Recruited Earlier to Answer North : Democrats Hope Mitchell Will Bail Them Out Again

During the Iran-Contra hearings last year, after Lt. Col. Oliver L. North had clearly impressed the American people with his devotion to God and country, Democrats turned to Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) to explain their side of the story.

“Although he’s regularly asked to do so,” Mitchell admonished the young Marine, “God does not take sides in American politics.” His speech was an especially eloquent one that will long be remembered as one of the key moments of the Senate’s year-long investigation into the sale of U.S. arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to the Nicaraguan resistance.

And again on Tuesday, just three weeks after Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis suffered a humiliating defeat at the polls, Senate Democrats turned to Mitchell to help bail them out of what many think will be a painfully difficult time of reassessment for their party.

Son of a Janitor

Unlike many of his Senate colleagues, Mitchell, 55, has risen rapidly in politics without the help of wealth or family reputation. Mitchell was born in Waterville, Me. His father was a janitor and his mother, a Lebanese immigrant, worked the night shift at a textile factory.

Mitchell has achieved prominence in the Democratic Party based on his diligence, his willingness to take on tough assignments, his ability to work with people of differing points of view, his considerable analytical skills and--perhaps most important of all--his remarkable talent as a speechmaker.

“He’s a very rational, logical person who organizes his thoughts well,” noted Harold Pachios, a Portland, Me., lawyer and long-time friend of Mitchell’s who was in Washington Tuesday to witness the Senate election. “It will always be easy to understand what he’s talking about. So he’s very persuasive and very likable.”

Aide to Muskie

Mitchell first came to the Senate 25 years ago, shortly after graduating from Georgetown University Law School, not as a senator but as an employee--executive assistant to then-Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Me.). He had worked as an insurance adjuster while going to law school and served two years at the Justice Department before joining Muskie’s staff.

After returning to his home state in the late 1960s, he served as state Democratic chairman and made an unsuccessful bid for the governorship in 1974 before being appointed to a federal judgeship on Muskie’s recommendation.

In 1980, he was still serving as a judge when President Jimmy Carter suddenly selected Mitchell’s former mentor as secretary of state. Joseph Brennan, Maine’s governor at the time, appointed him to fill Muskie’s unexpired term. Mitchell has been elected twice since then--the last time on Nov. 8 with 81% of the vote, giving him the biggest margin of any incumbent senator.

Key Role in 1986

Known during his early years in the Senate as a low-key politician who focused primarily on environmental issues and shunned partisanship, Mitchell surprised his colleagues in 1986 when, as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, he was given major credit for returning his party to the majority in the chamber for the first time since Ronald Reagan had swept the GOP into control in 1980. It was that victory, as much as his role in the Iran-Contra investigation, that earned him the majority leader’s job.

A Roman Catholic, Mitchell, who has one child, was quietly divorced last year. He also co-authored a book with Sen. William S. Cohen (R-Me.) about the Iran-Contra investigation entitled “Men of Zeal.”