Daijiworld Media Network – Washington
Washington, Feb 5: Former US Congressman Lee Hamilton, a widely respected Democrat from Indiana who played a key role in shaping American foreign policy and co-led the investigation into the September 11 terror attacks, passed away on Tuesday at his home in Bloomington, Indiana. He was 94.
Hamilton, known for his calm demeanour, bipartisanship and deep understanding of global affairs, died peacefully, his son Doug Hamilton said, without disclosing the cause of death.
Serving nearly three decades in the US Congress after first being elected in 1964 at the age of 33, Hamilton rose to become chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. He was also a central figure in the congressional investigation into the Reagan administration’s Iran-Contra affair during the 1980s.
A moderate lawmaker admired across party lines, Hamilton was chosen as vice chairman of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission in 2002. Alongside Republican chairman Thomas Kean, he helped oversee a 20-month probe into the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the US. The commission concluded that successive administrations had failed to fully grasp the threat posed by al-Qaida.
“The fact of the matter is, we just didn’t get it,” Hamilton had said while releasing the commission’s report in 2004, admitting the nation underestimated the scale of the terrorist threat.
Hamilton was also a vocal critic of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and advocated economic sanctions against Iraq before military action. After deciding not to seek re-election in 1998, he continued to argue that US leadership should extend beyond military power, emphasising diplomacy, generosity and consensus-building.
In recognition of his lifetime of public service, President Barack Obama awarded Hamilton the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, praising his honesty, wisdom and commitment to bipartisanship.
Indiana Governor Mike Braun described Hamilton as a leader whose life “embodied integrity, civility and public service,” while former Vice President Mike Pence said his respect for Hamilton was “boundless,” despite political differences.
Born on April 20, 1931, in Daytona Beach, Florida, Hamilton was the son of a Methodist minister and grew up in Indiana. He studied at DePauw University, Goethe University in Germany, and earned his law degree from Indiana University in 1956.
After retiring from Congress, Hamilton served as director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and taught at Indiana University. In 2018, the university named its School of Global and International Studies after Hamilton and late Senator Richard Lugar.
Hamilton’s wife Nancy, whom he married while both were students at DePauw, passed away in 2012 after 58 years of marriage. He is survived by three children, five grandchildren and a great-grandchild.