[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 22 (Monday, February 11, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S823-S824]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO CONGRESSMAN TOM LANTOS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, when I was elected to Congress in 1982, I 
had the opportunity to visit over the telephone on many occasions with 
a new Congressman named Tom Lantos. He was new from California. He was 
very interested in my election. He helped me

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raise some money for that election, made many phone calls, and reached 
out to me as a friend. So when I came to Washington, I had the 
opportunity to meet him personally. That was the beginning of the 
development of a real friendship.
  I have traveled with Tom Lantos overseas. He led delegations. When I 
was a new Senator, I traveled with him. Senator Daschle led a trip. One 
of the places we went was to Hungary, and we had the opportunity to 
have Tom Lantos show us around Budapest. Why was that important? It was 
important because the Nazis waited until toward the end of the war 
before they moved in to disperse the Jews out of Budapest and Hungary 
generally.
  He was one of the Jews in Budapest they captured on many occasions. 
He escaped the Nazis on seven different occasions. They would capture 
him; he would get away. He said one reason he was able to escape as 
much as he did was that he had long blond hair, and the Nazis didn't 
figure he was Hungarian. He actually took us to places where he had 
been captured, arrested by the Nazis in Budapest. It was a wonderful 
time we spent with him for 2 days in Budapest.
  This morning, our country grieves the loss of truly an American hero, 
Congressman Tom Lantos, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in 
the House of Representatives. He was born in Budapest, Hungary. When he 
was 16 years of age, Hitler and the Nazis occupied his country. He and 
his family, like so many other Hungarian Jews, were captured, rounded 
up, beaten, and taken away, sent to labor camps. As I have indicated, 
he was a hard one to stay captured; he got away.

  It was through him I first learned about the struggles that people 
have on a personal, individual basis. He was a man who protected his 
girlfriend, his friend Annette at the time. They were both saved by the 
great Swedish diplomat after whom we have streets named in Washington, 
DC. He was able to escape many times but not his family. All of them 
were killed.
  All alone, a teenager, with little cause for hope, after the war, he 
moved through displaced persons camps. Tom Lantos remained optimistic. 
He refused to give up. He spent a couple years wandering around Europe 
after the war.
  He wrote an essay on President Franklin Roosevelt, and because of 
this essay, he earned an academic scholarship to study in the United 
States. He came on a converted World War II troop ship in 1947. He 
brought with him only one possession. It was a large Hungarian salami, 
but when he arrived, it was confiscated by Customs officials. So it is 
neither a cliche nor an exaggeration to say that Tom Lantos came to 
America with nothing.
  This ``American by choice,'' as he was fond of calling himself, 
earned a BA and a master's degree from the University of Washington-
Seattle and a Ph.D. from the University of California. Soon after he 
arrived here, he married his childhood sweetheart, Annette Lantos.
  For the next three decades, he and Annette lived in the San Francisco 
area. Tom worked as a professor in economics, an international affairs 
analyst, and an economist in many different areas, testifying in cases, 
consulting generally. In less than three decades after becoming a U.S. 
citizen, Tom Lantos became a Congressman. He brought to Washington 
remarkable depth of knowledge and intellect and stood out as a 
powerhouse from the day he arrived in Washington.
  As I indicated, I had the honor of serving with him in Congress, but 
I also served with him on the House Foreign Affairs Committee as it was 
then called, and, as everyone else, I found him blessed with the mind 
of a scholar and grace of a gentleman. Tom Lantos could deliver a 
speech. He still had the Hungarian accent, but he could bring an 
audience to its feet. He was a great speaker.
  I can recall no one in Congress who did not admire this fine man. He 
and Annette were always there to talk about their lives together as 
kids, teenagers. They had been together 60, 70 years. Raoul Wallenberg 
was the Swedish diplomat. Because of Tom Lantos, there is a street 
named after him in Washington, DC, right by the Holocaust Memorial.
  I can recall no one, Democrat or Republican, who didn't relish the 
opportunity to work with him. Once Tom Lantos said:

       I like to work hard to make this a better country, to 
     provide a just government for our people and make sure we 
     have learned from the past.

  Tom Lantos did just that--leaving an indelible mark on issue after 
issue from health care, Social Security, to the environment, the 
budget, foreign affairs, of course, but also was his love of animals. 
He had a caucus in the Congress he worked on dealing only with animals. 
He loved animals and wanted to make sure they were treated 
appropriately.
  He cochaired the congressional human rights caucus where he fiercely 
advocated the spread of liberty throughout the world. His convictions 
were so deeply rooted that he and four other Members of Congress were 
arrested in 2006 for protesting the genocide in Darfur at the Sudanese 
Embassy.
  After years in the minority, Congressman Lantos finally achieved his 
dream of chairing the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but it lasted 
only one year. He was diagnosed being sick right before Christmas, the 
first knowledge he had esophageal cancer, and he passed away within the 
last 24 hours.
  We were all deeply saddened to hear he was sick. I was stunned when I 
learned he was so sick he would retire to fight cancer. The fight did 
not last long.
  I talked today with Howard Berman, who will replace him as chair of 
that committee. He told me he visited Tom in Washington at his house. 
He said he handled his oncoming death the way he handled so many 
things: with great dignity and understanding.
  Tom leaves behind a great family. He has two daughters, Annette, the 
same name as his wife, and Katrina. These are two beautiful women, as 
beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside. These 2 daughters 
gave Tom and Annette 17 grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He 
doted on those grandchildren. A number of us here had him contact us 
for things dealing with his grandchildren, making sure they got in the 
school they were supposed to, jobs he wanted them to get. He cared 
about every one of those 17 grandchildren.
  Landra and I have 16 grandchildren, but we have 5 children. He had 2 
daughters with 17 grandchildren.
  The Lantos family is truly in our hearts today. Tom said once:

       It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor 
     of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground 
     could have received an education, raised a family, and had 
     the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life 
     as a Member of Congress. I will never be able to express 
     fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this country.

  That is what Tom Lantos said and he meant every word of it. He 
benefited from the limitless opportunity America affords, but America 
benefited far more from the service of Congressman Tom Lantos.
  So today we pause to express our profound affection and appreciation 
and gratitude for this wonderful man. Congressman Tom Lantos was a 
great American. His spirit will be sorely missed and his legacy never 
forgotten.

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