[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 9, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        HONORING THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF DR. JAMES H. BILLINGTON

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JEFF FORTENBERRY

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 9, 2016

  Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to honor the 
accomplishments of James H. Billington as founding chairman of the Open 
World Leadership Center in Washington, DC, in recognition of his 
retirement in September 2015.
  James H. Billington served as the 13th Librarian of Congress from 
1987 until his retirement in 2015.
  ``Jim'', a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an accomplished 
author, scholar, educator, and administrator and has earned the respect 
and admiration of his students, colleagues, peers, and fellow Trustees.
  Librarian Billington earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton 
University in 1950 and a doctorate from Balliol College, Oxford, where 
he was a Rhodes Scholar.
  After serving with the United States Army and in the Office of 
National Estimates, Mr. Billington taught history at Harvard University 
from 1957 to 1962 and subsequently at Princeton University where he was 
professor of history from 1964 to 1973.
  James H. Billington became director of the Woodrow Wilson 
International Center for Scholars in September 1973, an institution 
created by the United States Congress in 1968 as a living memorial to 
the 28th President. He grew the Woodrow Wilson Center International 
Center for Scholars allowing American and invited foreign scholars to 
spend time reflecting on issues central to understanding a complex 
world.
  He then helped create the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian 
Studies in 1974, believing that the relationship with the Soviet Union 
was America's most important international challenge.
  As a scholar of Russian history and culture, Dr. Billington has 
accompanied 10 congressional delegations to Russia and the former 
Soviet Union, and joined President Reagan at the summit meeting in 
June, 1988.
  On September 14, 1987, Professor Billington was sworn in as the 13th 
Librarian of Congress where he oversaw the largest collection of books, 
maps, photographs, recordings, and motion pictures in the world.
  Dr. Billington is the author of Mikhailovsky and Russian Populism 
(1956), The Icon and the Axe (1966), Fire in the Minds of Men (1980), 
Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope, August 1991 (1992), The Face 
of Russia (1998)--a companion book to the three-part television series 
of the same name, which he wrote and narrated for the Public 
Broadcasting Service, and Russia in Search of Itself (2004), books 
translated and published in a variety of languages.
  James H. Billington has received over 40 honorary doctorates--
including from the University of Tbilisi in Georgia (1999), the Russian 
State University for the Humanities in Moscow (2001), and the 
University of Oxford (2002), has been awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award 
from Princeton University (1992), the UCLA Medal (1999), the Pushkin 
Medal of the International Association of the Teachers of Russian 
Language and Culture (2000), the Karamzin Prize (2005) from the Foreign 
Literature Library in Moscow, the Likhachev Prize (2006) from the 
Likhachev Foundation in St. Petersburg, the inaugural Lafayette Prize 
by the French-American Cultural Foundation, the EastWest Institute 
Outstanding Leadership Award, and the Presidential Citizens Medal by 
President Bush in 2008.
  Dr. Billington is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was 
decorated as Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and as 
Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the President of France, as 
Commander of the National Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil, the 
Order of Merit of Italy, a Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of 
Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany, the Gwanghwa Medal by the 
Republic of Korea, the Chingiz Aitmatov Gold Medal by the Kyrgyz 
Republic and the Order of Friendship by the President of the Russian 
Federation; the highest state order that a foreign citizen may receive.
  Dr. Billington will continue to study and write on important Russian-
American issues, after retiring as the second-longest-serving Librarian 
of Congress, and as Founding Chairman of the Open World Leadership 
Center.
  It is fitting that the United States Congress recognize his deeds 
throughout his 28 years of service as Librarian of Congress and the 
accomplishments and achievements of James H. Billington as founding 
Chairman of the Open World Leadership Center throughout his 16 years of 
service.

                          ____________________