Richard Lugar
Republican Senator from Indiana, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee

[Biography | Honorary Degree]

Richard Lugar, Republican senator from Indiana, has been described as “a successful combination of gentlemanly civility, high intellect, intrinsic integrity and tough discipline.”

He is known as a strong advocate of U.S. leadership in the world, strong national security, free trade and economic growth. He has helped reduce the threat of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and has promoted policies that spur economic growth, cut taxes, create jobs, eliminate wasteful government spending and reduce red tape for American businesses. In the U.S. Senate, he serves as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and is a member and former chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

Lugar has brought to his distinguished career a background formed in part by working for his family’s businesses, a farm and a food machinery company started in the late 1890s. He still manages his 604-acre farm, growing soybeans, corn and walnut trees, continuing the ethos of hard work and fairness he gained through that experience. Beginning in the 1980s, he supervised the creation of more than 60 acres of new hardwood-tree plantations, and each year, with one of his four sons, he personally prunes thousands of black walnut trees.

As chair of the Agriculture Committee, Lugar built bipartisan support for federal farm program reforms. Former Senator Bob Dole described Lugar’s influence on American agricultural policy: “When Dick speaks, people listen, and they get results.”

In 2000, Lugar was elected to his fifth term in the Senate, his third consecutive victory by a two-thirds majority. He is the longest-serving U.S. senator in Indiana history and holds all Indiana statewide election records.

Lugar was born in Indianapolis, Ind., on April 4, 1932. He was first in his class both in high school and then again at Denison University, where he received a B.A. in 1954. As a Rhodes Scholar, he received an honors degree in politics, economics and philosophy at Oxford University. In 1956, Lugar married the former Charlene Smeltzer, with whom he served as co-president of the student government at Denison. The couple has four grown sons and eight grandchildren.

After college, Lugar volunteered for active duty in the Navy, returning to Indiana in 1960 to manage the family’s Marion County farm as well as the food machinery firm, Thomas L. Green Co., which his grandfather founded in 1893.

His political career got off to a quick start. After serving three years on the Indianapolis Public Schools Board of Commissioners, Lugar ran for mayor of Indianapolis, serving two terms from 1968 to 1975. His tenure was notable for his successful effort to merge the government of Indianapolis with surrounding communities in Marion County. Known as Unigov, the program increased the population and tax base of Indianapolis and consolidated more than two dozen agencies into six.

As a U.S. senator, Lugar joined with former Senator Sam Nunn, D-Georgia, to create the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in 1991, for which they received a Heinz Award in 2003. The program is recognized for accelerating the dismantling of nuclear weapons and is credited with deactivating nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads. Lugar and Nunn were nominated for the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for their work.

Lugar ran for his party’s nomination for president in 1996. A Lugar White House, a reporter wrote at the time, would be filled with bright, motivated staffers who would carry out the president’s clearly articulated policy on a range of issues, and Lugar would be a problem-solver with a good grasp of details. During the campaign, he was described as a “class act” and “statesmanlike.”

Despite his preeminence as a foreign policy expert who has dealt with such thorny issues as Bosnia and South Africa during apartheid, Lugar will always remain a Hoosier. His commonsense approach has been recognized many times with such awards as the Guardian of Small Business, the Spirit of Enterprise and Watchdog of the Treasury.

Tufts will award Lugar an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.