9/11 Commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton '52 Reacts to New Survey on Terror 'Conspiracy Theory'

August 3, 2006

August 3, 2006, Greencastle, Ind. - "One out of three sounds high, but that may very well be right," says Lee H. Hamilton '52, former vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, of a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll released today. The survey finds that "More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East," a Scripps Howard News Service story reports.

Hamilton, who served 34 years in the U.S. House of Represenatives, co-chaired the 9/11 Commission (officially known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States) with Thomas Kean. Their "congressionally appointed investigation concluded that federal officials bungled their attempts to prevent, but did not participate in, the attacks by al-Qaida five years ago," note Thomas Hargrove and Guido H. Stempel III in the Scripps Howard story. "Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appear to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

Hamilton states, "A lot of people I've encountered believe the U.S. government was involved. Many say the government planned the whole thing. Of course, we don't think the evidence leads that way at all."

Read the complete article at the Web site of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Lee Hamilton, who was recently called "the Democrats' Mr. Integrity," will return to his alma mater to participate in DePauw Discourse 2006, October 26-27. Learn more in this previous story.

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