Victor Fazio: “The so-called Berkeley radical who became a Statesman, Ron Dellums, deserves the time he has had on the floor and far…”

“The so-called Berkeley radical who became a Statesman, Ron Dellums, deserves the time he has had on the floor and far many more hours that may be accorded before too long. But we are going to miss him, and we are going to miss him largely because he was a unique Member of this institution, a man of great complexity, a man of great contrast who grew in this job in a way that few can. He started out as a social worker and became conversant with the complexities of SDI and all of the other issues and weapons systems that were the meat and potatoes of the Armed Services Committee. Here he is, a Marine Corps veteran who became, as the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Furse) said earlier, the symbol of the Peaceniks, the people who came here because they wanted to make a difference in the broadest sense of that term. Here he is, a guy who is most proud of his race, but who never failed to reach out to anybody who differed from him; a man who is a proud African-American, but who studied his personal history and was proud of every element of his ancestry.”