George J. Mitchell

George J. Mitchell

George John Mitchell, Jr., GBE (born August 20, 1933) is an American politician and businessman. A Democrat, Mitchell was a United States Senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995 and was Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995.

Since retiring from the Senate, Mitchell has taken up a variety of positions in politics and business. He has taken a leading role in negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, being specifically appointed United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland (1995-2001) by President Clinton and as United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace (2009-2011) by President Obama. He was a primary architect of the 1996 Mitchell Principles and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and was the main investigator in two "Mitchell Reports", one on the Arab–Israeli conflict (2001) and one on the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball (2007).

Mitchell served as chairman of The Walt Disney Company from March 2004 until January 2007, and later as chairman of the international law firm DLA Piper. He was the Chancellor of Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 1999 to 2009. Mitchell currently serves as a co-chair of the Housing Commission at the Bipartisan Policy Center.