Mark Hatfield

Mark Hatfield

Mark Hatfield was 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.

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.

Stanford

The Senator received his master's degree in history from Stanford in 1948. His wife, Antoinette, also a Stanford graduate, received her master's in education.

During Hatfield's graduate period at Stanford, Jiggs McCaulley, Marianna Olmstead, Jack Burdick and Hatfield revised the ASSU constitution.

Mark Hatfield, was a Stanford Excom member in 1949 and chairman of the ASSU Constitutional Revision Committee.

Farm Faculty To Aid Warren

Professors James Quillen and Henry B. McDaniel of the School of Education are in Sacramento today at the request of Gov. Earl Warren to attend his Conference on Youth Welfare. The purpose of the conference is to assess the needs and opportunities of California's younger citizens. It was called upon the recommendation of the Governor's Youth Committee, the Crime Commission on Juvenile Justice, the Judicial Council, and the Youth Authority. Welfare leaders from the entire state have been invited to discuss the problems of youth employment, schools, law enforcement, recreation, community co-ordination, and the church. The conference findings will be published, and it is the Governor's hope that similar conferences in various communities will facilitate execution of the recommendations locally. Others from Stanford who have been invited and are expccted to attend are Dr. H. K. Faber, professor of pediatrics, and Miss Patricia Davidson, director of the Stanford YWCA. Two students, Mark Hatfield and William Clarke, are delegates appointed by the Interchurch Council.

Provisional committee to study religious problems

In 1949, twelve members of a provisional committee, organized to study the religious problems peculiar to Stanford and to submit equitable recomnendations for their solution, were elected at an all-campus religious conference held at the Cubberley Auditorium Saturday morning. The conference was student-con-ducted under the general chairmanship of Mark Hatfield. It was attended by approximately 90 Stanford students who gathered to participate in a discussion of ways and means in which they might enrich their own religious development and bring a concrete religious program to the students of the University as a whole.

It was agreed at the meeting that a student religious council of some type is needed in order that existfacilities might be put lo better use. and that a more adequate program be provided. Chairman Hatfield reiterated this idea in his keynote address, stating that the Church Committee and the Interfaith Council did not feel that they were representative enough of the entire student body, whom they theoretically represented. The provisional committee, as proposed by delegate Janice Hood, will plan, promote, and direct student religious activities.

An investigation will also be made of the feasibility of establishing a perminent Stanford Religious Association in fall quarter. Membership of the provisional committee will be expanded to 30 before the first meeting. Committee Named The committee members appointed Saturday are: Liddy Hawkins. Alberta Engvall, and Lali Schuchett. Roble; Dick West and Jim Anderson. Village; Marion Harrison, Encina; Caryl Harms, Lagunita; Gail Larson, Jordan; Bob Newcomb. Kappa Alpha; Paul Watson, Andy Hanley. and Sumner Walters, off campus. Information as to when and where this group will meet will be announced soon. Chaplain Paul C. Johnston and Dr. Hugh A. Moran, former counselor at Cornell University and a Stanford graduate, also spoke Saturday.

NSA Remains By Unanimous Excom Vote

Continued membership in the National Student Association was unanimously passed by Excom at the May 5 1949 meeting. Erskine Childers, regional NSA chairman, stated that Stanford should be represented at the regional convention on such issues as academic freedom and federal aid to education. Excom felt, however, they were not qualified to speak for the student body as a whole and that a letter should be sent to the conference stating that Stanford did not wish to be quoted on these issues ' at this time. Mark Hatfield, Excom representative, stated that in voting for continued membership in NSA, he feels that definite action should be taken to guarantee that the local chapter will become an effective campus organization.

Barclay student

Among Thomas S. Barclay's students were many who became active as judges and lawyers and five who became U.S. senators: Frank Church, Mark Hatfield, Lee Metcalf, Alan Cranston and Henry Jackson.

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.

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.

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.”

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 James Leach from Iowa.

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.

Nuclear Freeze

During the 1979 SALT II debate, Oregon's far left Republican Senator Mark Hatfield introduced an amendment that called for a “strategic weapons freeze,” which helped provide the impetus for the popular Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and would ricochet back into Washington and prompt Hatfield and other members of Congress to act.

As tensions between Washington and Moscow mounted in 1982 and the two countries built up their nuclear arsenals even further, Hatfield and other members of Congress 'heard from their constituents", who sought a way off the escalatory ladder and were calling for a “nuclear freeze” with the Soviet Union on the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear warheads and delivery systems.

“We heard from people at every stop who knew about the nuclear freeze proposal and wanted us to support it. ‘Why not?’ they asked. We found that question difficult to answer,” Hatfield and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) later explained in their 1982 book Freeze! How You Can Help Prevent Nuclear War. “A new arms control initiative was needed to offer leadership in Congress and respond to the growing public concern,” they wrote.

On March 10, 1982, Hatfield and Kennedy joined House proponents of the freeze, including Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.), to introduce a “sense of Congress” resolution based directly on a widely disseminated document, “Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race,” developed by Randall Forsberg, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology defense policy expert who would later join the board of directors of the Arms Control Association. With the backing of Hatfield and Kennedy, the effort gained broad-based popular and expert support, national attention, and increasing political momentum.

Following new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s announcement in July 1985 that the Soviet Union would forgo tests and that the Soviet Union would not test until and unless the United States began testing, the Reagan administration declined to reciprocate. In October 1986, a bipartisan group of 63 House and Senate members, led by Hatfield, Senator Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), Representative Les Aspin (D-Wis.), and others, sent a letter to Reagan urging him to reciprocate and call off the next scheduled test in Nevada, code-named Glencoe.

Cranston and Hatfield also introduced legislation seeking to bar the spending of money to carry out U.S. nuclear tests if the Soviet Union was not doing so. Their initiative did not succeed, but it would get another chance.

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 Digestthe 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

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.

From the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

"He served five terms from 1967 to 1997, the longest tenured U.S. Senator in Oregon history. Council for a Livable World was proud to support him throughout his Senate career. Indeed, Hatfield represented a brand of Republican moderation that has largely been obliterated in United States politics.

When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, he launched a massive military buildup and abandoned the SALT II nuclear arms treaty. Senator Mark Hatfield was the only Republican Senator to oppose the enormous Reagan military expansion…

Hatfield and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) were the prime sponsors of a Senate resolution endorsing a mutual and verifiable nuclear weapons freeze (Hatfield originated the concept of an arms moratorium in 1979 which became the freeze). While the freeze was never adopted, it mobilized a generation of anti-nuclear weapons activists that helped to limit the Reagan nuclear build up. Hatfield also led the fight against neutron weapons. In 1984, as chairman of the subcommittee that funded Department of Energy warhead production, he killed the plan to produce 155 mm neutron artillery shells. He was active in the fight against the MX missile, in fact offering the first amendment to kill the new system in 1979 when few were concerned about the issue.

Then there was the fight against the production of deadly new nerve gas weapons requested by President Reagan. Working with Sen. David Pryor (D-AR) and a bipartisan pair in the House, the two Senators fought the Reagan Administration to a draw for several years. Indeed, there were not one, not two, but three Senate tie votes on a chemical weapons convention that had to be broken each time by then Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush. It was the same Bush who as President negotiated and signed the Chemical Weapons Convention banning all production or possession of chemical weapons. In 1992, Hatfield helped lead the fight that stopped United States nuclear testing. His amendment with Sen. Jim Exon (D-NE) calling for a nine-month U.S. testing moratorium was approved 55 – 40. After President George H.W. Bush signed the legislation, the United States ended nuclear explosive testing. The moratorium has been in place for nearly 20 years….

One of his first acts in Congress was to join with Senator George McGovern (D-SD) in the McGovern-Hatfield amendments to stop the Vietnam War. He opposed military intervention in Central American and the first Gulf War as well, one of only two Republicans to vote against going to war in the Persian Gulf….

When he first ran for Senate in 1966, his anti-war stance became an issue as his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Robert Duncan, vigorously supported the war. Duncan argued that the U.S. had to fight the Communists in the buffalo grass of Vietnam rather than the rye grass of Oregon. But Hatfield was supported by the staunchly anti-war Democrat Wayne Morse, and won a narrow 52%-48% victory.

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.

Kennedy-Hatfield Nuclear Freeze Resolution

Mark Hatfield and Ted Kennedy co-wrote a book published in 1982 titled "Freeze! How you can help prevent nuclear war" which promoted the "Kennedy-Hatfield Nuclear Freeze Resolution". The foreword was written by W. Averell Harriman.

From their acknowledgements page:

"The preparation of this manuscript required the hard work, dedication and commitment of many superbly talented people. We are pleased to have had many such people give unstintingly of their time and energies to this project.

We are especially grateful to Carey Parker and Robert Shrum for the preparation and compilation of much of the material in this book. Their expertise, enthusiasm, patience and meticulous attention to detail are clearly reflected in the quality of this product.

Lawrence Horowitz, Jan Kalicki, Rick Rolf, and Matthew Murray also made major contributions in preparing this book, in developing the Kennedy-Hatfield Nuclear Freeze Resolution itself and in forging a coalition of support for it.

We feel fortunate to have been able to test our ideas and share our drafts with some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field, including Jonathan Medalia, Christopher Paine, Jeffrey Porro, Peter Sharfman, John Steinbruner, Jeremy Stone and Paul Warnke.

The preparation of this manuscript in a relatively brief period of time would not have been possible without the extraordinary work of Tom Getman, Matthew State, Ellen Blaisdell, Barbara Cobb, Nancy Dalton, Ann Fielder, Alice Gallasch, Eather Higginbotham, Terry Hitchins, Annie Jones, Mark Kramer, Constance Lambert, Tom Maginnis, Patricia McHugh, Sarah Milam, Bruce Morgan, John Packs, Laverne Walker, Sandra Walker, Joanne Yancey, and many others.

Finally we want to thank the members of the national nuclear weapons freeze movement, who gave us the inspiration for this book and who have given their country a new chance to stop the nuclear arms race.