American lawyer and politician from Texas who served in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat from 1953 to 1995. Defeated in 1994, Brooks was the most senior representative ever to have lost a general election.
Brooks enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II. He served for about two years on the Pacific islands of Guadalcanal, Guam, Okinawa, and in North China. By the time he retired from the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 1972 he had reached the rank of colonel.
On 22 November 1963, Brooks was in the motorcade carrying U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy through downtown Dallas, Texas, when Kennedy was assassinated. He was present on Air Force One at Dallas Love Field when Johnson was sworn in as president after Kennedy’s death.
He was a leader in the investigation that uncovered millions of dollars in public funds expended at the vacation homes of President Richard Nixon. Following the Watergate scandal in 1974, Brooks drafted the articles of impeachment later adopted by the House Judiciary Committee. For this reason, Nixon called Brooks his “executioner.”
In 1960, Brooks married Charlotte Collins. They had three children. Brooks died at Baptist Hospital in Beaumont, Texas on 4 December 2012, two weeks before his 90th birthday.

Link to Wikipedia biography