National Portrait Gallery | Paul Peck Presidential Initiative

Ambassador Howard H. Baker Jr., former U.S. senator, and presidential journalist Hugh Sidey have been named as the recipients of the 2005 Paul Peck Presidential Awards presented by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. The $25,000 award and specially designed National Portrait Gallery medal honor individual excellence in presidential service and portrayal. Baker won the award for service to the presidency, and Sidey won for portrayal of the presidency.

The Paul Peck Presidential Awards were founded in 2002 and are the only national awards in the United States to celebrate achievement in support of the presidency. They are named after Paul Peck, the National Portrait Gallery’s major individual donor.

“I am proud to congratulate Ambassador Howard H. Baker and Hugh Sidey for serving this extraordinary office and increasing the public’s awareness of it,” said Marc Pachter, director of the National Portrait Gallery, which holds one of the nation’s two official presidential portrait collections. “Their history of commitment to the presidency reminds all Americans of the critical role the office plays in our national life.”

Award for Service to the Presidency
The award for service to a president honors individuals in the executive branch of government and members of Congress who have served a president or in some way made a contribution to the office of the presidency. Officials from the current administration, and those currently serving in government, are not eligible. Past winners include Brent Scowcroft, Thomas R. Pickering, and George Elsey.

Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Howard H. Baker Jr., 80, was the first Republican senator ever popularly elected from Tennessee. Baker served three terms, from 1967 to 1985, and was Senate minority leader and later Senate majority leader. President Ronald Reagan then tapped him to serve as Chief of staff from 1987 to 1988. Baker was a regent of the Smithsonian from 1995 to 2001. He was appointed United States ambassador to Japan by President George W. Bush in 2001. Ambassador Baker retired in 2004, and in March 2005 he joined Citigroup as an adviser to senior management on international matters.

Baker’s distinguished career led to his Peck Presidential Award for service, including his role as minority ranking member on the Senate Watergate Committee and his service to President Reagan as chief of staff during Reagan’s final years in office. In both cases, Baker was viewed as strengthening the institution of the presidency.

Award for Portrayal of the Presidency:
The award for portrayal of a president is given to an individual who has depicted the presidency in either a visual or literary form. This winner could be a portrait artist in any medium, a journalist, a presidential biographer or a scholar. Past winners include scholar Richard E. Neustadt, photographer Diana Walker, and C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb.

Hugh Sidey, who died in November, shortly after the awards ceremony, wrote about the American presidency for more than forty years—covering the presidencies from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Sidey wrote about presidents for Life and Time magazines ever since Eisenhower’s U-2 crisis in 1960. During these years, Sidey became one of the most knowledgeable experts on the presidency and the men who have held the office. He created Time’s column “The Presidency” in 1966 and wrote seven books on the subject. The award recognizes Sidey's protrayal of U.S. presidents in a fair and informative way for a very large audience.

The Paul Peck Fund for Presidential Studies

The winners participated in two programs with high school students affiliated with the Junior Statesman Foundation and the Close Up Foundation. Friday, October 28, John Milewski interviewed Hugh Sidey, followed by a Q-and-A session with students from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. The session was later broadcast on Close-Up on C-SPAN. National Portrait Gallery Director Marc Pachter moderated town hall sessions with Sidey, Baker and mid-Atlantic students from Junior Statesmen of America the next day.

“Freedom is life, and freedom is rooted in democracy,” Paul Peck said. “These presidential awards were created to encourage Americans to be more committed to their civic engagement and reasoned voting.”

The Nominating Process
The nominating committee consists of ten organizations that are devoted to the study of the American political system and are not associated institutionally or ideologically with any political party. Nominating institutions for this year’s award are the Center for the Study of the Presidency; the American Political Science Association; the White House Historical Association; Close–Up Foundation; the Junior Statesman Foundation; the National Coalition for History; the Portrait Society of America; the American Society of Portrait Artists; the Organization of American Historians, and the American Historical Association.

A selection committee picks the winners each year. Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush are honorary co-chairmen of the committee, and members of the 2005 committee include David Gergen (chair), Betty Monkman, Robert Remini, Cokie Roberts, Robert Samuelson, and Roger Wilkins.

Print Press Release

Photo (left to right:)
National Portrait Gallery Director Marc Pachter, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small, Vice President Richard Cheney, Ambassador Howard Baker, Hugh Sidey, Paul Peck

INFORMATION

For more information about the Paul Peck Presidential Initiative and its related programs please contact:

Events:

Phone: (202) 275-1764

Email: sohlk@si.edu

Programs:

Phone: (202) 275-1773

Email: baumanj@si.edu

FAX: (202) 275-1887

Mail:

Paul Peck Presidential Initiative
National Portrait Gallery
P.O. Box 37012
Victor Building-Suite 8300, MRC 973
Washington, D.C. 20013-0712

2006 AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Leon E. Panetta, former White House chief of staff, and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., professor and author, have been named as the recipients of the 2006 Paul Peck Presidential Awards