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| Subject: L. H. Fountain, 89, Lawmaker Who Led 60's Fraud Inquiry | |
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Date Posted: October 15, 2002 1:25:08 EDT In reply to: Michelle 's message, "Recent obituaries you might have missed seeing elsewhere" on October 15, 2002 1:00:40 EDT L. H. Fountain, a former North Carolina congressman whose investigation first exposed the scope of the Billie Sol Estes scandal of the 1960's, died on Thursday at a retirement home in Raleigh, N.C. He was 89 and a resident of Tarboro, N.C. Mr. Fountain, a lawyer and conservative Democrat, entered Congress in 1953. Representing a predominantly rural district of east-central North Carolina, he was named the chairman of a relatively obscure subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee. His panel came upon questionable payments of public money to cheese-makers. After some years of peeking into the country's grain storage bins, it also found strange things going on there in the shadows. With the Republicans gleefully looking on, the panel opened hearings in May 1962 into the dealings of Mr. Estes, a Texan with a cotton, grain, and fertilizer empire. It collapsed in bankruptcy the month before the hearings, when Mr. Estes was indicted on fraud charges. A smooth-talking schemer who called Lyndon B. Johnson his good friend, Mr. Estes had made millions in phantom fertilizer deals. A Senate committee was investigating behind closed doors, but Mr. Fountain, a quietly resolute man, suddenly found himself in the brightest spotlights of his career. Weeks of hearings reproduced a case history of administrative bungling, mainly in the Department of Agriculture. But they turned up no conclusive evidence of high-level favoritism in the Kennedy administration, in which Mr. Johnson served as vice president. Mr. Fountain served 15 terms in the House. He decided not to run in 1982 when redrawn boundaries drastically changed his district. Lawrence H. Fountain — the middle initial was just that, an initial — was born in Leggett, N.C. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1934 and from its law school in 1936. He went into private practice but enlisted in the Army as a private in 1942. Coming up through the ranks, he reached the judge advocate general's office and the rank of major. After the war, he worked as a lawyer and a reading clerk in the state Legislature. He was a state senator from 1947 until his election to the 83rd Congress. He was engaged in overseeing the Food and Drug Administration in the 1960's and 70's and championed the creation of an inspector general's office for the former Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He helped establish similar watchdog positions throughout the administration to mind the taxpayers' dollars. His other committee assignments covered international security, scientific affairs and a subcommittee on Near Eastern affairs. He was a longtime member of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Affairs, encompassing all governmental levels, which he helped to establish. He also sat on the Presidential Advisory Committee on Federalism in the early 1980's. Mr. Fountain is survived by a daughter, Nancy D. F. Black of Raleigh, and two grandchildren. His wife of 59 years, Christine Dail Fountain, died a year ago. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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