The Good Fight, Walter Mondale's Life in Liberal Politics

Walter F. Mondale

Walter Frederick (“Fritz”) Mondale served as the 42^nd Vice President of the United States under President Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981. Mondale was also a United States Senator for Minnesota from 1964-1976 and served as an attorney general from 1960-1964. He was the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the United States presidential election of 1984, and is currently Senior Counsel with the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney LLP.

Mondale was born in Ceylon, Minnesota on January 5, 1928. After he helped manage Hubert H. Humphrey’s first successful U.S. Senate campaign in 1948, he earned his bachelor of arts in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1951. After completing service as a corporal in the U.S. Army, Mondale received his LL.B. from the University of Minnesota in 1956. While working as a lawyer in Minneapolis, Mondale was appointed to the position of State Attorney General in 1960 by Minnesota Governor Orville Freeman. He was later appointed  as U.S. Senator in 1964, when Governor Karl Rolvaag asked him to fill the U.S. Senate vacancy created by Hubert Humphrey’s election to the Vice Presidency. Mondale held this post until 1976.

Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were elected President and Vice President of the United States on November 2, 1976. On the President’s behalf, Mondale traveled extensively throughout the country and the world advocating U.S. policy. He was the first Vice President to have an office in the White House, and he served as a full-time participant, advisor, and troubleshooter for the Administration. In 1984, Mondale was the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States. Following that election, Mondale returned to his native Minnesota in 1987 where he practiced law with the firm of Dorsey & Whitney until President Clinton nominated him to be the U.S. Ambassador to Japan. Mondale served as Ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996.