[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 46 (Friday, March 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3239-S3240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO VICTOR CRAWFORD

 Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to join the citizens 
of Maryland in honoring a distinguished public servant, an accomplished 
trial lawyer, and, above all, a courageous man, Victor Crawford, who 
died earlier this month after a long battle with cancer.
  I first met Vic in January 1967 as a newly elected member of the 
Maryland House of Delegates. He was an articulate and skilled master of 
the legislative process who, throughout his years in the Maryland 
Legislature, enjoyed a deserved reputation as a dazzling orator and 
tenacious advocate for the people of Maryland.
  But Vic's crowning achievement came not in the legislative arena, but 
in his nationally acclaimed battle for stronger antismoking laws. After 
years as a heavy smoker and a period spent as a lobbyist for the 
tobacco industry, Vic became a staunch and vocal advocate for 
antismoking legislation and education and prevention efforts. Vic 
dedicated himself wholeheartedly to this important mission which he 
conducted with the same skill and determination that characterized his 
legislative career.
  Vic's indomitable efforts in this area brought him to the attention 
of President Clinton who believed Vic's strong antismoking message 
should be shared, not just with Marylanders, but with all Americans, 
and invited him to address the Nation on his weekly radio broadcast. It 
was among his finest hours and Vic's words inspired citizens throughout 
the Nation to work for stronger antismoking laws.
  His last years were not easy, but with humor and determination Vic 
lived out his life in dignity and exhibited the same courage and 
strength we had all come to expect from this remarkable man. Vic 
Crawford was a good friend and a valued counselor. I would like to take 
this opportunity to extend my deepest and heartfelt sympathies to his 
wife, Linda, and to his children, Charlene and Victor Junior.
  Mr. President, in testimony to Vic's exceptional service on behalf of 
all Americans, I request that obituaries from the Baltimore Sun, the 
New York Times, and the Washington Post which pay tribute to this 
respected and honorable man, be printed in the Record.
  The obituaries follow:

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 12, 1996]

    Former Lawmaker, Lobbyist Is Remembered by Friends; Glendening 
                     Eulogizes Antismoking Activist

       Victor L. Crawford, the former Maryland legislator and 
     tobacco lobbyist who turned into a national voice against 
     smoking after he was found to have throat and lung cancer, 
     was honored yesterday at a memorial service in College Park 
     attended by nearly 1,000 mourners.
       Crawford, who died March 2 at age 63 after a two-year bout 
     with cancer, was remembered fondly by people who had contact 
     with him at various points of his life, from Maryland Gov. 
     Parris N. Glendening to Carl Nuzman, 23, a student at the 
     University of Maryland who is attending classes on a 
     scholarship Crawford helped establish during his years in 
     Annapolis.
       The service at the nondemoninational University of Maryland 
     Chapel drew a host of state legislators and politicians from 
     Montgomery County, which Crawford represented in the House of 
     Delegates and Senate for 16 years. Even the pastor, the Rev. 
     Charles W. Gilchrist, was a former Montgomery County 
     executive. Crawford also was remembered as a skillful lawyer 
     who could charm juries with his smile and affable nature.
       ``Vic's legacy was that he had the boldness to do something 
     that many of us find difficult,'' Glendening said during his 
     eulogy. ``That is, he came out and he said that he had made a 
     mistake in his life. He took personal responsibility for 
     that.''
       But it was his unyielding crusade against smoking that 
     everyone recalled with the greatest admiration. After 
     spending several years of his post-legislative career working 
     as a lobbyist for the Tobacco Institute, Crawford, a longtime 
     smoker, was found to have terminal cancer two years ago.
       Knowing death was coming, he spent those two years using 
     his skills as a politician and a lawyer to fight the very 
     people he once represented, even though he had been severely 
     weakened by the disease.
       ``I got the sense that he'd never felt so close to his own 
     mortality before,'' said Gail Ewing (D-At Large), president 
     of the Montgomery County Council, recalling the day Crawford 
     told her about his cancer. ``He really wanted to do 
     something that mattered.''
       County Executive Douglas M. Duncan said: ``He was a great 
     senator for Montgomery County. He was one of the few who 
     could influence the state on important issues. If you wanted 
     something done in Annapolis, he was the one you called.''
       And although his political career never left Maryland, he 
     took his last battle across the country by lobbying in many 
     states and appearing on network television.
       Despite the sadness of the occasion, the service had an air 
     of Crawford's good-natured spirit about it. As the gathering 
     assembled, Dixieland music filled the vaulted chapel, and 
     sunlight streamed through the windows.
       ``I walked up the steps, and I heard music. I walked to the 
     door, and I said, `This must be the place,' '' said 
     Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, who became friends 
     with Crawford during his campaign against the tobacco 
     industry. ``Every time I saw Vic Crawford, I felt good about 
     myself. Today I was feeling kind of down, but I felt better 
     when I walked in the door.''
       It was that same ability to make people feel good about 
     themselves that Wendy Satin, a Rockville lawyer who began her 
     career under Crawford's tutelage, remarked upon in her 
     recollection of a law career that grew to fabled dimensions 
     within Rockville's legal circles.
       She remembered how Crawford's good nature would win juries 
     over to his side. ``The jurors felt that they knew him 
     because, by the end of the trial, they did. They were charmed 
     by him, and they wanted to be on his side. The lesson,'' she 
     said, ``is to always be yourself.''
                                                                    ____


                [From the New York Times, Mar. 10, 1996]

                  Victor Crawford, 63; Opposed Smoking

       Baltimore.--Victor Crawford, a former tobacco lobbyist who 
     became a crusader against smoking after his throat cancer was 
     diagnosed, died on March 2, 1996 at Johns Hopkins Hospital 
     here. He was 63 and lived in Chevy Chase, MD.
       Mr. Crawford, a former Maryland legislator, was a lobbyist 
     for the Tobacco Institute for six years until his cancer was 
     diagnosed in 1991. He then began speaking out against 
     smoking, was featured on the CBS News program ``60 Minutes,'' 
     and spoke on President Clinton's weekly radio address.
       ``I told politicians that there was no evidence that 
     smoking causes cancer,'' he said in a 1995 interview. ``If 
     that's not lying, I don't know what is. I'm just trying to 
     undo some of the damage I've done.''
       Mr. Crawford, a Democrat, was elected to the House of 
     Delegates in 1966 and appointed to the State Senate in 1969 
     to fill a term. He retired from the Senate in 1983.
       Mr. Crawford is survived by his wife, Linda; a daughter, 
     Charlene, and a son, Victor Jr.
                                                                    ____


                [From the Washington Post, Mar. 4, 1996]

        Victor L. Crawford, Maryland, Antismoking Activist, Dies

       Victor L. Crawford, 63, a former Maryland state legislator 
     who had lobbied for the tobacco industry before a diagnosis 
     of cancer turned him into an antismoking activist, died March 
     2 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
       A veteran trial lawyer and a flamboyant figure in Annapolis 
     during a 26-year career representing eastern Montgomery 
     County, Mr. Crawford employed his skills at persuasion and 
     vivid presentation in recent months to warn in high-profile 
     media appearances against the hazards of smoking.
       His stark message appeared in Ann Landers's syndicated 
     newspaper advice column, on the ``60 Minutes'' television 
     show, in public-service radio ads and in a broadcast from the 
     Oval Office last summer with President Clinton.
       ``It's too late for me, but it's not too late for you,'' he 
     advised listeners throughout the nation Aug. 12 on the 
     president's weekly Saturday morning broadcast.
       ``I fooled a lot of people,'' he said. ``And kids, I fooled 
     myself, too.''
       In printed interviews and in raspy-voiced on-the-air 
     statements, Mr. Crawford told how cancer was discovered in 
     his throat and lungs after years of heavy smoking that began 
     when he was 13.
       After leaving the legislature, he spent six years in the 
     late 1980s as a contract lobbyist for the Tobacco Institute, 
     receiving about $20,000 in fees.
       ``I was in it for the money,'' he said in a 1995 interview, 
     ``and I was never concerned if people were dying.'' He said 
     his job was to kill bills that would discourage smoking and 
     advance those that would encourage it.
       ``Now I'm trying to make amends,'' he said, ``to stop 
     people from smoking so they won't suffer like I have.''
       Mr. Crawford was born in Richmond and raised in New York 
     and in the Trinidad area of Northeast Washington.
       Two years after graduating from Georgetown University Law 
     School, he helped defend Joseph E. Johnson Jr., a black 
     Montgomery County man who was sentenced to death in the rape 
     of a white teenager, in a controversial case that attracted 
     national attention. Johnson was convicted, but he later was 
     pardoned by the governor after it was shown that prosecutors 
     had withheld evidence.
       In 1992, he summarized a career of 1,000 trials by 
     describing himself as ``the court of last resort,'' the only 
     barrier between a defendant and the power of the state.
       ``Whenever I see a guy getting a raw deal, particularly if 
     racism has permeated the

[[Page S3240]]

     trial, no matter whether it's one side or the other, it gets 
     my Irish dander up.''
       Mr. Crawford was elected to the state House of Delegates in 
     1966 to represent Silver Spring, went on to the state Senate 
     16 years later and decided against seeking reelection in 
     1982.
       Offering a swashbuckling image to statehouse colleagues 
     that led some to liken him in dress and demeanor to a 
     riverboat gambler, Mr. Crawford was remembered for the fine 
     clothes, unpredictable floor antics, a large mustache and 
     cigars.
       Survivors include his wife, Linda, of Chevy Chase, and a 
     daughter, Charlene, and a son, Victor Jr., both of Berwyn 
     Heights.
                                                                    ____


                 [From the Baltimore Sun, Mar. 4, 1996]

 Victor Crawford, Crusader Against Smoking, Dies at 63; Cancer Victim 
                       Once Was Tobacco Lobbyist

       Victor L. Crawford, a debonair former Maryland legislator 
     who achieved national prominence in recent years for his 
     conversion from tobacco lobbyist to anti-smoking crusader, 
     died Saturday night at Johns Hopkins Hospital after a 
     prolonged battle with cancer. He was 63.
       Mr. Crawford, a resident of Chevy Chase, was an 
     accomplished trial lawyer who represented eastern Montgomery 
     County in the General Assembly for 16 years. It was there 
     that he earned the nickname of ``the Riverboat Gambler'' 
     because of his pinky ring, vest, gold watch--and cigars.
       His smoking--2\1/2\ packs of cigarettes at first, then 
     cigars and pipes--led to the passion of the final two years 
     of his life, as an outspoken foe of smoking. While battling 
     cancer, he lobbied state legislatures, gave interviews and 
     spoke out on the dangers of tobacco and the industry on whose 
     behalf he had worked.
       ``It's too late for me, but it's not too late for you,'' 
     Mr. Crawford said during one of President Clinton's weekly 
     nationwide radio addresses last summer. ``I smoked heavily, 
     and I started when I was 13 years old. And now, in my throat 
     and in my lungs, where the smoke used to be, there is a 
     cancer that I know is killing me. Use your brain. Don't let 
     anybody fool you. Don't smoke.''
       After retiring from the Senate, Mr. Crawford had worked for 
     the Tobacco Institute for six years, lobbying his former 
     legislative colleagues to kill or weaken smoking 
     restrictions. Then, in 1991, he was diagnosed with cancer. He 
     went public with his disease and his appeal to stop smoking 
     in 1994, appearing at a hearing in Annapolis on proposed 
     regulations to limit smoking in the workplace.
       ``He didn't mince words, and he didn't spare himself,'' 
     recalled former state Sen. Howard A. Denis, a Montgomery 
     County Republican who was a close friend. ``He didn't blame 
     anyone but himself for his problems. All he wanted to do was 
     teach others to avoid the mistakes he had made.''
       Mr. Crawford later went nationwide with his message, 
     appearing on the CBS newsmagazine show, ``60 Minutes'' and 
     writing to syndicated advice columnist Ann Landers, among 
     others. He lobbied on behalf of anti-smoking legislation in 
     Florida and campaigned to block a smokers' rights referendum 
     in California, said his wife of 14 years, Linda.
       ``He made a difference,'' said Mr. Denis. ``This was one of 
     the things that kept him going in the last five years. He 
     knew he was influencing young lives.''
       ``He worked until the day he went into the hospital,'' Mrs. 
     Crawford said. She said she drove him to Hopkins on Feb. 2 
     only after he had appeared in court. ``He went fighting,'' 
     she added.
       Mr. Crawford was born in Richmond, Va., but grew up in New 
     York City and Washington, D.C. He was a graduate of 
     Georgetown University Law School.
       He was elected to the House of Delegates as a Democrat in 
     1966, then appointed to the state Senate in 1969 to fill the 
     term of Blair Lee III, who had been appointed secretary of 
     state by then-Gov. Marvin Mandel.
       One of the legislative accomplishments of which Mr. 
     Crawford was proudest, said Mr. Denis, was creation of the 
     Distinguished Scholar Program, which provided financial aid 
     to academically talented but needy students to attend college 
     or graduate school in Maryland.
       Mr. Crawford's legal career spanned 30 years and he 
     represented a black Montgomery County man in 1962 accused of 
     raping a white teen-ager in a case that drew civil rights 
     protests and national attention.
       A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. March 11 in the 
     chapel at the University of Maryland College Park campus.
       Other survivors include a daughter, Charlene; and a son, 
     Victor Jr., both of Berwyn Heights.

                          ____________________