Edmund Sixtus MUSKIE, Congress, ME (1914-1996)

MUSKIE, Edmund Sixtus, a Senator from Maine; born in Rumford, Oxford County, Maine, March 28, 1914; attended the public schools; graduated from Bates College, Lewiston, Maine, in 1936, and Cornell University Law School, Ithaca, N.Y., in 1939; admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1939 and Maine bar in 1940; commenced the practice of law in Waterville, Maine, in 1940; during the Second World War enlisted in the United States Navy and served in the Atlantic and Asiatic-Pacific Theaters 1942-1945; member and secretary of Waterville Board of Zoning Adjustment 1948-1955; appointed district director for Maine Office of Price Stabilization 1951-1952; city solicitor of Waterville in 1954; elected to the State house of representatives in 1946, 1948, and 1950, and was Democratic floor leader 1949-1951; Governor of Maine 1955-1959; elected a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1958; reelected in 1964, 1970 and 1976 and served from January 3, 1959, until his resignation on May 7, 1980, to enter the Cabinet; chairman, Committee on the Budget (Ninety-third through Ninety-sixth Congresses); unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Vice President of the United States in 1968; Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Jimmy Carter 1980-1981; awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on January 16, 1981; member, President’s Special Review Board (“Tower Commission”) 1987; practiced law and was a resident of Washington, D.C., until his death on March 26, 1996; interment at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va.

Bibliography

Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives; Asbell, Bernard. The Senate Nobody Knows. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978; Muskie, Edmund. Journeys. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present