In an airport in the Russian city of Perm, a minor
diplomatic crisis broke out last August. In violation of an
international treaty, local border police refused to allow the
plane of Senators Richard Lugar and Barack Obama to depart
without being inspected. Instead of pitching a fit, Lugar, the
powerful Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, curled up
on a chairignoring the overpowering smell of a broken
toiletand took a nap. The Russians eventually backed down.
"He is a quiet, intelligent, steady force," says former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey,
Lugar's former colleague. But make no mistake, Kerrey adds,
"he's unmovable when he reaches a conclusion about what ought
to be done."
That level of conviction helps when, as one of America's
leading internationalists, you're a defender of free trade and
an enemy of farm subsidies, yet you represent a state dominated
by manufacturing and farming. It's also a bonus that Lugar's
thinking has often proved to be ahead of the curve. In the
1980s, Lugar led the push for democracy in the Philippines and
South Africa when the Reagan Administration was still backing undemocratic regimes there. And Lugar, 74, has long been an ardent advocate
of developing alternative fuels as a way to wean the U.S. from
foreign oilan approach endorsed by Bush in January.
Lugar's signature achievement was to recognize the dangers
of loose nukes 10 years before 9/11. With Democrat Sam Nunn, he
sponsored legislation that funded the removal of all nuclear
weapons from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan and the
deactivation of 6,828 nuclear warheads throughout the former
Soviet Union. In recent years, Lugar has expanded his
non-proliferation efforts to help secure shoulder-launched
missiles, a favorite of terrorists, and chemical-weapons depots,
like one near the Kazakhstan border that contained 1.9 million
Sarin gas shells. He is withholding support for Bush's recent
nuclear deal with India until hearings he has called determine
whether letting Delhi import technology to build reactors would
create a new proliferation problem.