Sam H. Zakhem

In 2002, he ran for the United States House of Representatives from the newly-created Colorado's 7th congressional district. He lost the nomination to Bob Beauprez and finished third of four candidates in the Republican primary.

In 1992, Zakhem and two other men were indicted and “charged with secretly accepting $7.7 million from the Government of Kuwait to act as undisclosed foreign agents in a "propaganda campaign" to generate support for the war against Iraq.” According to the indictment, the men failed to report the money, a violation of Federal tax laws, and while lobbying the US Congress and Administration, did not disclose their status as Kuwaiti agents, a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. In 1994, charges were dismissed except for the charges of tax fraud. In March, 1995, he and his co-defendants were acquitted on those charges.

Zakhem’s fundraising for conservative political causes was part of the reason Ronald Reagan appointed him as Ambassador in 1986. The State Department was not impressed because “ his resume lacked foreign affairs expertise, and one State Department observer labeled him an "amateur" dangerously miscast in the hot-spot of Middle East politics.”

While a member of the Colorado General Assembly, Zakhem ran for higher office on two occasions. In 1980, he ran for US Senate. He lost the nomination to Mary Estill Buchanan, the incumbent Colorado Secretary of State. In 1982, Buchanan chose not to run for reelection as Secretary of State. Zakhem ran for the nomination, losing in the primary to Natalie Meyer.

Zakhem was elected twice to the Colorado House of Representatives (1974 and 1976) and was elected to the Colorado Senate in 1978. In the House, he sat on the Committee on Game Fish & Parks and the Committee on Local Government State Affairs and in the Senate, he sat on the Committee Business Affairs & Labor Finance and the Committee on Health Environment Welfare & Institutions.

Zakhem was born to a wealthy family in Lebanon but his father disinherited him when he emigrated to the United States. He came to the US after graduating from the American University in Cairo in 1957. He went on to graduate with a master's degree in economics at the University of Detroit. Zakhem returned to Lebanon but did not stay long. In 1965, he moved to Denver and worked various jobs while studying political science at the University of Colorado Boulder's graduate school, graduating with a Ph.D. He has a wife Merilynn and three sons.

Sam Hanna Zakhem (born November 25, 1935) is a Lebanese-born American politician and diplomat who served as a member of the Colorado General Assembly, and later as the U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Bahrain.