University of Maine. What began as a single speech at t
he university grew into appearances at each of Maine’s 140 high schools. I learned a lot from that experience, much of it valuable, some of it humorous. For example, the length of a graduation ceremony is usually unrelated to the number of graduates; from a low of three graduates to a high of several hundred, each I attended took about two hours. I simply got to know a lot more about the three than I did about the hundreds. I also learned about the vast financial differences in our state (and society). I recall vividly two graduations that I attended on successive days. One was in a rural, poor area; there were twenty-one graduates. When the college scholarship awards were announced they were for amounts ranging from $25 to $100. I was astonished. At best the recipient could buy a few books! At the other graduation, in a better-off suburb of Portland, several of the awards were in the thousands of dollars.

  In late 1992, two years before my second full Senate term was due to expire, I met with my campaign team to plan for my reelection effort. After much discussion we set a fundraising goal of $2 million. It was a trivial amount by national standards but substantial in comparison to prior campaigns in Maine. I knew I could raise much more than that. Since I was now Senate majority leader, I knew the money would flow quickly, unlike in my first Senate campaign. But I was determined not to be drawn into an endless money chase, which would go far beyond my immediate campaign needs. Leadership PACs are widely used vehicles for the promotion of individual congressional leaders. Despite being urged to do so, I refused to create one. As expected, I met the target quickly. I ended 1993 with a full campaign war chest.

  Then, early in 1994, I decided that I would not seek reelection. That raised many questions, one of which was, “What should I do with the $2 million?” The idea of a scholarship program had been on my mind for a long time. After verifying that the funds could legally be used for that purpose, I decided to create one. I knew that I would not do anything without the consent of those who had contributed to my campaign. They had contributed for one purpose; they would have to agree to any other purpose. So I wrote to each contributor and offered a choice: they could get their money back or they could leave it to be used for college scholarships for needy Maine high school graduates. In dollar terms they split evenly: about $1 million was returned, an equal amount retained.

  To get the scholarship program off to an even better start I organized two fundraising events. One, in Washington, was attended by President Clinton; it produced about a half million dollars. The other, in Portland, raised far less money but generated a lot of enthusiasm for the program.

  Because of its modest size the program was set up as a donor-advised fund at the Maine Community Foundation. From 1995 to 1998 that foundation invested the funds and administered the program. The Mitchell Scholarship was a one-time award of $2,500. During those four years 101 scholarships totaling just over $250,000 were awarded.

  A foundation grant in 1999 enabled me to establish the Mitchell Institute. Our scope was broadened, adding career and personal support programs for our Scholars, and a research component. The mission of the Mitchell Institute is to increase the likelihood that young people from every community in Maine will aspire to, pursue, and achieve a college education. It is my intention that no Maine student with the qualifications and ambition to pursue a college education should be denied that opportunity due to limited financial resources.

  The number of scholarships awarded each year has increased; as a result a Mitchell Scholarship has been awarded to a graduating senior from each of Maine’s 130 public high schools every year since 1999.

  From the beginning the three scholarship criteria have been academic potential, community service, and financial need, with a focus on first-generation college-goers. Eligibility was expanded to include students enrolling in two-year degree programs; between 5 and 10 percent of Mitchell Scholarships each year are now awarded to students entering community colleges and other two-year degree programs.

  The amount of assistance to students has increased gradually as we struggle to offset the rapid rise in the cost of college education. It is now $7,000, and we hope to get it to $10,000 in the very near future.

  Roughly 1,300 students apply for the Scholarship each year, about 9 percent of all Maine graduating seniors and 15 percent of the roughly 8,500 who enroll in college. With 130 new Mitchell Scholars named annually, over five hundred are attending college in any given year. Well over 1,500 Mitchell Scholar alumni are now in graduate school or the workforce, and that number grows with each graduating class.

  Since the program began our Scholars have received more than $11 million in direct financial aid and the number of students who have received assistance is nearly 2,300.

  The scholarship program is designed to make a difference for college students and to have a positive impact on the state. The unique approach of awarding scholarships statewide, providing career and personal support, and conducting research on outcomes has proven to be a powerful combination leading to outstanding results. Ninety percent of our Scholars earn all As and Bs in college. Eighty-five percent complete college and earn a degree, compared with about 50 percent of entering college students nationally. Together our Scholars and alumni contribute over thirty thousand hours each year to community service.

  These accomplishments are particularly impressive in light of the Mitchell Scholars’ modest backgrounds. More than 60 percent are the first in their family to earn a bachelor’s degree; 65 percent come from families with incomes below the state median, and 24 percent are from families with annual incomes below $20,000; the vast majority work during the school year in high school and during the college academic year.

  Over the past few decades I’ve met and talked with thousands of students. I learned about them and about myself, including a personal revelation: over and over again I saw in their eyes and heard in their words mirror images of myself at that age. Enough intelligence to show promise, but often obscured by anxiety and insecurity and a lot of feigned indifference. At first I thought, “I can help these kids.” Gradually that changed to “I have to help these kids.” I thought about some of those who had helped me: Elvira Whitten, Hervey Fogg, Bill Shaw, the Morrell family, Ed Muskie, and most of all my parents. I came to believe that I, who had benefited from so many helping hands, have a duty to use whatever ability I possess to see that no child in Maine who wants to go to college is without a helping hand. It is, of course, a huge aspiration, perhaps unattainable in a precise, mathematical sense. But just trying to meet that aspiration on every remaining day of my life can do so much good for so many of our young citizens.

  I’ve done a lot in my life. I’ve never done anything better or more meaningful.

  The Art of Negotiation

  THE ART OF NEGOTIATION

  I had no formal education in the art of negotiation. What I know came from the trial and error of experience as an army officer, a practicing lawyer, a state and federal prosecutor, a federal judge, a U.S. senator, Senate majority leader, chairman of the peace talks in Northern Ireland, the special envoy for Middle East peace, and a mediator of private and public disputes. The earliest and most obvious lesson I learned is that no two negotiations are the same, whether a public conflict involving nation-states or a dispute over money between private companies or individuals; each is specific to the people and the circumstances involved. Each requires a particular resolution.

  But if the facts are unique, the methods used to gain resolution are often strikingly similar. Over the past three decades I have been asked thousands of questions, none more often than “How do you negotiate?” It is definitely not a science or math. It is very much an art, requiring knowledge, skill, judgment, and humility. Especially humility.

  THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN VOICE

  The weeklong trip began in Rumford, Senator Muskie’s hometown in western Maine. There was an active Italian American community in Rumford, and Muskie had accepted an invitation to speak at their annual gathering. Following that he was to travel across the sta
te, meeting constituents, speaking each evening in a different town. For Muskie, and for most elected officials, it was a familiar routine. But it was a first for me, a new member of the senator’s staff, and I was excited. Muskie had asked me to draft a speech for the Rumford event and for another of that week’s speeches. More meaningful to me was that he asked me to travel with him, to serve as his driver, staffer, advance man. I was born and raised in Maine but was embarrassed to admit that I was not familiar with much of my state’s geography. “Don’t worry,” Muskie told me, “I know every road in Maine and I’m sure you’ll learn them soon enough.”I

  The hall was packed, the crowd friendly and enthusiastic. They loved him and he returned their love, with an emotional speech that drew frequent applause. I had done a lot of research on the role of Italian Americans in the development of our nation. It is an amazing and emotional story, not well enough known even among many younger Italian Americans. Muskie weaved it into a broader lecture about the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship in a free, democratic society. At six feet four inches, slightly stooped, he was frequently compared physically to Abraham Lincoln. Unlike Lincoln, however, he had a huge head with a long, lantern jaw and a powerful speaking voice. Most important of all, he had a quick and brilliant mind. Today, two decades after his death, I can repeat what I said often during his life: he was the smartest person I ever met. Of course he had his faults. But not before or since have I encountered anyone better able to grasp and retain information, sort out the essential from the nonessential, and use his intellectual and physical talents to impose his will on others.