LEWISTON – Edmund S. Muskie’s alma mater, Bates College, has completed a project that tells the late statesman’s story in the voices of those who knew him.

Begun in 1997, the Muskie Oral History Project at Bates has some 440 interviews with people who worked with him, knew him or were directly affected by Muskie. A member of the Bates Class of 1936, he became Maine governor, U.S. senator, secretary of state and a candidate for president.

The interviews are preserved on audio and in print transcriptions in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives at Bates. The Muskie documentary collection there is one of the largest U.S. political collections outside the presidential libraries, according to the college.

“The interviews provide many perspectives on Edmund Muskie as a public and private figure – as well as a sense of the times, a feeling for the issues with which he was associated and a mosaic of his friends, colleagues, staff and opponents,” says Don Nicoll, project director and a longtime friend of Muskie. The materials are open not only to Bates students and faculty, but also to researchers. The interviews “fill in the gap in the written record,” said Nicoll.

“They give insights into Muskie’s personality and character that might otherwise elude us,” he said. “We’ve worked hard to be sure the record contains favorable, neutral and unfavorable views of Senator Muskie. We aimed to illuminate his life, not glorify it.”

“When I began on this project, I knew Sen. Muskie’s biography pretty well, but what I’ve learned over the years from innumerable anecdotes really illustrated his character and personality,” said project assistant Andrea L’Hommedieu, who conducted many of the oral history interviews and is now working on an oral history of Bates.

Interviewees include Muskie’s friends, college contemporaries, Maine legislators, political associates and competitors, journalists, campaign supporters, gubernatorial and Senate staff, Senate colleagues, public officials, lobbyists, State Department officials, foreign-policy specialists and law practice associates.

Among them are former Maine Gov. Kenneth Curtis, former Maine Attorney General James Tierney and Howard Baker, until recently U.S. ambassador to Japan.

The $225,000 project has been funded by the Edmund S. Muskie Foundation. More information is available on the Internet at www.muskiefoundation.org.

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