National

Janet Reno spoke of youth violence in 1995 Kansas State University lecture

By Curtis Tate

ctate@mcclatchydc.com

November 07, 2016 11:33 AM

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno testified before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in April 2004.
Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno testified before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in April 2004. Dennis Cook AP
Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno testified before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in April 2004. Dennis Cook AP
WASHINGTON

October 1995 was a different time in America, when the biggest security threats were domestic, not foreign.

The Oklahoma City bombing had taken place six months earlier, and it would be another six months before the elusive Unabomber would be captured.

It was against this backdrop that then-Attorney General Janet Reno delivered the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University, on the subject of youth violence. Reno, previously the state attorney for Miami-Dade, Florida, died on Monday at age 78.

The Landon lecture series began in 1966 as a tribute to former Kansas Gov. Alfred M. Landon. Landon was governor from 1933 to 1937 and was the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 1936. He lost to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Landon’s daughter, Nancy Kassebaum, was a Republican U.S. senator from Kansas from 1979 to 1997.

Landon Lecture speakers have included former presidents, Cabinet officials, Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, governors and prominent journalists.

On Jan. 11, 2001, then-Attorney General Janet Reno delivered her farewell speech to U.S. Department of Justice employees, praising them for their work while also encouraging them to be more open to the American public and to "remember how fragile

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Curtis Tate: 202-383-6018, @tatecurtis

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