Frank Lautenberg: “I have been a long-time admirer of Senator Byrd. I have been here 16 years. As I looked around the room, I noted that…”

“I have been a long-time admirer of Senator Byrd. I have been here 16 years. As I looked around the room, I noted that there were only six others who had been here as long as I have, which gives me a relative senior status, although the Chamber wasn't filled, and I regret that it wasn't because I know that everybody responds the same way as I do when Senator Byrd speaks. You always learn something of quite an incredible nature, and we are always in awe of his intellect and his memory. I will never forget my earliest days here when I went in to visit Senator Byrd because I was anxious to serve on the Appropriations Committee. And Senator Byrd gave me a treatise on English kings, reaching back, I think, somewhere before William the Conqueror. I am not going to try to duplicate anything that Senator Byrd said by way of recall, but I remember that that was in the 1000s, I guess.”