Bert Lance

Encyclopedia : B : BE : BER : Bert Lance

Thomas Bertram Lance, known as Bert Lance, (Born June 3, 1931 in Gainesville, Georgia) is an American politician and businessman.

Lance was a close adviser and friend to candidate for President Jimmy Carter, during Carter's successful 1976 campaign. After Carter's victory, Lance was named director of the Office of Management and the Budget (OMB). Within six months of Lance's assuming this position, questions were raised by the press and Congress about mismanagement and corruption when Lance was Chairman of the Board of Calhoun National Bank of Calhoun, Georgia. He became an embarrassment to Carter's administration, especially given the reputation that Carter had tried to build of uncorruptablity in the wake of the Watergate scandal of the Nixon administration earlier in the 1970s. Lance resigned as OMB director on September 21, 1977. In the very public trial that followed, Mr. Lance was subsequently acquitted of all charges.

In 1981, Lance returned to the Calhoun National Bank, again as Chairman. He left in 1986.

Press reports have suggested that Lance was involved in the BCCI scandal of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Popular references

Shortly after Lance's resignation as OMB Director, on the Saturday Night Live television show, John Belushi (playing Lance) and Dan Aykroyd (playing Jimmy Carter) performed an advertising parody. The skit was a commercial for the "National Express" credit card, a parody of then-current American Express commercials. [link]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.