Dear Mitch and Ken,

I wanted you to know that I am approaching Sidney Taurel about joining the AEI Board of Trustees (letter pasted below).  If he should ask your opinion about this, I hope you will be brutally candid, and therefore enthusiastic and encouraging.

Best,

Chris
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October 19, 2001

Mr. Sidney Taurel
Chairman, President, and CEO
Eli Lilly and Company
Lilly Corporate Center
Indianapolis, IN 46285

Dear Sidney:

My call the other day was to ask if you would consider joining the Board of Trustees of the American Enterprise Institute.  AEI is prospering and is doing a great deal of research pertinent to your immediate business interests.  We are also leading in many other fields of economics, politics, security, and social welfare that I believe you would find fascinating and important.  We have an outstanding Board, and will elect several additional trustees in advance of our annual meeting on December 7, 2001.

I understand you will be back in Indianapolis on Monday, October 22?when I will be out of the country, to return on Thursday, October 25.  I will call you then to discuss, but thought it would be helpful to send you some background information.  Enclosed are a list of our current trustees, a list of upcoming Board dates, an outline of our current research agenda, our 2000 annual report (the 2001 report comes out next month), and a few other things.

I will tell you more about the Board schedule when I call.  The AEI Board is not an honorific but it is not a heavy time commitment either; our trustees are all very busy people, and we are good at economizing on their time.

We have many titans of industry and finance on the Board, but all of them are here because of personal qualities: character, intellect, and sympathy for AEI's purposes.  Those are the reasons I am approaching you, and why I think you would find AEI a worthwhile engagement.  So I hope you will give the idea serious consideration?or at least keep an open mind until we talk!

With best wishes,

Yours cordially,

/s/ Chris DeMuth

Enclosures