Lee Hamilton

Lee Hamilton

President & Director, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Former Congressman

Lee H. Hamilton is president and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and director of The Center on Congress at Indiana University. 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.

Since leaving the House, Hamilton has served on several commissions including serving as Vice-Chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission), co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, the National Commission on the War Powers of the President and the Congress, and the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. He is currently a member of the FBI Director’s Advisory Board, the Defense Secretary’s National Security Study Group, and the US Department of Homeland Security Task Force on Preventing the Entry of Weapons of Mass Effect on American Soil.

2mins
Lee Hamilton was very lucky to have run for Congress as a Democrat in 1964.
6mins
Hamilton discusses the problems America faces as a bigger and more diverse place than the America he grew up in.
1mins
Is America’s problem a dearth of good leadership, or a wealth of complexity?
7mins
America has to use its power wisely and decently.
1mins
Lee Hamilton on the responsibilities of American citizenship.
1mins
Lee Hamilton, on matching your rhetoric with resources.
4mins
Lee Hamilton has a bone to pick with how our campaigns are run, and with how easy we are on our politicians.
1mins
Hamilton is disturbed that good healthcare is only available to those who can pay for it.
1mins
Lee Hamilton, on education and the “other 50%.”
2mins
Though he’s a party member, Lee Hamilton believes that the American system needs to be more open.
Are you making America work?
4mins
America can’t solve the world’s problems, Hamilton says, but we want to help.
2mins
Lee Hamilton is traditional, hard-headed, and pragmatic in his approach.
12mins
It’s not a given that America will always prosper, Hamilton says.
9mins
Where are the Lincolns, the Jeffersons, the Washingtons?
1mins
America’s great challenge, Hamilton says, is to figure out how we use our power.
3mins
Lee Hamilton traces his career from his first term in Congress to serving on the 9/11 Commission.
5mins
Lee Hamilton recalls growing up a Hoosier during the War.