[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 140 (Friday, September 30, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  CONGRATULATING ANN AND ELDON RUDD ON THEIR 50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

                                 ______


                              HON. JON KYL

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 30, 1994

  Mr. KYL. Mr. Speaker, I hope that Members of the House will join me 
today in extending congratulations to a former House colleague and his 
wife, Eldon and Ann Rudd, on the occasion of their 50th wedding 
anniversary. They celebrated that special event on August 2.
  Few couples ever achieve that very extraordinary milestone, and those 
who do deserve special praise, particularly when most of those 50 years 
were spent in public service in the House of Representatives, on the 
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona, and on diplomatic 
assignment for the FBI abroad.
  It is a tribute to their spirit and care for one another that they 
have made it this far, and I am confident, knowing how close they are 
that they will make it many more.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in extending best wishes 
to Eldon and Ann on this special event. I also ask that a very 
thoughtful column from the Scottsdale Progress appear in the Record at 
this point:

         [From the Scottsdale Progress Tribune, Sept. 9, 1994]

                 Rudd Spent Career Keeping America Safe

                          (By Lois McFarland)

       During World War II, getting married and being separated 
     from one's spouse was an accepted wartime fact. In 1944, Ann 
     Merritt, 22, was managing a Western Union station in 
     Beeville, Texas, when hotshot Marine pilot Eldon Rudd, 24, 
     stationed at Chase Field, asked her to send a telegram to a 
     girlfriend.
       Neither Ann, 72, nor Eldon, 74, can recall what the 
     telegram said nor the name of the former girlfriend.
       He does say, ``I think she (Ann) fell in love with my 
     uniform.''
       ``We really got acquainted at a country club dance,'' Ann 
     adds in her quiet manner. She also recalls their first date 
     was on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 50 years ago.
       Their romance blossomed. Nearly five months later they said 
     their vows Aug. 2, 1944, and set up housekeeping with several 
     other newlywed pilots and their wives in an auto court in 
     Kingsville, Texas. Eldon had been transferred to the nearby 
     Naval Air Station.
       When he left for Jacksonville, Fla., and carrier assignment 
     before being sent to El Toro in California, Ann went to live 
     with her parents in Cuero, Texas. ``I was pregnant with our 
     first child and I stayed with my parents until Carolyn was a 
     year old,'' she said. ``He came home for a visit when she was 
     just a few weeks old and then was assigned to a carrier in 
     Guadalcanal for a year.''


                             drove 19 hours

       The veteran pilot recalls purchasing a 1942 Chevy in El 
     Toro and driving 19 hours without stopping to Texas just to 
     see his wife and infant daughter for a few hours. ``That was 
     idiocy,'' he adds. ``As I recall, time was pretty limited. I 
     also stopped in Cottonwood to see my parents.''
       The squadron Eldon trained with at El Toro had been 
     scheduled to fly low-level bombing raids over the Japanese 
     mainland, but he was spared. ``There would have been no 
     survivors,'' he said. ``When they dropped the (atomic) bomb--
     two of them--we were pretty much out of a job.''
       The war's end brought Ann and Eldon to Phoenix where he 
     finished his undergraduate work at ASU before entering the 
     University of Arizona law school.
       Two men influenced Eldon's future: Ronald Reagan and a 
     former Marine pilot. He met Reagan while attending a 
     University of Southern California conference where, as 
     president of the Screen Actors Guild, he talked to the 
     collegians about his encounters with communist infiltrators. 
     Meanwhile his Marine friend joined the FBI and kept telling 
     Eldon what a great ``outfit it was.''
       ``When I was in law school, the agent in Phoenix came and 
     talked to us,'' he relates. ``He zeroed in on me and I agreed 
     to come up to Phoenix and take the exam. I began practicing 
     law in Tucson and was about to decide on what firm to join 
     when the FBI letter arrived and told me to report for duty 
     Jan. 9, 1950.''
       Once again, Ann found herself going home to Texas while 
     Eldon underwent FBI training and soon began a 20-year FBI 
     career in Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Mexico City, Guatemala, 
     El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Argentina.


                         confronted kgb agents

       In his intelligence work, he came face to face with KBG 
     agents and witnessed the cruelties of Communism firsthand. He 
     made a pledge to make Americans aware of communism's threat 
     to their freedom and did so by writing World Communism--
     Threat to Freedom in 1987.
       Fidel Castro identified Eldon in a national magazine as a 
     ``hostile espionage agent.'' But ``I wasn't an espionage 
     agent,'' he counters. (He was an assistant legal attache 
     attached to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.)
       He played a role in both the identifications of 
     revolutionary Che Guevera and Lee Harvey Oswald.
       When President Kennedy was assassinated, and Lee Harvey 
     Oswald killed, ``all hell broke loose,'' Eldon recalled. 
     ``Through my sources, we were able to find out where Lee 
     Harvey Oswald had stayed in Mexico City. We even had some 
     photographs showing that he had visited the Cuban and Russian 
     embassies.''
       Ann never knew just how dangerous her husband's assignments 
     were because families were kept out of the information loop. 
     Their two daughters, Carolyn and Katherine, attended American 
     schools on foreign shores while Ann took part in activities 
     and events planned for the diplomatic corps wives.
       ``It was a great experience,'' she said. ``It brought home 
     to me very forcefully how lucky we are to be Americans.''
       Eldon's military and public service career spanned nine 
     presidents. He served in the military under Franklin 
     Roosevelt and Harry Truman and in the FBI under presidents 
     Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. He became a Maricopa 
     County Supervisor in 1972 and was elected to Congress in 1976 
     and served five terms before retiring to private law practice 
     in 1987.
       In their comfortable Scottsdale home, the Rudds are 
     surrounded by photographs and memorabilia from world travels. 
     Custom shelves and niches display a miniature locomotive, a 
     gift of the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. for Eldon's 
     service on the board of directors; vases from Taiwan, 
     pitchers from Madrid, a collection of elephants from around 
     the world, models of the fighter planes he flew, and giant 
     gavel presented to him by campaign workers when he won his 
     first congressional race.
       ``I'm the retired one,'' Ann says, alluding to the fact her 
     husband retired from practicing law this year and now heads 
     up Eldon Rudd Consultancy Inc. (political, foreign, 
     industrial and personal security group) and serves on the 
     Salt River Project board of directors. ``When we came back, I 
     decided to seek the quiet life.'' (In 1985, Ann underwent 
     five-way by-pass heart surgery)
       Although nomads a good portion of their married life, both 
     still enjoy traveling. For their 50th wedding anniversary, 
     they took a family cruise down the California and Mexican 
     coasts.

                          ____________________