A Great American Has Died: Peter W Rodino, 95

He headed the Watergate Committee.

Peter W. Rodino Jr., an obscure congressman from the streets of Newark who impressed the nation by the dignity, fairness and firmness he showed as chairman of the impeachment hearings that induced Richard M. Nixon to resign as president, died yesterday at his home in West Orange, N.J.. He was 95.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said Christine Bland, a spokeswoman for Seton Hall University School of Law, where he was a professor emeritus and continued to lecture until February.

To his colleagues on Capitol Hill, Mr. Rodino was a symbol of possibility - a reminder that events can conspire to choose one United States representative out of 435 and lift him to glory. To the end of his life, Mr. Rodino wondered, "Why me?"

Here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/nyregion/08rodino.html?pagewanted=print

it really took me back in time...thanks for posting this.