International Board

Nancy Kassebaum-Baker

Senate Years of Service: 1978-1997

Nancy Landon Kassembaum, (wife of Howard Henry Baker, Jr., now Nancy Kassebaum Baker), a Senator from Kansas; born in Topeka, Shawnee County, Kans., July 29, 1932; attended the public schools of Topeka, Kans.; graduated, University of Kansas 1954; received a graduate degree from the University of Michigan 1956; radio station executive, Wichita, Kans.; member, Kansas governmental ethics commission 1975-1976; member, Kansas committee for the humanities 1975-1979; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, November 7, 1978, for the six-year term commencing January 3, 1979; subsequently appointed by the Governor, December 23, 1978, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James B. Pearson, for the term ending January 3, 1979; reelected in 1984 and again in 1990 and served from December 23, 1978, to January 3, 1997; not a candidate for reelection in 1996; chairman, Committee on Labor and Human Resources (One Hundred Fourth Congress).

Bibliography

Kassebaum, Nancy Landon. “To Form a More Perfect Union .” Presidential Studies Quarterly 18 (Spring 1988): 241-49; Marshall-White, Eleanor. Women, Catalysts for Change: Interpretive Biographies of Shirley St. Hill Chisholm, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Nancy Landon Kassebaum . New York : Vantage Press, 1991.



General Brent Scowcroft, Eric Melby and Henry Siegman

General Brent Scowcroft, Eric Melby and Henry Siegman

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Can Kerry Rescue a Two-State Peace Accord?

If the purpose of President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel was to dispel the view held by most Israelis, and by rightwing American Jewish supporters of AIPAC and the Likud’s annexationist policies, that he is hostile to Israel and to the Zionist enterprise, it must be judged a brilliant success. Not everyone was converted, but his words and personal charm seemed to have worked wonders on most Israelis.
While his visit was not expected to revive prospects for a two-state solution, he spoke far more directly and energetically about the need for an end to Israel’s occupation and about his own continuing efforts to help the parties achieve an agreement than his recent disengagement from the peace process prepared anyone for. But nothing he said in Jerusalem or Ramallah–and, more importantly, that he failed to say–justifies an expectation that his reengagement will be of a kind that has any chance of preventing Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government from finally nailing down the coffin in which they are burying a viable two-state outcome.

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