Tom Lantos

Tom Lantos

Lantos' grave in Washington, DC

Thomas Peter "Tom" Lantos (born February 1, 1928 in Budapest ; † February 11, 2008 in Bethesda , Maryland ; actually: Lantos Tamás Péter ) was an American politician of Hungarian origin.

Life

Lantos came from a Jewish family. In 1944 he was forced to a Hungarian labor camp in Szob . He fled back to Budapest, where he hid in the apartment of an aunt who lived in a star house protected by Raoul Wallenberg . Most of his relatives were victims of persecution by the Hungarian anti-Semites and Arrow Cross members . In 1981, Lantos ensured that Wallenberg was posthumously made an honorary citizen of the United States. Lantos was interviewed for the 1998 documentary The Last Days .

After the end of World War II , he began studying at Budapest University , but went to the United States in 1947. Here he studied economics at the University of Washington . He received his doctorate in 1953 from the University of California, Berkeley .

Since 1981 he was a congressman of the Democrats , the beginning of the 11th, then the 12th electoral district of California . In Congress , he led the influential Foreign Affairs Committee. In 2002 he supported the resolution for the Iraq war , which he later criticized.

In 2008 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem .

He died of esophageal cancer at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda . His grave is in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC In June 2008, President George W. Bush posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom .

Political positions

Because of his political views, Lantos was seen as one of the more liberal congressmen, including a .:

• he considered the protection of human rights to be a political task of central importance,
• he supported the legalization of abortion and stem cell research ,
• he spoke out against the constitution of the PATRIOT Act ,
• he supported the rights of sexual minorities including marriage and adoption law,
• he spoke out against the death penalty ,
• he advocated the legalization of so-called " soft drugs " for medical purposes,
• he spoke out in favor of restricting the right to own weapons.

Web links

Commons : Tom Lantos  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Tom Lantos in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• On the Issues ( Memento from October 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
• MP Tom Lantos has died . In: Der Standard , February 11, 2008
• Tom Lanto's Biography. US Representative (1928-2008). biography.com, accessed on May 27, 2018 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biography Channel ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , 2010. 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Rep. Tom Lantos of California dies at 80. cnn.de, February 11, 2008, accessed on May 27, 2018 (English). 
3. ^ Homepage of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress (English).