Tom Lantos
Tom Lantos (b. 1928; d. February 11, 2008) was a congressman from California's 12th Congressional District based in San Mateo, just south of San Francisco. He was a member of the Democratic party, and the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress. He died as a result of cancer.
Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, and participated in the Jewish resistance against the Nazis during the German occupation of Hungary. He emigrated to the United States in 1947.
On domestic issues Lantos enjoyed a 91% rating from the American Civil Liberties Union for 2005–2006; a 100% rating from the AFL-CIO for 2006; a 0% rating from the Family Research Council for 2006; a 100% rating from NARAL/Pro-Choice America for 2006; and an F from the National Rifle Association for 2006.
In foreign policy he was a leader in Congress and an especially strong opponent of Communism. He founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1983. He used the Caucus to publicize the plight of individual Soviet Jews, Pentecostals and dissidents targeted by the Soviet regime. Many were released. Through the Caucus, Lantos brought major concerns before the public, including killings in Darfur and the Congo. He demanded that internet companies like Yahoo! and Google be accountable for their complicity in censorship and political persecution in China. Lantos publicized abuses against Tibetans, the Kurds, the Burmese, and the Uighurs. He was a strong enemy of anti-Semitism and persecution of religious minorities, and also of abuses against gays and lesbians.[1]
"Communism was not the only monstrous phenomenon determined to destroy free and open societies," said Lantos in 2007. Lantos, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had fought against Nazism and communism, and "it is now my privilege to fight against Islamic terrorism determined to take us back 13 centuries."[2]
Lantos often grabbed headlines for his outspoken comments. He blasted former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and former French President Jacques Chirac for their failure to fight "Islamofascism" and their ingratitude to America for World War II. "I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone," he said. He ridiculed Schroeder as a "political prostitute, now that he's taking big checks from Putin" (Schroeder took a consulting job with a Russian oil firm shortly after leaving office), and then quipped that "the sex workers in my district objected so I will no longer use that phrase."
External links
- "Lantos on Communism and Putin, June 18th, 2007"
- Ivan Osorio, "Hungarian Original," American Spectator (Feb. 2008) online