Frank Lautenberg

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Person.png Frank Lautenberg  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(politician)
Frank Lautenberg.jpg
United States Senator from New Jersey
BornFrank Raleigh Lautenberg
23 January 1924
Paterson, New Jersey, U.S.
Died3 June 2013 (Age 89)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma materColumbia University
ReligionJudaism
Children • Ellen Nan
• Lisa Joshua
SpouseLois Levenson
Founder ofEuropean Foundation for Democracy
Member ofFoundation for Defense of Democracies
PartyDemocratic
United States Senator from New Jersey

Employment.png United States Senator from New Jersey

In office
January 3, 2003 - June 3, 2013

Employment.png United States Senator from New Jersey

In office
December 27, 1982 - January 3, 2001
Preceded byNicholas Brady
Succeeded byJon Corzine

Frank Raleigh Lautenberg was the senior United States Senator from New Jersey and a member of the Democratic Party.

Background

Frank Lautenberg was born in Paterson, New Jersey, to Mollie (née Bergen) and Sam Lautenberg, impoverished Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia, who had arrived in the United States as infants.[1][2] When Lautenberg was 19, his father, Sam, who worked in silk mills, sold coal, farmed and once ran a tavern, died of cancer. Frank Lautenberg had no formal Jewish education as a child; the family could not afford to join a synagogue and did not live very long in any single place.[1]

Career

Frank Lautenberg served overseas in the United States Army Signal Corps in World War II from 1942-1946 after graduating from Nutley High School in 1941.[3] Then, financed by the GI Bill, he attended and graduated from Columbia Business School in 1949 with a degree in economics. He was the first salesman at successful Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) and was its chairman and CEO from 1952-82. He was the executive commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from 1978 to 1982.

Lautenberg was a United States Senator from 1982 to 2001; after a brief retirement, he was re-elected to the Senate and has served since 2003. He was due to retire again at the end of his current term in January 2015.[4] Lautenberg was the oldest senator and the last serving veteran of World War II in the US Senate.[5]. Before entering politics, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Automatic Data Processing, Inc.

Family

From his first marriage to Lois Levenson,[6] which ended in divorce after 31 years,[6] Lautenberg has four children: Ellen, Nan, Lisa, and Joshua. In 2004, he married his companion of nearly 16 years, Bonnie S. Englebardt. He has a summer home on Martha's Vineyard.

Lockerbie bombing

On 31 October 2008, CNN reported:

"This summer, the United States and Libya signed a deal for the State Department to create a $1.8 billion compensation fund to finalise the claims for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the 1986 bombing of La Belle disco in Berlin, Germany. It also compensates Libyan victims of US airstrikes in the 1980s.
"Congress unanimously adopted the Libyan Claims Resolution Act, sponsored by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, which cleared the way to end the feud and created the victim compensation fund.
"Under the agreement, Libya pays more than $500 million to settle remaining claims from the Lockerbie case and more than $280 million for victims of the disco bombing. It will also set aside funds to compensate victims of several other incidents blamed on Libya, although Libya has not accepted responsibility.
"In exchange, Libya will now be exempt from legislation passed this year enabling "terrorism" victims to be compensated using frozen assets of governments blamed for attacks. Tripoli sought the protection to encourage US companies to invest in Libya without fear of being sued by "terrorism" victims or their families."[7]

On 12 July 2010, when he wrote his letter about Pan Am Flight 103, Libya and BP to Senators John Kerry (D-Mass) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind), the co-chairmen of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Frank Lautenberg knew he was stirring a very murky pot indeed.[8]

On 24 July 2010, Frank Lautenberg wrote "pleading" with the Scottish government to reconsider its decision not to send officials to a Senate hearing into the release of the "Lockerbie bomber" Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.[9]

Lest we forget, Senator Lautenberg was a member of the shadowy President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST). The PCAST team leader was Ann McLaughlin Korologos, former US Secretary of Labor, and its special adviser was the FBI's Oliver 'Buck' Revell.

When the seven PCAST members met a group of British PA103 relatives at the US Embassy in London on 12 February 1990, one of them whispered to Lockerbie relative Martin Cadman: "Your government and ours know exactly what happened. But they're never going to tell."

Mrs Korologos' Facebook friend Frank Duggan was involved with PCAST and is currently president of the American relatives' group "VPAF103, Inc" (although he is not a Lockerbie relative and knows very little about the disaster - see this video:[10]

Rather than wasting their time navel gazing about Mr Megrahi and BP oil deals with Libya at the behest of Senator Lautenberg, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be much better employed discussing and investigating the targeting of Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103.[11]

Death

Frank Lautenberg died aged 89 as a result of complications from viral pneumonia at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell, his office said. He had decided not to run for another term next year.[12]

Odd obituary

On 12 June 2013, Professor Robert Black wrote the following on his blog:

Today's edition of The Herald contains an obituary of US Senator Frank Lautenberg, who died on 3 June.[13]
There is only one good reason that I can think of for a Scottish newspaper to run an obituary of this minor American politician: his rôle on the periphery of the Lockerbie case. But The Herald's obituary never mentions this![14]

 

Related Document

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Document:Libya: Fine, but why Britainarticle20 March 2011Brian BarderDavid Cameron seemingly Gung Ho on toppling the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, while Barack Obama takes a back seat
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References

  1. ↑ a b Ruby, Walter (2008-07-25). Still Legislating, After All These Years. 221. The Jewish Week (Manhattan edition). p. 26
  2. ↑ [1]
  3. ↑ U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg. Retrieved November 21, 2007.
  4. ↑ http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/283251-sen-lautenberg-wont-run-for-reelection
  5. ↑ Gulf Times. The other WWII veterans in the Senate were Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Ted Stevens (R-AK).
  6. ↑ a b New York Times: "Lautenberg and Wife Considering Divorce" August 11, 1987
  7. ↑ "US-Libya compensation agreement"
  8. ↑ "Megrahi hearing request"
  9. ↑ "Senator's letter to Alex Salmond"
  10. ↑ "George Galloway and Frank Duggan discuss Lockerbie"
  11. ↑ "UN must investigate the targeting of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, on Pan Am Flight 103"
  12. ↑ "Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey Senator in His 5th Term, Dies at 89"
  13. ↑ "Frank Lautenberg - Obituary"
  14. ↑ "Odd obituary of US Senator Frank Lautenberg"
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