Wilson Center Mourns the Passing of Vice President Walter Mondale

The Wilson Center joins the country in mourning the passing of the 42nd Vice President of the United States, Walter Mondale. A lifelong public servant, Mondale was instrumental in fundamentally changing the role of the Vice Presidency into a modern and influential office where major domestic and foreign policy decisions would be discussed and acted upon.

We agree with President Jimmy Carter’s thoughts, “Fritz used his political skill and personal integrity to transform the vice presidency into a dynamic, policy-driving force that had never been seen before and still exists today,” Mr. Carter said. “He was an invaluable partner and an able servant of the people of Minnesota, the United States, and the world. Fritz Mondale provided us all with a model for public service and private behavior.”[1]

He spoke in-depth about his vision of the office at a Wilson Center event in April of 2007. "One of the reasons I was able to be helpful was the word quickly got out that this was different now,” Mondale said at that event. “That when I spoke I was speaking for the president and I was acting on his behalf, and that when I was doing so they had a right to assume they were hearing from the president."

In addition, he was the first presidential major-party candidate to choose a woman as his running mate when he ran alongside Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

The entire Wilson Center community sends our support to Vice President Mondale’s family.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/politics/walter-mondale-death-reactions.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article