Dan Burton

Dan Burton

Danny Lee "Dan" Burton (born June 21, 1938 in Indianapolis , Indiana ) is an American politician . Between 1983 and 2013 he represented the state of Indiana in the US House of Representatives . Together with Senator Jesse Helms, he was instrumental in the passage of the Helms-Burton Act , named after them .

Career

Dan Burton attended Shortridge High School in Indianapolis until 1957 and then studied until 1958 at Indiana University and then at Cincinnati Bible College in Ohio . Between 1957 and 1958 he served actively in the US Army ; thereafter he was a member of their reserve until 1962 . He then worked as a private businessman in the real estate and insurance industries. At the same time he began a political career as a member of the Republican Party . In 1967 and 1968 and again between 1977 and 1980 he was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives . From 1969 to 1970 and again from 1981 to 1982 he was a member of the State Senate .

In 1970 Burton ran unsuccessfully for Congress . In the 1982 elections , however, he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the sixth constituency of Indiana , where he succeeded David W. Evans on January 3, 1987 . After 14 re-elections, he was able to exercise his mandate in Congress until January 3, 2013. Since 2003, he has represented Steve Buyer 's fifth district in his state. In January 2012, he declared that he would not be available for re-election in November of the same year.

Burton was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and four subcommittees. He became famous for his saying on March 29, 1995 when he demanded during a hearing in Congress that the US Navy should station an aircraft carrier off the coast of Bolivia . From here, Bolivia's coca fields should be bombed. This saying drew public ridicule: Bolivia is a landlocked country without a coast, Bolivia's coca fields are beyond the reach of US bombers, who can take off from aircraft carriers. The statement sparked strong anti-American reactions in Bolivia.

He was considered conservative and was entirely on the Republican party line. After the death of his first wife Barbara Logan in 2002, he has been married to the doctor Samia Tawil since 2006. He has three children from his first marriage.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IndyStar.com: Rep. Dan Burton announces retirement from Congress  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (January 31, 2012)  
2. ↑ Coletta Youngers: Fueling Failure: US Drug Control Efforts in the Andes. The Washington Office on Latin America, April 1995, archived from the original on May 19, 2010 ; Retrieved May 12, 2007 . 
3. ↑ JoAnn Kawell: Closing the Latin American Air-Bridge: A Disturbing History. Foreign Policy In Focus, May 2001, archived from the original on August 15, 2003 ; Retrieved May 12, 2007 . 

Web links

Wikisource: Dan Burton  - Sources and full texts (English)

• Web presence at the congress
• Dan Burton in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)