American Foreign Policy after Iraq and Afghanistan

Lee Hamilton

Tuesday, 27 Mar 2012 at 8:00 pm – Great Hall, Memorial Union

Former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton directs the Center on Congress, a nonpartisan educational institution he established in 1999 to improve the public's understanding of Congress: its strengths and weaknesses, its role in our system of government, and its impact on the lives of ordinary people. Hamilton served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 to 1999. For more than forty years he has been an important voice on international relations and American national security. He served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, co-chaired the Iraq Study Group with former Secretary of State James Baker and was President of the Woodrow Wilson Center. Hamilton's books include How Congress Works and Why You Should Care, A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress and Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission. The Manatt-Phelps Lecture in Political Science.

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Established in 1999, the Center for Congress is based on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington. It offers an extensive array of civic education resources and activities aimed at fostering an informed electorate that understands our system of government and participates in civic life.

Lee Hamilton’s leadership of the Center has put Indiana University at the forefront of the growing national movement to expand and improve civic education. He also is Co-Chairman of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, serving with retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer.

For more than 40 years, Hamilton has been an important voice on international relations and American national security. From 1965 to 1999 he served Indiana in the U.S. House, where his chairmanships included the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran. He also was chairman of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress and worked to promote integrity and efficiency in the institution.

Since retiring from Congress, Hamilton has been at the center of efforts to address some of our nation’s highest-profile homeland security and foreign policy challenges.

He served as Vice Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the 9/11 Commission), which issued its report in 2004. He was Co-Chairman, with former Secretary of State James A. Baker, of the Iraq Study Group, which in 2006 made recommendations on U.S. policy options in Iraq. He was Co-Chairman, with former Sen. Spencer Abraham, of the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's Future, which issued a report in 2006 calling for reform of the nation’s immigration laws and system. Currently he is Co-Chairman, with former White House National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.

From 1999 through 2010, Hamilton was President of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, an institution in Washington, D.C., where scholars, policymakers and business leaders engage in comprehensive and non-partisan dialogue on public policy issues.

Hamilton graduated from DePauw University and Indiana University law school, and he studied for a year at Goethe University in Germany. A former high school and college basketball star, he was inducted into the Indiana basketball Hall of Fame in 1982. Before his 1964 election to Congress, he practiced law in Chicago and Columbus, Ind.

Cosponsored By:

• College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• ISU Foundation
• Political Science
• World Affairs
• Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)