Posted on: Saturday, October 6, 2001

Editorial
Mike Mansfield made his mark here and in Japan

It's a tossup whether the passing of Mike Mansfield, who died yesterday at 98, will be noted more prominently in Japan or the United States. He was widely respected and admired in both countries.

Mansfield served as U.S. Senate majority leader and United States ambassador to Japan longer than anyone else.

His ambassadorship in Tokyo, one of the most sensitive posts in U.S. diplomacy, coincided with the years in which Japan established itself as one of the world's economic superpowers.

A Montana Democrat, he was Senate majority leader at a time of mounting congressional opposition to the war in Vietnam and the authority of the president to conduct it, the Watergate crisis and the resignation of President Nixon.

As ambassador he became an institution in Japan, venerated for his age and the status that he brought to the position, and his sensitivity to Japanese customs and folkways.

As a legislator, Mansfield was fervent in his opposition to the Vietnam War, calling it a "grotesque mistake," and calling his inability to scale it back his greatest disappointment.

In 1973, he was a principal architect of the War Powers Act, which is supposed to check the president's ability to commit American troops abroad without the consent of Congress.

Ironically, that's a law Congress voted last week to allow President Bush to bypass indefinitely in his war against terrorism.