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April 13, 2011

Morton Kondracke Named to Jack Kemp Chair in Political Economy

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed Morton Kondracke, a veteran journalist for five decades, to the new Jack Kemp Chair in Political Economy in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.

At the Kluge Center, from September 2011 to June 2012, Kondracke will research and write about Jack Kemp’s congressional career, his leadership role during the Reagan era, his presidential campaign and his influence on the Republican Party and the nation.

"Morton Kondracke is an excellent choice for the Jack Kemp Chair in Political Economy," said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. "The resources available in Jack Kemp’s papers, now a part of our collections, will provide rich material for his research."

Kondracke has covered all phases of American politics and foreign policy as both a print and broadcast journalist. He recently retired, after 20 years, as executive editor and columnist for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call; he remains with the publication as senior editor.

From 1977 to 1991, he was executive editor and senior editor of The New Republic. He also served as Washington bureau chief of Newsweek and as a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was a regular panelist on "This Week with David Brinkley" and a panelist in the 1984 presidential debate. For 16 years, Kondracke was also a panelist on the syndicated public affairs show "The McLaughlin Group," and he has been a commentator on Fox News Channel since 1996.

Kondracke received the Washington Post "Crystal Ball Award" in 1994 for predicting the Republican takeover of Congress and was runner-up in 1996. He is also the author of the best-selling book "Saving Milly: Love, Politics and Parkinson’s Disease," which was the subject of a CBS Sunday Night Movie.

Kondracke is a graduate of Dartmouth College and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He is a trustee of Dartmouth College.

Chairs at the Kluge Center, in addition to the Jack Kemp Chair in Political Economy, include the Henry Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations; the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History; the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education; and five Kluge Chairs focused on American Law and Governance, Countries and Cultures of the North, Countries and Cultures of the South, Technology and Society, and Modern Culture.

Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world’s best thinkers to stimulate and energize one another to distill wisdom from the Library’s rich resources and to interact with policymakers in Washington. For further information on the Kluge Center, visit www.loc.gov/kluge/.

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PR 11-082
04/13/11
ISSN 0731-3527

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