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GEORGE MITCHELL

In 1995, U.S. senate majority leader George Mitchell stunned the American political world by announcing his retirement to spend more time with his new wife, Heather.

But President Clinton prevailed upon him to be his envoy to promote peace in Northern Ireland, something the 64-year-old Maine native has done almost weekly, without pay, since June 1996.

A Maronite Catholic, Mitchell is the son of an orphaned Irish father who was a janitor and a Lebanese garment worker. He worked in construction and as an insurance adjustor while attending Bowdoin College and Georgetown University law school.

He served as an intelligence officer in the Army and ran unsuccessfully for Maine governor before being appointed to fill the senate seat of his mentor, Ed Muskie, in 1980. He won lopsided victories in 1982 and again in 1988, when he became the majority leader.

Calm, determined and highly methodical, Mitchell is said to be judicious and courteous in private. He is also skilled at fending off the media, and has refrained from taking any credit for the progress in the peace talks. But his efforts have not gone unappreciated.

Says John Allerdice, who leads Northern Ireland's moderate Alliance Party in the talks, "Here the United States had sent one of its most able, skilled, talented, humble politicians, a supreme diplomat -- and we, frankly, didn't deserve him."

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