Walter F. Mondale

• •  

  Walter F. Mondale’s record of public service includes Vice President of the United States, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, U.S. Senator and Attorney General for the State of Minnesota.  He was also the Democratic Party’s nominee for President in 1984.  He is currently Senior Counsel with the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney LLP, headquartered in Minneapolis with 20 offices worldwide and serves as Chairman of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation.

  Walter Frederick (“Fritz”) 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 B.A. 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. (cum laude) from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1956, having served on the law review and as a law clerk in the Minnesota Supreme Court.

  Mondale practiced law for the next four years in Minneapolis.  In 1960, Minnesota Governor Orville Freeman appointed him to the position of State Attorney General.  Mondale was then elected to the office in 1962, and served until 1964, when Governor Karl Rolvaag asked him to fill the U.S. Senate vacancy created by Hubert Humphrey’s election to the Vice Presidency.  The voters of Minnesota returned Mondale to the Senate in 1966 and 1972.

  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 August 13, 1993, to December 15, 1996.