Senator Dick Lugar has been named by former First Lady Nancy Reagan to a special host committee for an event honoring the centennial of the birth of the late President Ronald Reagan.
Lugar accepted the request of Mrs. Reagan to serve on the Honorary Congressional Centennial Host Committee for an event in Washington honoring the 40th President of the United States with the presentation of the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award.
“On the evening of May 24th,” Mrs. Reagan wrote to Lugar, “the Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation will present this award to a most deserving individual who played a very special role in fighting for the freedom of his people. Also joining in celebration and tribute that evening will be dignitaries from around the world, representing the many countries now experiencing freedom and democracy due in part to my husband’s unwavering convictions.”
Lugar, who voted in support of President Reagan’s positions more than any other Senator, was named by Reagan to lead the official U.S. delegation to observe the presidential election in the Philippines in 1986. After long term dictator Ferdinand Marcos attempted to steal the elections, Reagan urged him to leave the country based on the observations of Lugar’s delegation. The democratically elected Corazon Aquino then became president.
President Reagan also asked Lugar to participate in an official Senate observer group to the arms control negotiations Reagan initiated with the former Soviet Union. Those negotiations led to the START Treaty, and the Nunn-Lugar program, which has eliminated thousands of weapons of mass destruction in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Lugar led the effort in the Senate last year to renew the START Treaty.
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