Former U.S. Sen. Warren Rudman to give inaugural Belnick lecture

Warren Rudman, former U.S. senator from New Hampshire, will deliver the inaugural Ben and Rhoda Belnick Fund for Government Studies Lecture Thursday, April 26, at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The Belnick fund was created by alumnus Mark A. Belnick'68 (B.A. in government), in honor of his parents. The new fund seeks to enhance the teaching and undergraduate experience in government studies at Cornell by inviting political leaders and political scientists to campus to stimulate intellectually challenging dialogue beyond the classroom.

Rudman served two terms, elected in 1980 and 1986, as a Republican senator from New Hampshire, where he has been a lifelong resident. He received his B.S. from Syracuse University in 1952 and then served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, rising to the rank of captain. He earned an LL.B. from Boston College Law School in 1960.

One of his greatest victories as a member of the U.S. Senate was the passage of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law of 1985, considered by some to be the most significant piece of legislation passed in the 1980s. He also earned bipartisan recognition for his aggressive investigation of the Iran-Contra affair as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee.

In 1992, Rudman became a founding member of the Concord Coalition, a non-profit group dedicated to increasing public awareness of national fiscal affairs. He is the author of Combat: Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate (Random House 1996).

Rudman is a member of the board of directors of Allied Waste, Boston Scientific and the Chubb Corp., among others, and a trustee of several funds of the Dreyfus Corp. In 1998, he was elected to the American Stock Exchange board of governors, and he also serves on the boards of the Valley Forge Academy, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution. In 1998 he was appointed by President Clinton to chair the Special Oversight Board for the Department of Defense investigations of Gulf War chemical and biological incidents.