Impact Symposium: Sen. George Mitchell

Watch a conversation with former Sen. George Mitchell, who served as U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace from 2009 to 2011 and as independent chairman of the Northern Ireland Peace Talks, moderated by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Maraniss at Vanderbilt University March 18, 2013. Prior to his appointment as a special envoy to the Middle East, Mitchell, D-Maine, served in the U.S. Senate for 15 years, including as Senate majority leader from 1989 to 1995. From 1996 to 2000, he was the independent chairman of the Northern Ireland Peace Talks that resulted in the Good Friday Agreement, an historic accord ending decades of conflict among the political parties of Northern Ireland and the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom. For his service, Mitchell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2000 and 2001, at the request of President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Barak and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Mitchell served as chairman of an international fact-finding committee on violence in the Middle East. The committee's recommendation, widely known as The Mitchell Report, was endorsed by the Bush Administration, the European Union and other governments. Now in its 49th year, Vanderbilt's Impact Symposium is one of the oldest university lecture series of its caliber in the nation. The Vanderbilt University Speakers Committee, a student-run organization, hosts the event. To learn more about Vanderbilt, visit http://www.vanderbilt.edu.