End of the Cold War: New Challenges for Governing

Walter F. Mondale

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale is now practicing law, teaching, studying, traveling in the United States and internationally, and serving as a director of both corporate and nonprofit boards.

Born in 1928 and raised and schooled in Minnesota, Mondale helped manage Hubert H. Humphrey’s first successful U.S. Senate campaign in 1948. He went on to earn his B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1952. After service as a corporal in the U.S. Army, Mondale received his LL.B (cum laude) from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1956, having served on the law review and as a clerk in the Minnesota Supreme Court.

In 1960, Mondale was appointed Attorney General fro the State of Minnesota. He was elected to the office in 1962 and served until 1964, when he was appointed to fill the U.S. Senate vacancy created by Hubert Humphrey’s election to the Vice Presidency. The voters returned Mondale to the Senate in 1966 and 1972. During that time, Mondale served on the Finance Committee, the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, and the Budget Committee, as well as several Select Committees. He also chaired the Intelligence Committee’s Domestic Task Force.

Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were elected President and Vice President of the United States in 1976. Mondale was the first Vice President to have an office in the White House and to serve as a full-time participant, adviser and troubleshooter within a Presidential administration. He was the 1984 Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Now a partner with the Minneapolis-based law firm of Dorsey & Whitney, Mondale is also a Distinguished University Fellow in Law and Public Affairs with the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. There he recently established the Mondale Policy Forum, which brings together leading scholars and policymakers for major conferences on domestic and international policy issues. Mondale also chairs the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a Washington-based organization which conducts non-partisan international programs to promote democratic institutions.

Mondale is author of The Accountability of Power: Toward a Responsible Presidency, as well as numerous articles. He is also the subject of a full-length biography and the book, Democrats’ Dilemma: Walter F. Mondale and the Legacy of Liberalism, published in 1992.