Lester L. Wolff, a former New York Democratic congressman who championed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs in the 1960s and America’s fight against international drug trafficking in the ‘70s, died May 11 in Syosset, NY. He was 102.

Born in 1919, Mr. Wolff was the oldest living former member of the House of Representatives. Serving from 1965 to 1981, he co-sponsored the original Medicare law; carried a message from China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiao-ping, to President Jimmy Carter that led to full Sino-American diplomatic recognition in 1979; and helped expose Indochina’s so-called Golden Triangle as a major source of heroin destined for the United States and its troops in Vietnam.

In 1950, Mr. Wolff founded the Coordinated Marketing Agency, which placed ads for regional grocery store chains. The company prospered, and he remained chairman until 1964, when he ran for Congress. After his congressional years, he was a director on various corporate boards and a consultant on Asian affairs and international trade. For years, he commuted to Washington to interview House and Senate members for the weekly PBS public affairs program, “Ask Congress.”