[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 19765-19766]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         REMEMBERING LEO DIEHL

  (Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, there is a cliche of the 
unsung hero. Cliches can be tiresome, but generally they have to be 
true to become a cliche. One such unsung hero in the history of this 
House recently died. His name was Leo Diehl.
  Tip O'Neill was a great Speaker, and we have seen before and since 
that it is not as easy to be a successful Speaker

[[Page 19766]]

as it may look. One reason Tip was so good at his job was the 
friendship and partnership he had with Leo Diehl.
  Leo Diehl was a man of integrity, vision and intelligence. He had 
lost the use of much of his body, but his brain worked, and his eyes 
and ears and mouth. Because of the great friendship with Leo Diehl, 
because he could so clearly rely on a man of such strength of character 
and wisdom, that was one of the reasons that Tip O'Neill's speakership, 
as he was free to acknowledge, was so successful.
  Leo Diehl recently died at the age of 92. He was a great figure in 
the history of this House, and I think it is appropriate that those of 
us particularly who served under Tip O'Neill's speakership with Leo 
Diehl mourn him today.

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