Former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale, who served as U.S. ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996, died from natural causes Monday at his home in Minneapolis, his family said in a statement. He was 93.

Mondale, known as “Fritz,” was a stalwart member of the Democratic Party and a long-time senator who served under U.S. President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981, before launching his own losing bid for the presidency in 1984.

In 1993, the year after Bill Clinton’s presidential election victory ended 12 years of Republican occupancy of the White House, Mondale was appointed as ambassador to Japan.