Howard G. Paster, 66, a consummate Washington insider whose effectiveness as a corporate lobbyist took him to the White House as President Bill Clinton’s liaison to Congress, where he helped push through the North American Free Trade Agreement, died Wednesday in Baltimore.
Paster’s death, at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, was caused by encephalitis, his wife, Gail, said. He lived in Washington.
As Clinton’s principal ambassador to Congress at the time, Paster had to overcome the opposition of a majority of House Democrats to pass NAFTA, relying heavily on Republican support instead.
Noach Flug, 86, a tireless advocate for Holocaust survivors who successfully fought governments to compensate this aging and dwindling population, has died.
The Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel said Flug died Thursday morning at Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem.
Born in Poland in 1925, Flug was deported from the Lodz ghetto, where he was a member of the anti-Nazi underground, to the Auschwitz death camp in August 1944. Nearly all his family was killed at that camp, but he managed to survive it and two other concentration camps.
Billy Grammer, 85, whose 1958 hit “Gotta Travel On” hit the top of the charts and led to a long career on the Grand Ole Opry, has died.
Grammer died Wednesday morning in his home state of Illinois of natural causes, according to a statement from Grand Ole Opry spokeswoman Jessie Schmidt. He had suffered a heart attack in late March. A singer and guitarist who also was a Nashville recording session musician, Grammer performed regularly on the Grand Ole Opry beginning in 1959.
Denver Post wire services
