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Senate Years of Service: 1959-1980 Party: Democrat
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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, Presidents
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.
BibliographyScribner 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.
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