President and Director Lee H. Hamilton Announces Departure From the Woodrow Wilson Center
Lee H. Hamilton has announced his intention to step down later this year as president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, an institution he has led since January 1999.
WASHINGTON—Lee H. Hamilton has announced his intention to step down later this year as president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, an institution he has led since January 1999.
"Lee Hamilton has been an exemplary president and director of the Wilson Center for over a decade," says Joseph B. Gildenhorn, chairman of the Center's Board of Trustees. "The Center's trustees are grateful for his extraordinary leadership and service to the Center. He has strengthened the Wilson Center's reputation in every way and increased its role as a premier non-partisan scholarly institution in Washington, D.C. While we are saddened by his decision, we wish him well and know that he will remain a continued valuable and wise counsel to the Nation and to the Center. The Board is in the process of forming a search committee for the position of President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center. We are very pleased that Lee has agreed to assist in the search and in the transition."
Hamilton represented Indiana's 9th congressional district for 34 years beginning January 1965. He served as chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. As a member of the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee Hamilton was a primary draftsman of several House ethics reforms.
Hamilton is well-respected worldwide and has served in an advisory capacity to many administrations of both parties leading to his agreeing to lead or join presidential commissions and advisory groups on important national issues. A New York Times profile in December, 2006, was titled "Lee H. Hamilton, a Compromiser Who Operates above the Partisan Fray." He served as a commissioner on the United States Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission), and was co-chair with former senator Howard Baker of the Baker-Hamilton Commission to Investigate Certain Security Issues at Los Alamos. He was named vice-chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission), which issued its report in July 2004, then co-chaired with Governor Tom Kean the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, established to monitor implementation of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. In March 2006 he was named co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, created at the urging of Congress as a forward-looking, bi-partisan assessment of the situation in Iraq. In February 2007 he was appointed to the National War Powers Commission, a private, bi-partisan panel led by former Secretaries of State James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher, established to examine how the Constitution allocates the powers of beginning, conducting, and ending war. He served on President George W. Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Hamilton's current memberships include, the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Advisory Board, the US Department of Homeland Security Task Force on Preventing the Entry of Weapons of Mass Effect on American Soil, the CIA External Advisory Board, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, co-chair of the National Security Preparedness Group with Thomas Kean, co-chair of the National Advisory Committee to the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and co-chair of the Department of Energy Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future with Brent Scowcroft.
Hamilton is a graduate of DePauw University and Indiana University School of Law. Before his election to Congress, Hamilton practiced law in Chicago, Illinois, and Columbus, Indiana. He is the author of A Creative Tension—The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress; How Congress Works and Why You Should Care; Strengthening Congress; and co-author of Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission; and The Iraq Study Group Report.
