(D-NC) Representative Charlie Rose, Tobacco’s Friend in the House, Dies at 73

Charlie Rose, a former United States representative from rural North Carolina who fought to protect the tobacco industry and its farmers when political and regulatory pressure on the industry were on the rise and smoking in steady decline, died on Monday in Albertville, Ala. He was 73.

The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, said his wife, Stacye Hefner.

Mr. Rose, a Democrat some called Mr. Tobacco, was first elected to the House in 1972. His southeastern North Carolina district was covered with tobacco farms, but the crop’s economic and geographic footprint shrank over the next two decades of his tenure.

Mr. Rose (no relation to the television interviewer of the same name) worked to ease the transition and successfully fought to preserve government price supports for tobacco even as the government was warning of its potentially lethal health effects.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/us/politics/charlie-rose-us-representative-dies-at-73.html