Arts of War on the Web

Yesterday, March 30, 2012, was the last day on the job as chief executive of C-SPAN for Brian Lamb, the man who founded the non-profit, non-partisan public TV network in 1978 and was its guiding force for 33 years.

Lamb, 70, joined the U.S. Navy after he graduated from Purdue. He served on the USS Thuban, and worked at the White House and in the Pentagon Public Affairs office during the Vietnam War. Eleven years after he got out of the Navy, Lamb was the driving force behind the founding of C-SPAN.

Lamb was a ubiquitous presence on C-SPAN from when the time it went on the air on March 19, 1979. He interviewed some 800 non-fiction authors, as well as a wide array of public figures, including Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush.

Lamb, who never once said his own name on the air, will continue as executive chair of C-SPAN and will still host his Sunday “Q & A” interview program.