John Danforth recipient of Churchill Leadership Medal

ST. LOUIS -- John Danforth, a former Missouri attorney general, U.S. senator and ambassador to the United Nations, is the latest recipient of the Winston Churchill Leadership Medal.

The award, announced Monday, is from the National Churchill Museum at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in 1946.

Danforth is 80 and lives in St. Louis. A Republican, he was elected attorney general in 1968. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 and re-elected twice. In addition to the ambassadorship, he was special counsel in the investigation of the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and served as special envoy to Sudan.

Previous medal winners include his brother, William Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis.