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; was 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 again in 1976 and served from
January 3, 1959, until his resignation 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; member, President’s Special Review Board (‘Tower Commission’)
1987; practiced law and was a resident of Washington, D.C., until his death,
March 26, 1996; interment at Arlington National Cemetery, Ft. Myer, Va. .
Bibliography
Asbell, Bernard. The Senate Nobody Knows. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978;
Muskie, Edmund. Journeys. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972.
-- Biographical
Data courtesy of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.