The sun was setting on an unusually mild December afternoon. In congressional offices all over Capitol Hill in Washington, defeated Democratic lawmakers and their staffs were boxing papers in preparation for the greatest political changing of the guard in 40 years.

George J. Mitchell had just finished his final legislative session as Senate majority leader. It was a day of fond farewells and retrospective media interviews. The next weekend, Mitchell would travel to New York to marry Heather MacLachlan, a 35-year-old Canadian woman who promotes professional tennis events.

Seth Bradstreet of Maine, who owes his job to Mitchell, led a group of Clinton administration appointees to say goodbye. Bradstreet was director of the Maine Farmers Home Administration, which recently was renamed Rural Economic and Community Development.

A reporter asked Mitchell to open the cumbersome, two-piece glass door to his balcony, which commands one of the capital’s finest views. Bradstreet’s party and several of the senator’s staffers, who themselves would be gone in a few days, ventured outside.

The majority leader’s terrace faces due west across the Mall, the 2-mile-long national park framed by the Washington and Lincoln monuments. Against those familar landmarks, the dying sun cast a spectacular backdrop of deep orange and blue hues.

“I rarely come out here,” Mitchell admitted, perhaps with a trace of regret.

That was typical of Mitchell. Compared to most of his contemporaries, the Maine senator’s career in Washington was relatively brief, and more focused on results than aesthetics.

His time in Congress was shorter than that of Margaret Chase Smith and Edmund S. Muskie, and even that of his current Republican contemporaries, Sen. William S. Cohen and Sen.-elect Olympia J. Snowe. But by most definitions, he accomplished more.

In his office, Mitchell looked back on his time in Washington, and reflected on the current condition of the Democratic Party. Except for his marriage, 1994 was not a good year for Mitchell. It was a terrible one for his party.

After proclaiming that enactment of health care reform was more important to him than a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Mitchell failed to force a Senate floor vote on what he had hoped would be his crowning achievement.

Rep. Tom Andrews, who Mitchell picked to be his successor, went down in flames in Maine’s Senate election. Democrats all over the country were swept out of office by November’s Republican landslide.

Even the baseball commissioner’s job, once thought to be a certainty for Mitchell, was placed on hold by the Major League players’ strike.

If any of those outcomes bothered Mitchell, it was not apparent. His same judicial, analytical, painstakingly intellectual manner prevailed until the end. Where many others despaired over the Republican avalanche, Mitchell saw the currents of history, and reason for optimism.

“I do not think the November elections were a fundamental realignment of American politics. There are cycles in the political process. This is part of the cycle,” he said.

“Consider history. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson won the presidency in a landslide and Republicans lost all over the country. Many said the GOP was finished. But a Republican was elected president four years later in 1968,” Mitchell pointed out.

He continued: “In 1972, Nixon won with a considerable landslide over (George) McGovern. Many said the Democrats were finished. Four years later, a Democratic president was elected.”

And in case anybody has forgotten, he said, “George Bush won a landslide election in 1988, beginning the third straight Republican presidential term. People said the Democrats would never elect another president. But four years later, we have one.”

There is a fundamental reason for this, said Mitchell, who is putting the finishing touch on his second book. It is a chronicle of how the Western democracies won the Cold War against communism, a subject of fascination to the Maine senator since his duty as an Army counterintelligence officer in Germany just before the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Mitchell painted his analysis of American politics with the same broad sweep of history.

“Americans, for the most part, are not ideological. Both parties have groups on the edges who are very partisan and ideologically committed,” he said.

The real competition for Democrats and Republicans is to seize control of the center because, Mitchell said, “Americans are very pragmatic and want to see results.”

The majority leader said that President Clinton and the Democrats got off track after the 1992 election.

“Our success in the modern era came because we were seen as the party of economic growth, and were committed to economic growth and creating more jobs,” according to Mitchell.

For the past quarter of a century, he said, the income of most U.S. families has declined when adjusted for inflation, forcing more women to join the work force.

“Even though the economy is performing well now, people don’t see things getting much better in their own lives, or believe that their future will be bright,” Mitchell said.

The buck finally stopped at the desk of President Clinton and the Democratic Party.

“We began to be perceived as not being so much interested in making the economic pie grow, but of making sure it was divided in equal slices. We were seen by many as the party of welfare and taxes, rather than one of economic growth and job creation,” he said.

Both he and Clinton tried to do too much in the two years since 1992, the first period since 1980 when Democrats controlled both Congress and the White House.

“It was a huge agenda … health reform, welfare reform, campaign spending reform. Scarcity enhances value. When you are for everything, there is no focus or priority. We have to strip it back to a few issues, and make sure the focus is on economic growth and job creation,” Mitchell said.

This was a message, Mitchell said, that he personally delivered to Clinton. If the president heeds that advice, he can be re-elected in 1996, the Maine senator said.

“I know I’m in the minority, but I think he has a reasonable chance of winning in 1996, especially with (Ross) Perot in the race,” Mitchell said.

“NOBODY IN THIS TOWN QUITS WHILE THEY ARE AHEAD”

During his two years as an appointed senator, and two six-year Senate terms, Mitchell turned the tide of public opinion against the Reagan administration on the Iran-Contra scandal, masterminded his party’s successful 1986 campaign to wrest control of the Senate from Republicans, and laid the groundwork for Clinton’s 1992 White House victory.

To national Democrats, the former judge from Maine was their most effective television-era spokesman; to George Bush and many Republicans, he was a partisan Satan who toppled the Bush presidency.

In a 1993 interview with Washingtonian magazine, Bush personally blamed Mitchell for his defeat. His top aide, John Sununu, claimed that Mitchell’s filibuster against Bush’s 1989 proposal to cut the capital gains tax single-handedly plunged the nation into a recession.

Unlike most other Washington lawmakers, who leave office as the result of death or election defeat, Mitchell pulled the plug on his own political career, even turning down Clinton’s offer of a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision not to seek another term in the Senate was not spontaneous, nor did it stem from his recent marriage. Mitchell has said that his bride urged him to run for the Senate again.

“When I was elected to a full term in 1982, I felt I would not be attempting to make this a lifetime position. As is the case with so many things, I was influenced by Senator Muskie, who did the same thing,” Mitchell explained.

Muskie resigned from the Senate in 1980 to become President Carter’s secretary of state, paving the way for Mitchell’s appointment to the Senate by former Gov. Joseph E. Brennan.

The decision last spring to relinquish his national leadership role shocked official Washington.

“Nobody in this town quits while they are ahead,” observed Morton Kondracke, a syndicated columnist.

As the end of Mitchell’s term neared, others in Washington took the measure of his abbreviated, but spectacular Senate career.

“(Mitchell is) the most partisan, most effective Senate majority leader since Lyndon Johnson,” said conservative columnist Bob Novak, echoing Bush’s appraisal.

“I will personally miss him very much — his wise counsel, his support, his strong leadership,” said President Clinton, after naming Mitchell an unpaid diplomatic envoy to Northern Ireland.

Mitchell’s Republican adversary and successor as majority leader, Bob Dole, was generous in a Dec. 1 floor speech.

“All of us have been students of George Mitchell these past years — and we have learned a thing or two about honesty, patience and public service,” Dole said.

“For (him), politics and public service are not games — they are opportunities to make a difference in the life of our nation and her people,” Dole said. “As we sought to make that difference, Senator Mitchell never told me anything but the truth.”

Sen. Cohen, the majority leader’s Maine colleague and co-author of the book “Men of Zeal,” joined in the Senate tribute.

“George Mitchell comes as close to the ideal public servant as anyone I know. His voice has reminded those of us that believe public service is a noble calling that we are not living a fool’s paradise. We are truly going to miss him — and I feel it so much, I don’t want to talk about it,” the Maine Republican said.

Newt Gingrich, general of the victorious Republican army, said Mitchell was proof that the GOP’s term limits proposal was the best congressional reform.

“He came to Washington, stayed two terms in the Senate, accomplished a lot, and then he left,” Gingrich said in a television interview just before November’s elections. The proposed reform would limit senators to two six-year terms.

Gingrich’s back-handed comment amused Mitchell.

“I’m grateful for any kind words spoken about me, but I wonder how serious the Republicans are about term limits. Strom Thurmond has served in the Congress 38 years, Bob Dole, 34 years, Bob Packwood, 28 years, and Jesse Helms, 22 years.

“And they say they’re for just two terms?”

THE MAN IN THE PARKING LOT

As the Washington sun was finally setting, Mitchell pondered his own legacy, saying it would surprise the national media interviewers awaiting his political swan song.

“Most of them are asking me about bills and legislation. It wasn’t that,” he said.

The single most satisfying moment in his political career, Mitchell said, was symbolized in an encounter last year in the parking lot of Sonny Miller’s restaurant in Bangor.

“A man rushed up to me. My first reaction was that he was hostile, that he was going to punch me or push me,” Mitchell related.

There have been incidents, according to Mitchell, when people have “gotten worked up over political issues.”

“I’ve been pushed and shoved a few times, even in Maine,” he said.

The man in the parking lot didn’t want to punch Mitchell. He wanted to hug the Senate leader and thank him for saving his job.

“There were tears running down his face. He told me what I had done meant to his family. It was very moving,” Mitchell said.

In fact, George Mitchell saved 1,000 Maine jobs by convincing Vice President Al Gore to change slightly the wording of a presidential executive order dealing with federal purchases of recycled paper.

As originally drafted, the regulation likely would have forced the closing of Eastern Fine Paper Co. in Brewer and the Lincoln Pulp and Paper Co. in Lincoln, according to Joseph Torras, the owner of both mills.

The Maine mills, each employing about 500 workers, were the only two in the country to use sawdust in the manufacture of recycled paper. Gore’s task force argued that sawdust was a useful byproduct falling outside the definition of recycled materials. Without the federal “recycled” stamp of approval, the Maine mills’ paper products would be rejected by government and private buyers, Torras said.

“I had worked in a paper mill one summer while in college. I’ve been in every Maine mill at least once, and most many times. I had some familiarity with the papermaking process,” Mitchell said.

“Those mills used a unique procedure. I talked with the president, the vice president and a whole lot of people in the administration,” he said.

There was a political price to pay for the intervention. Although he had one of the Senate’s strongest environmental records, Mitchell came under attack from national organizations involved in the debate over recycling.

Richard Denison, the senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, complained that Mitchell used his Senate “clout” to change the sawdust regulation.

“I think he has been fairly parochial. He should have kept it in perspective. In the broader scheme of things, these are very small mills in an industry that has a lot of larger players.”

Tell that to the 1,000 Lincoln and Brewer paper workers.

“I couldn’t say enough about what he did for us. This was a complicated thing … but he took the time to understand all of the nuances of the issue,” Torras said.

Mitchell said he empathized with the millworker’s predicament more than most would imagine.

“I come from a working-class family. When I was 16, in high school, my father lost his job. He was out of work for a year. It nearly destroyed him and our family,” the senator said.

“I don’t want to sound self-serving, but I doubt that things would have turned out the way they did had I not been majority leader, and been in a position to make the mills’ case to the administration,” he said.

LOSING TO LONGLEY

In his last election, George Mitchell piled up the biggest landslide in Maine history, an 81 percent drubbing of Republican Jasper Wyman. Polls taken last year indicated that Mitchell would have been re-elected easily, had he chosen to remain in the Senate.

Few remember that Mitchell lost his first Maine election, and was shunned as a loser by many in his own party after the debacle. The year was 1974. The Vietnam War was winding down. Richard Nixon was knee-deep in the Watergate scandal.

The Maine Democratic Party that chose Mitchell as its gubernatorial nominee adopted a platform that “outliberaled McGovern,” according to one newspaper headline.

It called for state laws to protect homosexuals; amnesty for all Vietnam War draft dodgers; the speedy impeachment of Nixon; and elimination of jail sentences for people arrested with small quantities of marijuana.

All of them, including the Nixon impeachment, were issues Mitchell went out of his way to avoid during the campaign, focusing instead on well thought-out positions on land-use planning and state budget reform.

The Republican candidate, former Attorney General Jim Erwin, had an even bigger cross to bear. Time and again, Erwin defended Nixon and dismissed the Watergate scandal as a tempest in a teapot.

Even in the late stages of the 1974 campaign, polls showed only single-digit support for James B. Longley, the insurance millionaire from Lewiston who burst on the Maine political scene like Ross Perot in 1992’s presidential race.

The more the public learned about Watergate, the more it tuned in to Longley’s message that “professional politicians” were ruining the country, And tuned out Mitchell, whose policy wonk image suffered in

Mitchell fell 9,000 votes short of Longley, despite newspaper polls that projected him as an easy winner on the final weekend of the 1974 campaign. It was a staggering loss that angered many Democrats. A year after that defeat, Mitchell said his “present intention is to run for governor again (in 1978).”

There was an overwhelming lack of interest for that proposition among most Democrats, who cast Mitchell as the man who kicked away the governorship to Longley.

Mentor Ed Muskie steered Mitchell away from politics, securing his appointment as U.S. attorney and then a federal judge.

Tony Buxton, an Augusta lawyer and a top aide in Mitchell’s 1974 gubernatorial campaign, recalled Mitchell’s judicial period. Buxton was disappointed that the senator did not accept Clinton’s offer of a U.S. Supreme Court appointment.

“George loves the law and is an ardent student of the Constitution. I would say probably few judges in America have read as much about the philosophical underpinnings of our Republican form of government. I regret that he does not want to write for the ages,” Buxton said.

Buxton recalled an incident nearly 20 years ago, when Mitchell was Maine’s federal prosecutor.

“I was a law school student. My wife was interning for him. One day I was sitting in his office and I listened as he returned a call to a criminal attorney. George called the guy to cite a case he would use in his summary arguments that had not been cited in his brief,” Buxton said.

“When he hung up the phone, I asked him why he had not surprised the attorney with the case,” Buxton said. That could have helped him win the case.

“He said he did it `because his job was not to win, but to see that justice is done,”‘ Buxton related.

TAKING ON LT. COL. OLIVER NORTH

“The first thing I noticed was the uniform. Then the medals: a chest full of them. His handshake was tight, even hard, as though he was trying to make a point. His eyes were clear, his gaze was firm, his smile quick. Before he said a word, I knew Oliver North would be a very tough witness.” — George Mitchell, “Men of Zeal”

That Maine’s two senators were named to the joint congressional committee probing the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987 was a testament to the high regard Washington held for George Mitchell and William Cohen. No other state had two Senate members on the panel.

Cohen, who cemented his reputation as a thoughtful, independent lawmaker during the House Watergate hearings, did not hold back his criticism of Reagan White House foibles on Iran-Contra, and was portrayed favorably in the media. Little was known of Mitchell, except that he was a former federal judge who replaced Muskie in the Senate.

As the hearings began, Oliver North clearly had the committee on the run. Committee questioners hoped to impugn North’s honesty by citing the illegal gift of a $13,000 home security system by one of the weapons suppliers to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

The moved backfired. North claimed the security system was in response to a death threat on his family by Abu Nidal, the international terrorist. North riveted the television audience with daring tales of his clandestine attempts to free American hostages held in the Mideast.

In “Men of Zeal,” Mitchell and Cohen noted that the July 9 edition of The Washington Post contained 23 photos of North. Committee members were incredulous.

“Twenty-three pictures of one person in a single edition of a daily newspaper!” the senators wrote.

As North’s testimony proceeded, telegrams and letters began pouring into Capitol Hill, at the rate of more than 2,000 a day, in support of the ramrod-straight Marine colonel.

Several Republican members, who days earlier had blasted North’s illegal maneuver in financing gun sales to the Contras by selling high-tech weapons to Iran, were rallying to North’s side.

“By Wednesday night I knew I had a real problem. After two days of testimony, Oliver North had become a national hero. My offices in Maine and in Washington were swamped with telephone calls, most of them favorable to North,” Mitchell wrote in “Men of Zeal.”

“And I knew the worst was yet to come. On the following morning, North would belatedly deliver his opening statement. I had read it and knew that it was a combative defense of his actions and a powerful indictment of the committee,” the Maine senator recalled.

Mitchell had a weekend to prepare for what promised to be a congressional debacle. Democratic colleagues watched the proceedings on television and were as uneasy as Mitchell about the direction of the hearings.

They stopped panel members during hearing breaks to ask: “Why are you guys letting him get away with those speeches? You’ve got to turn this thing around! We’re counting on you!” Mitchell wrote.

Cohen advised, “Take him on the issues, but don’t attack him personally. If you do, you won’t succeed in the attack, and the issues will be drowned out.”

Harold Pachios, a Portland lawyer who once worked in the Johnson White House as a deputy press secretary, is one of Mitchell’s closest friends. He echoed Cohen’s advice.

“If you call him a liar, which is what you’ll be doing if you directly attack his credibility, that will be the story; nothing else will get across. And what’s the point? He’s already admitted lying,” counseled Pachios.

His advice: “North said today that you guys should vote aid for the Contras for love of God and country. That’s outrageous. It’s insulting. You can take that and turn it around. Not only can you do it, you have to do it.”

The senator and the colonel faced off on Monday, July 14, 1987. Mitchell began with a quiet, deliberative summation that touched on his Maine upbringing and his experience in swearing in new citizens as a federal judge.

When questioned about why they had come to America, many responded, “because you can criticize the government without looking over your shoulder,” Mitchell said.

Turning to North’s plea “that Congress not cut off aid to the Contras for the love of God and for the love of country,” Mitchell declared: “Of all the qualities which the American people find compelling about you, none is more impressive than your obvious deep devotion to this country. Please remember that others share that devotion with you on aid to the Contras and still love God and still love this country as much as you do.

“Although He’s regularly asked to do so,” Mitchell continued, “God does not take sides in American politics. And in America, disagreement with the policies of the government is not evidence of lack of patriotism.”

The response was instant and overwhelming.

Mitchell’s office logged 1,400 phone calls — most of them supportive of Mitchell and the Iran-Contra committee.

One of the callers, a national Jewish leader, said, “That was the greatest American speech since Gettysburg.” Another woman, who described herself as a “dumpy, middle-aged woman from Tennessee,” declared, “Right on, Mr. Mitchell.”

At the conclusion of that day’s hearing, Mitchell and Cohen walked to their prearranged spot in the corridor of the Russell Office Building for interviews with the two Maine reporters covering the Iran-Contra hearings.

That day, dozens of national reporters descended on the location. All wanted to ask Mitchell about North. The Maine Democrat held court for several minutes, and then noticed Cohen standing awkwardly behind him.

“You must have some questions for Senator Cohen,” Mitchell said. From that moment on, the junior Democratic senator was the biggest star in Maine’s congressional delegation.

“HE TALKS SERIOUSLY ABOUT SERIOUS THINGS”

Losers of five of the past six presidential elections, Democratic members of the Senate gathered behind closed doors on Dec. 1, 1988, to choose, in the words of one member, “a spokesman who can connect with the American people.”

Sen. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana boasted of having the Senate majority leader’s election locked up. Sen. Daniel Inouye claimed the race would be his. In a secret ballot, Mitchell captured 27 votes, to 14 each for his competitors.

“The better man won,” said Johnston to reporters after the caucus. He (Mitchell) won because he was a politician who “talks seriously about serious things,” Cohen remarked.

Another George with ties to Maine — George Bush — also was elected in 1988. In his inaugural address, Bush outlined his “kinder, gentler” national vision and appeared to reach out to Mitchell and House Speaker Tom Foley, calling to them by their first names as he began his speech.

There was a good working relationship for the first two years of the Bush presidency. Mitchell worked closely with the administration in negotiating a compromise that paved the way for passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act.

He and Bush also reached an accommodation on U.S. policy in Central America, one of the thorniest issues between Republicans and Democrats during the Reagan years. There also were accommodations that led to the enactment of the Americans With Disabilities Act, as well as child care reform, oil spill cleanup acts and housing legislation.

After the so-called budget summit in 1990, when Bush agreed to break his “no new taxes” pledge in return for promised budget cuts, there was little room for compromise.

Mitchell became a vocal critic of Bush’s foreign policy after a delegation of White House aides met secretly with Chinese leaders shortly after the massacre of students in Tiananmen Square. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Mitchell sided with the doves of his party and led the nearly successful move to block the congressional resolution authorizing the Desert Storm offensive.

Mitchell said he has no idea why the Bush White House discarded its early policy of accommodation with congressional Democrats. Bush blames Mitchell for the rupture. He voiced his sentiments about the Maine senator in a 1993 Washingtonian magazine interview with political writer Vic Gould.

“There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, Democratic leadership made a decision to fight me down to the wire as I tried to do something about health care, or strong crime legislation, the environment, or whatever was on the table,” the former president said.

“Well, for two years I thought I’d be able to work with George Mitchell. He seemed friendly. We have a pleasant personal relationship. Underneath that friendly veneer, there was steadfast partisan opposition,” Bush said.

The former president concluded: “He represented the part of the Democratic majority that simply wanted to oppose the president on everything. Mitchell’s purpose, his goal, was simply to bring my presidency down. And to some degree, he deserves credit for that.”

HIS PLACE IN HISTORY

“The thing you’ve got to remember about the Senate is that it’s not a place very well led, so it’s damn difficult to rise above the ordinary. But Mitchell did that,” said Charles Jones, a fellow for the Brookings Institution and the author of several books about Congress and the presidency.

That was a situation that often frustrated Mitchell and contributed to his decision not to seek re-election.

“There are two things about the Senate that make it difficult. The first is the rules of unlimited debate. The second is the lack of any restriction on the number of amendments that can be offered,” Mitchell said.

In the House, leadership can dictate both of those terms to avoid filibusters and free-for-all debates.

“Any one senator can tie up the Senate. Until fairly recently, members exercised self-restraint. Now the rules are used to maximum advantage. It’s every man and every party for itself,” said Mitchell.

Jones said there’s no handbook for leading the Senate. Previous majority leaders had quite different styles.

“The model was Lyndon Johnson. He was the exception, in one sense, because he was so powerful and dominating,” the author said.

The job has not been a particularly effective political steppingstone. Most in Washington thought that Johnson was taking a step down when he left the leadership post to be President Kennedy’s vice president, Jones said. Howard Baker bombed when he ran for president after serving as GOP majority leader.

Mitchell said he was flattered that some encouraged him to run for president during his years as majority leader, but he never was serious about the idea.

Jones said that Mitchell’s most effective period as Democratic Senate leader came during the final two years of the Bush administration.

“He took an aggressive posture. The Democrats crafted a legislative agenda that forced Bush to veto a lot of bills. That strategy framed gridlock as an issue, which was the principal theme of Clinton’s winning 1992 presidential campaign,” Jones said.

“It was a very impressive, effective stragegy. It resulted in Bush’s defeat,” the author said.

Mitchell’s relationship with the national media was intriguing. Generally, it was a favorable press. Kondracke complained that Mitchell never schmoozed national reporters.

“What struck me was the contrast. He was a really tough partisan guy, but he came across with this judicial, mild-mannered approach,” the columnist said.

“I was always disappointed that he was such a bad communicator. He did not give very many interviews, or let us know much about what was going on in private. A lot of us wanted to see what was behind his facade,” he said.

With the Maine media, Mitchell was very accessible. He returned press calls from phone booths at airports, from car phones and even, on occassion, with a hushed voice from a phone on the floor of the Senate.

In private, Mitchell several times interceded on behalf of local journalists. He contacted the government of Costa Rica to protest the house arrest of two American journalists with Maine ties, and set up an interview with the president of that country for another Maine reporter.

Mitchell’s office assisted a Philadelphia family in its search for the body of a journalist who worked briefly in Maine and was killed in Guatemala’s civil war.

There were other unpublicized acts of generosity. A popular Washington-based reporter who wrote for a Maine newspaper contracted a fatal brain tumor last year. He did not have medical insurance.

Mitchell and Sen. Edward Kennedy’s office worked out an arrangement to ensure that the reporter received medical treatment. Mitchell’s aides helped set up a schedule with members of the Senate press gallery to visit the reporter and bring him food.

The senator also made arrangements for a memorial service in the Capitol and gave an eloquent eulogy for the deceased reporter.

“NOT AS STRAIGHT-LACED AS HE APPEARED”

There was one aspect of Mitchell’s political career that did turn heads in the media.

“For a button-down guy, he was not as straight-laced as he appeared,” said Lois Romano, who writes The Washington Post’s “Reliable Source” gossip column.

Mitchell divorced his first wife, Sally, in 1987. For half of his years in Washington, he was an eligible bachelor.

“He had the two things that made him a very desirable person on the social scene … the fact he was single and had power,” Romano said.

The first woman to be romantically linked to Mitchell was Janet Mullins, an assistant for political affairs to President Bush. The romance is said to have caused consternation among Democrats and the Bush White House, both of whom assumed that Mitchell and Mullins were gathering political secrets for each other.

A political scandal apparently broke up the romance. Mullins was investigated by the Justice Department, but ultimately was cleared of criminal charges in the widely publicized search by Bush aides of the State Department files for Clinton’s passport during the 1992 presidential campaign.

In one sense, it was a trail-breaking ordeal. Bush’s top political adviser, Mary Matalin, later married Clinton’s campaign consultant, Jim Carville, and the couple ended up writing a best-selling book about political enemies in love.

A tennis tournament led Mitchell to his new wife, Heather MacLachlan. Friends asked Mitchell to use his clout to get them last-minute tickets to the U.S. Open in New York last year. Somebody had given the senator MacLachlan’s telephone number as a person with inside connections to the tournament.

In a C-SPAN interview last month, Mitchell said he made some late-night calls and ended up waking MacLachlan out of a sound sleep. She produced the tickets. As a thank-you, Mitchell promised her a tour of the Senate if she ever came to Washington.

The couple’s one recent public appearance was at the White House state dinner for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan’s King Hussein.

According to a newspaper account of the dinner, “a tablemate turned to MacLachlan and said, `You blew the doors off (Hussein’s wife) Queen Noor, and she’s georgeous.”‘

HIS OWN PRIVATE LEGACY

Years after George Mitchell fades into the history books, children from Maine will remember him.

Before he decided not to run for re-election, the Senate majority leader had raised $2 million to pay for the race. When he changed his mind, Mitchell wrote to the contributors and gave them the choice of getting their money back, or donating it to a scholarship fund.

Quite a few donors asked that their money be spent on scholarships. Mitchell said the fund totals about $300,000, and is growing daily.

“I’m going to continue to raise money for this program, long after I leave the Senate,” Mitchell said.

His trips back to Maine while serving in Washington put Mitchell onto the idea. The Senate leader said one of his proudest accomplishments was the fact that he visited all of the state’s high schools during his two terms. He observed the wide disparity in financial aid available to Maine students.

In most urban districts, scholarships are plentiful. But that’s not the case in many of the rural high schools.

Mitchell said many people helped him work his way through Bowdoin College. One was the school’s athletic director, Malcolm Morrill, who got him a job as a truck driver for the local coal company.

“Over the years, I’ve kept up a wonderful relationship with that family. Fate has put me in a position to help others the way they helped me,” the senator said.

As for his immediate future, Mitchell has accepted a post as a special counsel with one of the District of Columbia’s largest law firms, Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, according to the Washington Post Friday.

Mitchell also has agreed to lecture at Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, Nova Southeastern University and Broward Community College, all in Florida, and go to Northern Ireland next month as an unpaid diplomatic envoy for President Clinton. The current baseball strike has put a hold on the possibility of Mitchell becoming the next baseball commissioner.

“I have not ruled out future public service in some form, either elective or appointive. I did not leave the Senate dissatisfied with public service,” he said.

Mitchell’s greatest accomplishment?

“That after nearly 15 years in the Senate, I have been able to retain the trust and support of most Maine people at a time of widespread hostility, mistrust and cynicism toward elected officials,” the outgoing Senate majority leader said.