Mark Hatfield

From KeyWiki

Mark Hatfield is a former Republican Senator from Oregon. He died in September 2011, aged 89.

Hatfield died in Portland, the Associated Press reported, citing a former aide, Gerry Frank. The Oregonian newspaper said he died at a care center after being in ill health for several years. No cause of death was given.

Mindful of the destruction he witnessed as a Navy ensign during World War II and when he visited the Japanese city of Hiroshima soon after it was hit with an atomic bomb, Hatfield regularly dismissed as “madness” U.S. efforts to develop or increase weapons of warfare. “The issue that Hatfield has always cared most about is peace,” the Almanac of American Politics wrote. ^[1]

Early life

Mark Odom Hatfield was born on July 12, 1922, in Dallas, Oregon, and grew up in nearby Salem, the state capital. An only child, he inherited his religious beliefs from his devoutly Baptist father, Charles, a railroad blacksmith, and his political beliefs from his staunchly Republican mother, Dovie, a teacher, according to a biography by Willamette University.

A freshman at Willamette when the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, Hatfield joined the Naval Reserve and accelerated his studies in political science to begin combat training by late 1943.

In the Navy, he served on landing crafts that ferried U.S. Marines to battlefield beaches during the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In 1945, he visited Hiroshima as it began recovering from the atomic bomb.

After earning a master’s degree at Stanford University in 1948, Hatfield worked as associate professor of political science and dean of students at Willamette until 1956. He served in the Oregon legislature, became secretary of state in 1957 and ran successfully for governor in 1958, defeating incumbent Democrat Robert Holmes.^[2]

Senate

From the start, Hatfield played down party labels. His billboards during the governor’s race didn’t include the word Republican, and he told audiences he wanted to be “governor of all the people,” according to an account in the New York Times.

In 1966, when the National Governors Association passed a resolution reaffirming its support for the war in Vietnam, Hatfield cast the only dissenting vote.

Limited to two terms as governor, he ran for Senate in 1966 and won the seat vacated by Maurine Neuberger, a Democrat who retired.

He won four more terms, maintaining his popularity in Oregon for bringing home federal funds for transportation, environmental and health-care projects. He served a second stint as chairman of the Appropriations Committee from 1995 until his retirement in 1997.^[3]

McGovern-Hatfield Amendment

In 1970, Hatfield partnered with Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota to propose legislation that would have set a deadline for the end of U.S. military operations in Vietnam. Strongly opposed by President Richard Nixon, the so- called McGovern-Hatfield amendment was defeated, 55 to 39. ^[4]

Reagan opponent

Hatfield won election to the Senate in 1966, after two terms as governor, and served until 1997.

As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee for the first six years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, he succeeded in diverting $100 billion from Reagan’s military buildup to social programs. He joined Democrats in mocking Reagan’s plans for the space-based missile-defense system known as Star Wars.

He derided as “sheer madness” Reagan’s request to resume production of nerve gas for chemical warfare. In 1982 he joined with Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts to propose an immediate nuclear-weapons freeze in the U.S. He opposed development of the mobile, multiple-warhead nuclear MX missile, which he deemed “a monument to madness.” In 1986 he criticized as an “immoral act” the U.S. bombing raid on Libya.

He and Charles Grassley of Iowa were the only two Republicans to oppose the 1991 Senate resolution authorizing military action to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

“I’m often pegged as a pacifist. In fact, I am not,” he wrote in a 2001 memoir. “I’m not totally opposed to military force (for example World War II), yet I believe force should not be used until all other options have been exhausted. And most critically, we ought to address the causes of war -- poverty, lack of education, health, racism, militarism, or conflict over raw materials (such as oil) -- and work to prevent war in the first place.” ^[5]

F.B.I. Soviet contacts memo

On July 28, 1970, the F.B.I. issued a top secret memo entitled CONTACTS BETWEEN REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SOVIET, UNION AN MEMBERS OR STAFF PERSONNEL OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS INTERNAL SECURITY - RUSSIA

The memo stated;

A review of information we have developed through our coverage of Soviet officials and establishments in Washington, D. C., has disclosed a continuing interest by representatives of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to maintain contacts with and cultivate members or staff personnel of the U. S. Congress. There appears below a compilation of such contacts which have come to our attention from January 1, 1967, to date:

Senators

• 1967 77
• 1968 34
• 1969 53
• 1970 to date 16

Representatives

• 1967 55
• 1968 23
• 1969 10
• 1970 to date 6

Staff Employees

• 1967 265
• 1968 224
• 1969 239
• 1970 to date 104

Based on a review of the information disclosed through our coverage, it appears that soviet officials are making more contacts with the following Congressmen or members of their staff than with other U. S. Legislators

• Senator Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts
• Senator Allen J. Ellender of Louisiana
• Senator J. W. Fulbright of Arkansas
• Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon
• Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts
• Senator Michael J. Mansfield of Montana
• Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota
• Sena tor George S. McGovern of South Dakota
• Sena tor Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota
• Sena tor Edmund S. Muskie of Maine
• Representative James G. Fulton of Pennsylvania
• Representative Robert L. Leggett of California
• Representative Donald W. Riegle, Jr., of Michigan

Group 1

Excluded from automatic downgrading and declassification

The document was declassified on September 12, 1997

Leftist Republicans

In the 1970s and '80s There were three Republican legislators who frequently lent their support to to left-wing causes: the two Senators from Oregon, Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood and Congressman Jim Leach from Iowa.^[6]

Nicaragua conference

The Communist Party USA controlled U.S. Peace Council organized a National Conference on Nicaragua in 1979, along with several other radical groups, to discuss a strategy to ensure that the Sandinistas took control.

Three Congressmen and two Senators lent support to this Conference: Ron Dellums, Tom Harkin, and Walter Fauntroy in the House and Mark Hatfield and Edward Kennedy in the Senate.^[7]

IPS "who's who"-20th anniversary celebrations

By its second decade the Institute for Policy Studies had built up considerable influence in the U.S. government.

According to Information Digest^[8]the Institute for Policy Studies celebrated its 20th anniversary with an April 5, 1983, reception at the National Building Museum attended by approximately 1,000 IPS staffers and former staff.

In addition to 1960s folk songs by Josh White, Jr. and a bluegrass band, consisted of an underdone "roast" of IPS leaders Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnet hosted and chaired by IPS trustee Paul C Warnke, head of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and chief SALTII negotiator for the Carter Administration. Zoe Mikva, wife of Congressman Abner Mikva handled arrangements . The "roasting" was urdertaken by former Senator George McGovern, Rep. Ron Dellums, Ralph Nader, lesbian activist and author Rita Mae Brown, Village Voice cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Harry Belafonte and Cora Weiss, substituting for IPS board chairman Peter Weiss.

Many of IPS's current and former Capitol Hill friends attended or were represented by members of their staff. Among those serving on the IPS 20th Anniversary Comittee chaired by Paul C. Warnke were Senators Chris Dodd {D-CT} and Gary Hart (D. CO) with an endorsement provided by Senator Mark Hatfield {R OR}.

Former Senators on the committee included James Abourezk, recently an IPS Trustee, Birch Bayh, Frank Church, William Fullbright, Eugene McCarthy and Gaylord Nelson.

The Congressional IPS comittee members included Les Aspin {D. WI}, George E Brown, Jr. (D.CA}, Philip Burton (D.CA), George Crockett (D-MI}, Ron Dellums (D.CA}, former Texas Congressman Robert Eckhardt, Don Edwards {D.CA}, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Tom Harkin {D-IA}, Robert Kastenmeier (D. WI}, Chairman of the Subcomittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice, George Miller (D-CA}, Richard Ottinger {D-NY}, Leon Panetta (D-CA}, Henry Reuss (D.WI}, Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, Patricia Schroeder {D.CO}, John Seiberling (D.OH} and Ted Weiss {D.NY}.

Among those attending were Victor Navasky and Christopher Hitchens of The Nation, Abner Mikva, appointed by president Carter to the U.S. Court of Appeals, philanthropist Philip Stern and Rep. Robert Kastenmeier. Among the well-advertised "no shows" were Bianca Jagger, who has been lobbying Congress with the assistance of the Washington Office on Latin America and the CISPES-Committee in Solidarity with the Peoples of El Salvador, against U.S. aid to El Salvador and for aid to the Sandinistas; and Atlanta Mayor and former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young.

Members of the IPS 20th Anniversary Comittee included:

David Aberswerth, Gar Alperovitz, David Baltimore, Mayor Marion Barry, Norman Birnbaum, Conrad Cafritz, Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Charles Caldwell, Lillian Calhoun, David Carley, Lisle Carter, Jr., Noam Chomsky, Dr. Mary Coleman, Catherine Conover, Dr. Franklin Davis, Diana DeVegh, Dr. James Dixon, Leonard Dreyfus, Celia Eckhardt, William Fitzgerald, Nancy Folger, Yolande Fox, Dr. Jerome Frank, Robert Freedman, Clayton Fritchey, John Kenneth Galbraith, Cherif Guellal, Mark Green, Dean Charles Halperin, Sidney Harman, W. Averell Harriman, Terry Herndon, Seymour Hersh, Karl Hess, Sonya Hoover, Richard Hubbard, David Hunter, Ivan Illich, Christopher Jencks, Vernon Jordan, Jr. Patricia King, Gabriel Kolko, Adm. Gene LaRocque, Dr. E. James Lieberman, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Philip Lilienthal, Sally Lilienthal, Edgar Lockwood, Franklin Long, Dr. Reginald Lourie, Ira Lowe, Dr. Bernard Lown, Michael Maccoby, Harry Magdoff, Louis Martin, Hilda Mason, Anthony Mazzochi, Dorothy McGhee, Rt. Rev. Paul Moore, Jr., Sidney Morgenbesser, David Morris, very Rev. James Parks Morton, Stephen Muller, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Ara Oztemel, Grace Paley, Charles Peters, Dean Ronald Pollack, David Ramage, Jr., Earl Ravenal, Cary Ridder, Mitchell Rogovin, Florence Roisman, Maurice Rosenblatt, Charles Savitt, Andre Schiffrin, Stephen Schlossberg, Mark Schneider, Herman Schwartz, Herbert Semel, John Sewell, Richard Sobol, Ralph Stavins, Ben Stephansky, Philip Stern, Studs Terkel, Michael Tigar, Michael Trister, Dr. George Wald, Peter Weiss, Stanley Weiss, Jerome Wisner, Gary Wills, William Winpisinger, Andrew Young and Anne Zill.

The Washington School

The Washington School, founded by the Institute for Policy Studies, in 1978, was an important means of influencing Congress and the Democratic Party. Courses on defense, foreign affairs, and domestic policies are taught there by IPS officers and staffers, and other American or foreign radical "experts." A large number of members of Congress and staffers have attended these schools. Several legislators have also taught there, including the following:

• Tom Harkin
• Paul Tsongas
• Mark Hatfield
• John Conyers
• Ron Dellums
• James Abourezk
• George Miller
• J. William Fulbright
• Henry Reuss^[9]

Supported by Council for a Livable World

The Council for a Livable World, founded in 1962 by long-time socialist activist and alleged Soviet agent, Leo Szilard, is a non-profit advocacy organization that seeks to "reduce the danger of nuclear weapons and increase national security", primarily through supporting progressive, congressional candidates who support their policies. The Council supported Mark Hatfield in his successful Senate run as candidate for Oregon.^[10]

Ethics problem

Though Hatfield was known among some colleagues as “Saint Mark,” his ethics came into question on occasion. He supported a proposal for a trans-Africa pipeline by a Greek financier, Basil Tsakos, who was paying Hatfield’s wife, a real-estate agent, $55,000 for helping him find and decorate an apartment in Washington. A U.S. Justice Department investigation resulted in no charges, and Hatfield donated the money to charity. ^[11]

References