It is will great sadness and deep gratitude that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) mourns the passing of U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar, who served as a member of NED’s Board of Directors for nine years, from 1992-2001.
“Senator Richard Lugar was one of the great voices in the U.S. Senate and in the country as a whole for democratic internationalism and a bipartisan foreign policy, said NED president Carl Gershman. “In the 1990s he repeatedly led a broad coalition of Republicans and Democrats on the floor of the U.S. Senate in defense of the NED and its mission of advancing and strengthening democracy worldwide. He was also a strong advocate of independent media as a key dimension of a democratic society, and it was at his urging that the NED established the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA). Senator Lugar was beloved and respected by everyone within the NED family, and he will be sorely missed and long remembered.”
Lugar was awarded the NED’s Democracy Service Medal in 2001 for his lifelong contribution to the cause of democracy and human freedom.
Contact: Jane Riley Jacobsen, jane@ned.org, 202-378-9604
