AUBURN — Chris Beam will discuss political rivals Edmund Muskie and former President Richard Nixon at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27, at the Androscoggin Historical Society, 2 Turner St.

Muskie, U.S. senator from Maine, was a front-runner in 1972 for the Democratic presidential nomination to challenge the incumbent Nixon. He was regarded for a time as the most formidable of potential Democratic challengers in the upcoming presidential campaign. For that reason, Muskie was a primary target of the actions by the Nixon re-election campaign that became part of the Watergate scandal.

Despite their clashing ambitions and different perspectives on politics and governance, their lives and careers have remarkable similarities.

Beam will discuss how the narratives of Muskie and Nixon illuminate important developments in the political history of the U.S. in the three decades following World War II. He will review not only the circumstances of their upbringing and the trajectories of their political lives but the local and national contexts in which they operated.

Beam has gained considerable insight into both politicians. While working at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., he spent over four years on the staff that processed the Nixon White House tapes. From 1988 to 2005, he oversaw the Edmund S. Muskie collection at Bates College.

Beam is a native of Brunswick and lives in Lewiston. He’s a member of the Androscoggin Historical Society’s board of directors and teaches history at Central Maine Community College, the University of Southern Maine and American Public University System.

The talk is free, but donations will be accepted. An elevator is available at the Court Street entrance.