[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 136 (Tuesday, September 30, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8955-H8956]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO LOU ROTTERMAN

  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a man 
who was part of our Nation's Greatest Generation, Lou Rotterman, who 
was called home by his Maker in July of this year.
  Lou was a fixture on the Hill and in Washington for over 30 years. He 
was an old-school press secretary and speech writer who worked behind 
the scenes to put the people he believed in into the spotlight.
  Like former President Reagan, he believed that much could be done 
when you did not worry about who got the credit.
  Indeed, Lou Rotterman worked as an executive assistant and press 
secretary for Jack Kemp from 1972 until 1981, a period in which the New 
Yorker went from being a freshman Congressman, best known from his days 
as a Buffalo Bills football great, to one of the conservative 
intellectual powerhouses of the modern Republican Party. Kemp, as we 
all know, championed the Kemp-Roth across-the-board tax cuts signed 
into law by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Lou Rotterman, along with his 
counterpart Jim Brady, who worked with then-Senator Bill Roth's office, 
helped mobilize support for that historic measure.
  As David King of the American Conservative Union wrote in The Hill 
newspaper, ``Kemp would not have succeeded without Lou Rotterman, and 
Reagan would not have been the President he was without the ideas that 
the two promoted.''
  As respected as Rotterman was among Congressional press secretaries, 
he was far more than a Capitol Hill fixture.
  Like many in his generation, he volunteered to fight in World War II. 
At the Battle of Leyete Gulf, Rotterman was a tail gunner on a crew 
that had to ditch in the ocean. For his bravery in that battle, Lou 
Rotterman was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for what was 
called a valiant attack on a large task force of Japanese. In the 
citation, Rotterman was hailed for his bravery, coolness, and 
determination displayed. His superior magnificent teamwork was also 
noted, a hallmark of Lou Rotterman's professional life.
  Recently a journalist friend of Rotterman's said, ``You can judge the 
measure of a man by how he treats those who aren't in a position to 
help him.'' The journalist said, ``Lou was that way towards me.''

[[Page H8956]]

  Prior to working on Capitol Hill, Rotterman had a distinguished 
career in journalism with the Dayton Daily News. During that time, he 
interviewed both Richard Nixon and John Kennedy during the 1960 
Presidential campaign.
  Rotterman never ducked a challenge. In the beginning of his career as 
a beat reporter, he once posed as a minister and walked out on a rain-
soaked edge of an office building with a policeman to lure a suicidal 
man back to safety.
  Lou Rotterman was the product of an earlier generation. He went to 
war, served his country, and raised a family.
  Lou Rotterman is gone, but his successors are out there today working 
just as hard as he did. We do not read their names in the paper, 
because they are not in it for the glory. But they do their part to 
make the world a better place for all of us.
  Simply put, Lou Rotterman was part of the Greatest Generation that 
understood sacrifice, duty, honor, and country. He will be missed by 
all that knew him.
  Mr. Speaker, I close by asking God to please bless America, and bless 
our men and women in uniform.

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