[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 70 (Wednesday, June 3, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1011]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO H. LEE HALTERMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 3, 1998

  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues the exceptional work of an exceptional person, my former 
colleague and close friend Lee Halterman, on the occasion of the 
celebration of his retirement from Capitol Hill.
  H. Lee Halterman worked for my predecessor, the Honorable Ronald V. 
Dellums, for 27 years. During that time, Lee served Ron and the 
constituents of the then 7th, then 8th, now 9th Congressional District 
of California in a wide variety of capacities. Lee began as a teenage 
volunteer, too young to vote, but not so young that he couldn't run a 
successful campaign in the Berkeley area of the District. While 
attending the University of California at Berkeley, Lee was the 
Berkeley District Office Director and after graduation was able to work 
full time during the day while attending Bolt Hall School of Law in the 
evenings.
  In 1978, Lee took a leave of absence to accept the prestigious 
position of legal officer at the International Commission of Jurists in 
Geneva, Switzerland. Lee returned to the United States to work in the 
Dellums Berkeley office, and then the Oakland office as District 
Counsel and co-District Director.
  In 1993, when Mr. Dellums became chairman of the House Armed Services 
Committee, Lee commuted regularly between the Congressional District 
and Washington to serve both as the Counsel to the House Armed Services 
Committee and as General Counsel to Representative Dellums. At the same 
time, Lee directed the policy staff which developed the Committee's 
agenda and advised the Chairman on military and foreign diplomatic 
issues of the day.
  The list of positions held by Lee tells only part of the story. His 
work is well known among local and national progressive political 
activists, academics, and policymakers. The 1983 book, Defense Sense: 
The Search for a Rational Military Policy, which was written by Ron 
Dellums with Lee Halterman and the late Max Miller, serves even today 
as a primer for those who seek a constructive alternative approach to 
the formation of the nation's foreign and military policies. Lee has 
demonstrated the ability to use his keen native intelligence, 
considerable political acumen, insight, wit and humor, to bring 
together the most disparate parties and work out solutions to the most 
intractable problems.
  As a result, Lee is accepted and respected by progressives and 
conservatives, civilians and General-grade officers, public and private 
officials alike. His counsel and assistance on complex problems is not 
only welcomed but sought. During his tenure on Capitol Hill, he was 
generous with his talents, not only with the House Armed Services 
Committee and Representative Dellums' office, but with the House 
Leadership and other Committees as well.
  Lee Halterman has been a trusted advisor, skillful manager, and 
extraordinary writer, a political observer, a legislative strategist, 
and many other things, but perhaps most of all Lee has been a true and 
gentle friend to so many of those he has worked with, and who have come 
to know him over all of these years. I know I speak for all of them 
when I wish him well in all of his future endeavors.




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