Known as "the conscience of the Senate," Mark O. Hatfield is serving his fourth term as Republican senator from Oregon. He is the Senate's second-ranking Republican and ranking minority member of the influential Senate Appropriations Committee.

Throughout his political career-he served in the Oregon state legislature for six years and then became Oregon's secretary of state and, later, governor for eight years before reaching the Senate-he has been characterized as a person willing to stand firm on his principles.

In 1966, for example, as governor of Oregon, Hatfield was adamantly opposed to the Vietnam War, a position that drew opposition and even hostility from many quarters. At the same time, President Lyndon Johnson, himself under criticism, was seeking the endorsement of continued American involvement in Southeast Asia from leaders across the country. Thus, when the governors of every state held a conference in Los Angeles that July, Johnson asked that they go on record as approving ...