No: 91
Date: July 2003
Name: Chuck Hagel
Nebraska's senior senator was reelected for a second U.S. Senate term in 2002. He sat on three Senate committees: Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and Select Committee on Intelligence. He was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion Subcommittee and the Senate Banking International Trade and Finance Subcommittee. He served as co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. The artist summarized his many foreign activities with a "150,000,000 frequent flyer miles" notation. Hagel is shown wearing combat boots and camouflage pants; Hagel served in the U.S. Army's 9th Infantry Division as a squadron leader in South Vietnam in 1968. He then became a newscaster and radio talk show host in Omaha for KBON and KLNG. Early in his career, he was manager of government affairs for the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. in Washington, D.C., and before that, administrative assistant to Congressman John Y. McCollister (R-Neb.). In 1981, President Reagan nominated Hagel to serve as deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration. Hagel co-founded VANGUARD Cellular Systems Inc. in the mid-1980s. Before his election to the senate, Hagel was president of McCarthy & Co., an Omaha investment banking firm, and served as chairman of the board of American Information Systems. The fourth-generation Nebraskan was born in North Platte on Oct. 4, 1946. He graduated from the Brown Institute for Radio and Television, Minneapolis, and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He and his wife, Lilibet, have two children. A talk-show favorite newsmaker, Hagel is shown sitting between network news interviewers Wolf Blitzer and Tim Russert. President George Bush is shown peeking around the capitol. Hagel had been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate.