Campus Events Focus on Hamilton’s Homeland Security Work

During the week of Sept. 12, three events on the IU Bloomington campus focus attention on the role that Center on Congress Director Lee Hamilton played as Vice Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, popularly known as the 9/11 Commission.

On Sept. 12 at 5pm in the Weils Library, Hamilton’s 9/11 Commission papers will be the subject of a free talk by Kate Cruikshank, political papers specialist with IU Libraries, who will explain how the papers came to be entrusted to Indiana University, obtaining security clearance for making them public, and converting them to digital form for widespread availability. 

"The papers are really a daily chronicle of the inner workings of the commission: staff memos, e-mails, working documents and so forth," Cruikshank said. "Lee Hamilton was intent, along with Tom Kean, the chairman of the commission, on showing that a bipartisan commission could come together and reach consensus on conclusions for the betterment of the country. And that is what he sought to document in his personal papers." For more, go to http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/19540.html

On Sept. 15 at 2pm in the IU Auditorium, Hamilton hosts a gathering of eight of the ten 9/11 Commission members for a public discussion of the response to the commission's report and how the nation has changed since 2001. In addition to Hamilton and 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, commission members planning to participate are Fred F. Fielding, Jamie S. Gorelick, Slade Gorton, Bob Kerrey, Timothy J. Roemer, and James R. Thompson. Ken Bode, former NBC News national correspondent, CNN political analyst and PBS Washington Week in Review host, will serve as moderator. Admission is free, but tickets are required. For more, go to http://www.iu.edu/sept11/panel.shtml

On Sept. 16 at 10am, Hamilton will deliver the Constitution Day Lecture at the IU Maurer School of Law, speaking on the topic “Homeland Security—10 Years After 9/11: What more we must do to make Americans safer." Hamilton is a 1956 graduate of the law school. Admission is free. For more, go to http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/19409.html

From 1965 to 1999 Hamilton served Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives, 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. In addition to serving as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, he also 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.