WASHINGTON – Tucked into the southwest corner of the nation’s capital near the Potomac River is the home of Maine’s oldest living former governor, John Hathaway Reed, who served in the early 1960s.

The third-floor condo is much the way it was when his wife of 60 years died four years ago, with a grand piano, two step-stool-sized Vietnamese elephant figures and bronze-gilded French decor.

Reed, a lifelong potato farmer and horse lover, sits surrounded by the exotic trinkets and regal furniture collected from years abroad as ambassador to Sri Lanka and his travels as governor.

Described by friends and former colleagues as a progressive Republican, the 87-year-old Reed is an example of a moderate Mainer who believes in bipartisanship, qualities that today characterize and sometimes separate Maine’s leaders from much of what is considered the “norm” in politics.

“When you were around John, it didn’t matter if you were a Republican or Democrat, you always had a good discussion and would come out still friends,” said former U.S. Rep. Peter Kyros, who served Maine’s 1st District from 1967 to 1975 as a Democrat and who is a friend of Reed’s. “Likeability is probably the No. 1 reason why we choose people as leaders. John was a reflective, thoughtful and deliberate man and a highly likable man, and that’s why he was successful.”

Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, who is married to John McKernan, the only Republican governor since Reed, said Reed has “demonstrated a commitment to public service that has transcended partisan politics.” She recalled the first time she met Reed during her senior year in college.

“I attended a reception he hosted during the presidential inauguration in January 1969 and I remember even then enjoying his graciousness and great sense of humor,” she said.

Reed always made up his mind on a case-by-case basis, said Jeff Akor, a former Reed spokesman who first met the governor while covering a story on budget cuts for the University of Maine newspaper, the Maine Campus.

Perhaps the best example of this is Reed’s position on the Iraq war, which he has been against from the beginning.

“You don’t attack someone who’s not attacking you,” Reed said in an interview at his home. “I could not believe President Bush was going to start a war. I really was astounded. I was shocked. It was a mistake.”

It was “ridiculous” that former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, “who had never been in a war,” believed the oil supply would benefit the United States and that the Iraqi people would “welcome us with open arms,” Reed said. “Well, it hasn’t turned out that way at all.”

County roots

Reed’s bipartisan and progressive spirit began as a child when he would act as the peacemaker, Reed’s oldest daughter, Cheryl Reed, was told by a relative.

Born on Jan. 5, 1921, in Fort Fairfield, Reed was the grandson of a prominent potato farmer. Reed carried on the family business for much of his life, later selling all but 70 acres of the farm.

“I’ve kept it because I’m always going to have a piece of Fort Fairfield and have it so I can still call myself a potato farmer,” Reed said with pride.

Reed never intended to be a politician and thought he would serve a few terms in the state Legislature and give it up.

But “he enjoyed his associations in government and in public policy, and so it became his life,” said Don Larrabee, a Washington journalist who covered Maine from 1948 to 1978 and who is now a friend of Reed’s.

Reed attended the University of Maine, where he was required to go through military training in his first two years. He wanted to continue the training, but wasn’t chosen. When World War II broke out, Reed was finishing college, and many of his friends who had been accepted into the training program were shipped to Germany and eventually died in combat.

“Fate plays a hand, and you might be disappointed one time,” Reed said, “but later on it turns out to be a blessing.”

He joined the Navy and when he went to turn in his papers, he said, there sat a “beautiful, vivacious redhead,” Cora Davison, who would become his wife.

Reed, who was not sent overseas until late in the war, spent much of his time on bases in Rhode Island and Florida training troops.

After the war, Reed and his new wife settled in Maine, where Reed worked his way up the political ladder. He began as a state representative in 1955 when his hometown representative retired. Two years later Reed became a state senator.

Because of a love for horses, Reed frequented races and fairs, making many friends who were involved in politics.

“It’s kind of a grass-roots sport, and that’s where the harness horses were, too,” Reed said. “So I had built-in contacts that helped me a lot.”

Reed used his network to help him get elected president of the Senate. Then, in December 1959, Gov. Clinton Clauson died of a heart attack. Maine’s constitution makes the Senate president first in line for the governorship, so Reed became governor.

As governor, he started educational television in Maine and created a network of University of Maine colleges. He also pushed to combine school districts to save money, something that’s occurring again in Maine today.

But Reed’s largest accomplishment was the way he touched individual lives, visiting factories and farms and bringing himself closer to everyday Mainers.

“These are hard-working people, and I wanted to look after their interests,” Reed said.

“He was very attentive to the feelings, the needs and the desires of the people,” said Reginald Bowden, a Reed spokesman from 1961 to 1965. Bowden said there wasn’t a day in his administration that Reed didn’t get out and visit people.

“Dad has a natural ability to make friends,” Cheryl Reed said. He “has no need to impress or be anything other than who he is in all circumstances. He is the same whether talking to the lowest or highest.”

Reed made friendships with some of the highest.

Friendship with LBJ

At a National Governors Association conference in Hawaii in June 1961, Reed split from the pack, who went golfing, and took the opportunity to visit then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson. The two nongolfers quickly learned that they had something else in common: both grew up on farms. The two reveled in their shared experiences and Johnson invited Reed to visit his Texas ranch, which he later did.

“Over the years I developed a good friendship with him, even though I was a Republican and he was a Democrat,” Reed said.

In fact, he recalled, Johnson had asked him to send him a couple of male deer, hoping the Maine deer would help to increase the size of the deer in Texas.

“So I did,” Reed said. “I never did find out how it worked out.”

A few years later, in 1966, the United States was in Vietnam and Reed, who was now the chairman of the National Governors Association, joined other governors on a trip to the White House. After his White House meeting, Reed came out in support of Johnson’s Vietnam policies, said Larrabee, the Washington journalist. Larrabee also said Reed was echoing the sentiments of the governors at the time.

Later that year, after Reed lost his bid for re-election, Johnson appointed him as one of the five original members of the National Transportation Safety Board. After a year as a member, Reed became chairman of the board and served for eight years, the longest of any chairman.

President Gerald Ford appointed Reed ambassador to Sri Lanka, an Indian Ocean nation of some 20 million formerly known as Ceylon.

After Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, Reed served as director of government relations for Associated Builders and Contractors Inc., a Washington lobbying group. Then, after the 1981 inauguration of Ronald Reagan as president, Reed was appointed to his old post in Sri Lanka and served until 1985.

While on this tour, a civil war broke out in Sri Lanka between the government and the Tamil Tigers, an ethnic minority fighting to create an independent state in the north and east of the island.

Reed said it was “so sad” that the war continues today, but he is very much removed from the country he once called home.

Now he busies himself with simpler activities, such as daily walks along the Potomac and occasional trips to Baltimore, where, surrounded by Orioles fans, he proudly wears the cap of his beloved Red Sox. Reed spends part of each summer along Maine’s North Pond, where he has summered since he was just 1 year old.

He continues his political friendships as a member of the National Republican Club of Capitol Hill and of veterans groups, while also spending time with his daughter Cheryl, who works for a large law firm in Washington. His other daughter, Ruth, and three grandchildren live in Massachusetts and Maine.

He said he “feels great,” noting that he has no health problems and doesn’t have any regrets in his life. Though he never intended to live the life he has, he succeeded with a blend of fate and friends.

“Fate opens doors and you take advantage of them,” Reed said, but “you’ve got to have a lot of friends who believe in you. … I guess in life it’s that way, but certainly in politics.”