Robert N. Giaimo, 86; Connecticut Democrat

Robert N. Giaimo, 86, a Connecticut Democrat who served 11 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was chairman of the House Budget Committee during the Carter administration, died May 24 at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. He had heart and lung ailments.

From 1959 to 1981, Rep. Giaimo [pronounced JIGH-mo] represented the New Haven area -- a heavy industrialized and ethnically mixed district that includes Yale University.

He was a reliable supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson's policies about the Vietnam War but became an outspoken critic of the war under President Richard M. Nixon.

While serving the defense appropriations subcommittee in the early 1970s, he participated in a successful effort to cut funds for continued U.S. involvement in Cambodia and Vietnam. In 1975, he advocated the disclosure of how much the government spent on intelligence.

As chairman of the House Budget Committee, he developed a reputation for fiscal restraint on spending for defense and social programs.

Rep. Giaimo was a crucial voice for funding of the Washington area's Metro rapid-transit system through his membership on the House Appropriations subcommittee on the District.

After declining to seek reelection in 1980, he worked in Washington doing consulting work for Connecticut businesses, including United Technologies.

Robert Nicholas Giaimo was born Oct. 15, 1919, in New Haven, where his father, who was an Italian immigrant, founded a bank.

He was a 1941 graduate of what is now Fordham University in New York City and a 1943 graduate of the University of Connecticut law school. During World War II, he served in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps.

He was a lawyer in New Haven, a member of North Haven's board of education and chairman of the state personnel appeals board before making his first try at a congressional seat in 1956.

He won election two years later, with large backing by Louis Sachs, his law firm partner and a civic leader.

He was a member of St. Agnes Catholic Church in Arlington, his city of residence, and Congressional Country Club in Bethesda.

Survivors include his wife, Marion Schuenemann Giaimo, whom he married in 1945, of Arlington; a daughter, Barbara Lee Koones of Potomac; and a granddaughter.