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Hungary loses friend

The Hungarian ambassador yesterday mourned the death of Rep. Tom Lantos, a Hungarian native who rose to one of the highest positions in Congress after surviving the Holocaust and fighting in the anti-Nazi underground.

"Congressman Lantos opposed dictatorships and authoritarian rule, irrespective of whether led by left- or right-wing extremists," Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi said. "He fought all his life for freedom and democracy."

Mr. Lantos, California Democrat, was chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when he died of cancer yesterday at age 80.

His life inspired Hungarians under communism and Europeans under Soviet domination during the Cold War, Mr. Somogyi said. As a teenager, Mr. Lantos escaped twice from Nazi labor camps in Hungary, joined the resistance and later fled from a postwar, Soviet-controlled Hungary.

"Tom Lantos was known to be the most energetic congressman, who used his dynamism and strength relentlessly to serve everyone's right to liberty and democracy, regardless of their nationality, race, religion, age or gender," Mr. Somogyi said.

"I have lost a good friend. My wife, Andrea, and the entire staff of the Hungarian Embassy share this sorrow."

Ambassador John Bruton, the European Union's representative in the United States, added, "Europeans everywhere owe him a great debt for his persistent opposition to oppression and for his contribution to the ultimate overthrow of communism."

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