Worldwide, This Congressman Has Name Recognition

Rep. Dan Burton’s years of international politicking have left him better known in some world capitals than in his own country. From Bogota to Bombay, the former Indianapolis insurance salesman is recognized; depending on which border he has crossed, his name prompts praise or derision.

“Each day, Khalistani people pray for the health of Danny Burton,” a Washington lobbyist for the Sikhs, Gurmit Singh Aulakh, once said of the Indiana Republican. “When the Sikh nation writes its history of freedom, his name will be written in golden letters.”

A play on his name--”Dangerous Dan”--is already etched onto the side of a helicopter used for drug raids in Colombia. Government officials bestowed the honor on Burton after he helped send surplus U.S. Army helicopters to the police anti-narcotics squad.

Cuban exiles in Miami herald him--and donate heavily to his campaign--for the only piece of legislation for which he is widely known: the Helms-Burton Act, a crackdown on governments doing business in Cuba.

But Burton is not likely to win any popularity contests in India, a nation he has accused of terrorism and whose U.S. foreign aid he has sought to suspend. When Burton was not selected as chairman of the House subcommittee dealing with Asia and the Pacific, one Indian newspaper said the country’s “nightmare has not come to pass.”

There is no love lost for Burton in Bolivia either. He once suggested that the United States use an aircraft carrier off the Bolivian coast to bomb the South American country’s drug plantations with herbicides. The fiery rhetoric angered Bolivians, while Burton’s reference to a Bolivian coast amused those in the landlocked nation.

Bolivian television analyst Carlos Mesa said Burton’s remark made as much sense as “sending an aircraft carrier to Manhattan--where I think there is a port--to fight drug consumers on the streets of New York.”