U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos Key Lawmaker Uses Chairmanship To Reshape U.S. Foreign Policy by John Shaw Since assuming the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January, Tom Lantos has been a man on a mission. The Democratic congressman from California has presided over a blizzard of committee hearings on topics ranging from Iraq to climate change to weapons of mass destruction to human rights. He took a high-profile trip to the Middle East with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and defended her publicly when she was criticized for meeting with Syrian leaders. He has also met with foreign diplomats, sparred with Bush administration officials, drafted legislation, and participated in emotionally charged debates on the floor of the House. Although he has been moving aggressively in a number of different directions, Lantos has a simple and clear strategy: “If I have one overarching goal, it is to begin the process of restoring the United States’s credibility, stature, prestige, weight and prominence in the world,” he said in an interview with The Washington Diplomat. “Over the past few years, the damage that has been done to our standing in the world has been very serious. I don’t think that in American history there has been comparable decline in U.S. standing and prestige in the world over such a short time.” Courtly and steely, Lantos can speak with lofty eloquence or sledgehammer directness. He believes lawmakers have an important role to play in shaping U.S. foreign policy, funding important initiatives, studying issues, meeting with leaders from other nations, and overseeing the administration’s policies. “I think Congress’s role in foreign policy is very important and can be very helpful,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a good-cop, bad-cop routine with the administration. Sometimes it’s reinforcing the administration’s message. Sometimes it’s showing we have different views.” According to Lantos, Democratic control of Congress after the 2006 mid-term elections has ushered in a new period of congressional involvement in U.S. foreign policy. “When Congress and the administration are in different hands, then clearly the congressional role is dramatically more assertive and powerful. That is what is happening here,” he said. Lantos brings to his work in Congress a stirring life story. One of the House’s most influential voices on foreign policy, Lantos is a native of Hungary and is the only Holocaust survivor in Congress. This experience, he said, changed his life and shaped his vision of the world. When Lantos was 16, the Nazis swept into Budapest and began arresting Jews. He was sent to a forced labor camp in Szob, a village north of the capital. He escaped, was captured and severely beaten. He escaped a second time, making it back to Budapest and seeking refuge in a Wallenberg safe house that was an apartment building under Swedish diplomatic protection. With this as his base, he moved around Budapest, securing food and secretly delivering it to those in need. After the Nazis were driven from Hungary by the Soviet Union, Lantos searched in vain for his parents, who had been killed. He later located a childhood friend, Annette Tillemann, who had fled to Switzerland. They married and had two children. In 1947, Lantos won a scholarship to study in the United States. He received a master’s degree in economics from the University of Washington and then earned a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught economics at San Francisco State University and later worked as a consultant to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Lantos was elected to Congress in 1980 and represents a Northern California district between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. He is now in his 14th term and is routinely re-elected by large margins. Throughout his congressional career, Lantos has been deeply interested in foreign policy. He is using his current chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to delve into numerous issues and offer policy recommendations. “I probably read six hours a day and it’s all foreign policy. I love it. I can’t believe I get paid for this job,” he said. Lantos voted in 2002 to give President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq, but he now believes the venture has gone badly and doubts it can be repaired. He noted that Congress has held more hearings on Iraq during the first three months of 2007 than in the previous four years combined, when Republicans controlled the Congress. Lantos recently supported an emergency spending bill that would have established timelines for removing most U.S. combat troops from Iraq and benchmarks to hold the Iraqi government accountable for reaching a political solution to the civil war that is ravaging the country. Bush vetoed the bill and later signed another version of the spending bill that did not call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Lantos is not optimistic that Congress can do much to fix U.S. policy on Iraq, but vows to hold hearings to assess the situation and demand that the administration explain its policies. “There is nothing new or original we can do regarding Iraq at this stage. You can’t unscramble an omelet. The mistakes we made five years ago, four years ago, three years ago can’t be rectified now, whether you call it a surge or a more careful reconstruction effort,” he said. Next Page