Tell us more about Senator Muskies influence. What was he like?
George Mitchell: Senator Muskie was a truly great man. First: the smartest person I’ve ever met, in terms of pure intellect. I’ve never met anyone as intelligent as he was. He was a great senator, a great legislator. He created what we now think of as the environmental movement in America. He wrote the clean air law, the clean water law, the basic environmental laws which protect our air and water in this country. They are so taken for granted now that people tend to forget that it was an extremely difficult and bitter political struggle to attain enactment of those laws. He was a man of towering intellect and integrity, and he taught me just about everything I know about politics and public service. It was a different life back then. This was in the ’60s. Senators had small staffs. I did a lot of things, including driving Senator Muskie around Maine. There wasn’t much money available, so oftentimes we shared a motel room — two of us in a motel room in some small town in Maine. And la
