{"database": "openregs", "table": "congressional_record", "rows": [["CREC-2000-12-15-pt1-PgS11837", "2000-12-15", 106, 2, null, null, "REMINISCENCE AND FAREWELL", "SENATE", "SENATE", "ALLOTHER", "S11837", "S11841", "[{\"name\": \"Daniel Patrick Moynihan\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}]", null, "146 Cong. Rec. S11837", "Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000)\n\n[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000)]\n[Senate]\n[Pages S11837-S11841]\nFrom the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]\n\n                       REMINISCENCE AND FAREWELL\n\n  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, on this last day of the 106th Congress I\nwould ask to be allowed a moment of reminiscence and farewell.\n  Come January 3--deo voluntus, as the Brothers used to teach us--I\nwill have served four terms in the United States Senate, a near quarter\ncentury. In our long history only one other New Yorker, our beloved\nJacob K. Javits, has served four terms. I had the fortune of joining\nthe Finance Committee from the outset, and served for a period as\nchairman, the first New Yorker since before the Civil War. I was also,\nat one point, chair of Environment and Public Works. I have been on\nRules and Administration for the longest while, and for a period was\nalso on Foreign Relations. Senators will know that it would be most\nunusual for someone to serve on both Finance and Foreign Relations at\nthe same time. An account of how this came about may be of interest.\n  The elections of 1986 returned a Democratic majority to the Senate\nand the Democratic Steering Committee, of which I was then a member,\nbegan its biannual task of filling Democratic vacancies in the various\nstanding committees. There are four ``Super A'' committees as we term\nthem. In order of creation they are Foreign Relations, Finance, Armed\nServices and Appropriations. With the rarest exceptions, under our\ncaucus rules a Senator may only serve on one of these four.\n  There were three vacancies on Foreign Relations. In years past these\nwould have been snapped up. Foreign Relations was a committee of great\nprestige and daunting tasks. Of a sudden however, no one seemed\ninterested. The Senate was already experiencing what the eminent\nstatesman James Schlesinger describes in the current issue of The\nNational Interest as ``the loss of interest in foreign policy by the\ngeneral public'' (p. 110). Two newly-elected Senators were more or less\npersuaded to take seats. At length the Steering Committee turned to me,\nas a former ambassador. I remained on Finance.\n  And so I served six years under the chairmanship of the incomparable\nClaiborne Pell of Rhode Island. I treasure the experience--the signing\nand ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), the\nfinal days of the Cold War. But I continue to be puzzled and troubled\nby our inattention to foreign affairs. To be sure, the clearest\nachievement of this Congress has been in the field of foreign trade,\nwith major enactments regarding Africa, the Caribbean, and China.\nThese, however, have been the province of the Finance Committee, and it\nwas with great difficulty and at most partial success did Chairman Bill\nRoth and I make the connection between world trade and world peace.\nThis would have been self-evident at mid-century. I remark, and I\nbelieve there is a case, that any short list of events that led to the\nSecond World War would include the aftermath of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff\nof 1930. Indeed, in the course of the ceremony at which the President\nsigned the measure naming possible permanent normal trade relations\nwith China in connection with its admission to the World Trade\nOrganization, I observed that the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which\nconceived the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and\nanticipated an international trade organization, opened on the day I\njoined the Navy. For certain there was no connection, but my point was\nsimply that in the midst of war the Allies were looking to a lasting\npeace that might follow, and this very much included the absence of\ntrade wars.\n  But again, how to account for the falling-off of congressional\ninvolvement in foreign affairs. I offer the thought that the failure of\nour intelligence, in the large sense of term, to foresee--forsooth to\nconceive!--the collapse of the Soviet Union has brought forth a\npsychology of denial and avoidance. We would as soon not think too much\nabout all, thank you very much.\n  I have recounted elsewhere the 1992 hearings of the Foreign Relations\nCommittee on the START I Treaty. Our superb negotiators had mastered\nevery mind-numbing detail of this epic agreement. With one exception.\nThey had negotiated the treaty with a sovereign nation, the Union of\nSoviet Socialist Republics. Now they brought to us a treaty signed with\nfour quite different nations: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.\nWhen asked when this new set of signatories was agreed to, the\nCommittee was informed that this had just recently taken place at a\nmeeting in Lisbon. An observer might well have wondered if this was the\nscenario of a Humphrey Bogart movie. The negotiators were admirably\nfrank. The Soviet Union had broken up in December 1991. Few, if any, at\ntheir ``end of the street'' had predicted the collapse. Let me correct\nthe record: None had.\n\n  As to the record, I would cite the 1991 article in Foreign Affairs by\nthe estimable Stansfield Turner. The Admiral had served as Director of\nCentral Intelligence and knew the record. He was blunt, as an admiral\nought. I cite a passage in Secrecy:\n  [Turner wrote,] ``We should not gloss over the enormity of this\nfailure to forecast the magnitude of the Soviet crisis. We know now\nthat there were many Soviet academics, economists and political\nthinkers, other than those officially presented to us by the Soviet\ngovernment, who understood long before 1980 that the Soviet economic\nsystem was broken and that it was only a matter of time before someone\nhad to try and repair it, as had Khrushchev. Yet I never heard a\nsuggestion from the CIA, or the intelligence arms of the departments of\ndefense or state, that numerous Soviets recognized a growing systemic\neconomic problem.'' Turner acknowledged the ``revisionist rumblings''\nclaiming that the CIA had in fact seen the collapse coming, but he\ndismissed them: ``If some individual CIA analysts were more prescient\nthan the corporate view, their ideas were filtered out in the\nbureaucratic process; and it is the corporate view that counts because\nthat is what reaches the president and his advisors. On this one, the\ncorporate view missed by a mile. Why were so many of us insensitive to\nthe inevitable?\n  Just as striking is the experience of General George Lee Butler,\nCommander of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) from 1990 to 1994.\nAgain to cite from Secrecy.\n  As the one responsible for drafting the overall U.S. strategy for\nnuclear\n\n[[Page S11838]]\n\nwar, Butler had studied the Soviet Union with an intensity and level of\ndetail matched by few others in the West. He had studied the footage of\nthe military parades and the Kremlin, had scrutinized the deployments\nof Soviet missiles and other armaments: ``In all, he thought of the\nSoviet Union as a fearsome garrison state seeking global domination and\npreparing for certain conflict with the West. The only reasonable\nposture for the United States, he told colleagues, was to keep\nthousands of American nuclear weapons at the ready so that if war broke\nout, Washington could destroy as much of the Soviet nuclear arsenal as\npossible. It was the harrowing but hallowed logic of nuclear\ndeterrence.'' But Butler began having doubts about this picture, upon\nwhich so much of U.S. foreign policy was based, by the time of his\nfirst visit to the Soviet Union, on December 4, 1988. When he landed at\nSheremetyevo Airport, on the outskirts of Moscow, he thought at first\nthat the uneven, pockmarked runway was an open field. The taxiways were\nstill covered with snow from a storm two days earlier, and dozens of\nthe runway lights were broken. Riding into downtown Moscow in an\nofficial motorcade, Butler noticed the roads were ragged, the massive\ngovernment buildings crumbling. He was astonished when the gearshift in\nhis car snapped off in his driver's hand. After pouring over thousands\nof satellite photos and thirty years' worth of classified reports,\nButler had expected to find a modern, functional industrialized\ncountry; what he found instead was ``severe economic deprivation.''\nEven more telling was ``the sense of defeat in the eyes of the people.\n. . . It all came crashing home to me that I really had been dealing\nwith a caricature all those years.''\n  General Butler was right. More than he might have known. This fall\nformer National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski estimated that the\neconomy of ``Russia is one-tenth the size of America and its industrial\nplant is about three times older than the OECD average.'' The\npopulation has dropped from 151 million in 1990 to 146 million in 1999.\nInfant mortality is devastating. Far from overwhelming the West, it is\nproblematic as to whether Russia can maintain a presence east of the\nUral Mountains. If you consider that the empire of the Czars once\nextended to San Francisco we can judge the calamity brought about by\nsixty-some years of Marxist-Leninism.\n  And yet we did not judge. To say again, the United States government\nhad no sense of what was coming, not the least preparation for the\nimplosion of 1991.\n  In 1919, John Reed, a Harvard graduate, and later a Soviet agent\nwrote Ten Days that Shook the World, his celebrated account of the\nRussian Revolution, as it would come to be known, in October 1917. In\nno time these events acquired mythic dimension for intellectuals and\nothers the world over. At Harvard, Daniel Bell would patiently guide\nstudents through the facts that there were two Russian Revolutions; the\nfirst democratic, the second in effect totalitarian. But this was lost\non all but a few.\n  It would appear that the Soviet collapse was so sudden, we were so\nunprepared for it, that we really have yet to absorb the magnitude of\nthe event. It was, after all, the largest peaceful revolution in\nhistory. Not a drop of blood was shed as a five hundred year old empire\nbroke up into some twelve nations, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus,\nGeorgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan,\nTurkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, whilst formerly independent\nnations absorbed into the Soviet Bloc, Poland, the Czech Republic,\nLithuania, Latvia, Estonia et al., regained their independence. In the\naftermath there has been no book, no movie, no posters, no legend.\n  To the contrary, weak Russia grows steadily weaker--possibly to the\npoint of instability, as shown in the miserable events in Chechnya. We\nsee a government of former agents of the intelligence services and the\nsecret police. We see continued efforts at increasing armament. Witness\nthe sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk. We see the return of the\nred flag. We see little engagement with the West, much less the East\nwhere China looms with perhaps ten times the population and far more\neconomic strength.\n  And the United States? Apart from a few perfunctory measures, and one\nserious, the Nunn-Lugar program, almost no response. To the contrary,\nat this moment we have, as we must assume, some 6,000 nuclear weapons\ntargeted on Russia, a number disproportionate at the height of the Cold\nWar, and near to lunacy in the aftermath. When, as Senator Lugar\nestimates, the Russian defense budget has declined to $5 billion a\nyear.\n  What is more, other than the highest echelon of the Pentagon, no\ndoubt some elements of the intelligence community, possibly the\nDepartment of State, no American knows what the targeting plan is. In\nparticular, Members of Congress, possibly with very few exceptions, do\nnot know. Are they refused information? Just recently, our esteemed\ncolleague, J. Robert Kerrey of Nebraska, wrote the Secretary of\nDefense, William S. Cohen, a former colleague of ours, to set forth the\nfacts of this insane situation.\n  There are signs that an open debate concerning nuclear weapons may be\nafoot. In The Washington Post recently, we learn of the response to a\nproposal by Stephen M. Younger, associate director of Los Alamos\nNational Laboratory and head of its nuclear weapons work, proposing a\ngreat reduction in the number of massive weapons now in our arsenal in\nfavor of smaller devices intended to deal with much smaller engagements\nthan those envisioned during the Cold War. The Post reports that we now\nhave some 7,982 warheads linked to nine different delivery systems,\nICBMs, SLBMs and bombers. These are scheduled to decline to 3,500, half\non Trident II submarines, under the Start II agreement. Younger argues\nthat still fewer are needed. Any one of which would wipe out any large\ncity on earth. It appears that other experts believe that a few dozen\nto several hundred of today's high-yield warheads would suffice to\nmanage the standoff with Russia or China. There is, perhaps more\nurgently, the matter of nuclear weapons in what are for some reason\nstill called Third World nations, a relic of Cold War usage. Nuclear\nstandoff has settled into the South Asian subcontinent. The prospect\nthat an ``Islamic Bomb'' will migrate westwards from Pakistan is real\nenough. It may be happening at this moment. The more then do we need\nopen debate. The more urgent then is Senator Kerrey's assertion that\nCongress be involved. His profound observation that ``Sometimes secrecy\nproduces its opposite; less safety and security.''\n  I have remarked on how little notice has been taken of the Russian\nrevolution of 1989-91. By contrast, the ``information revolution'' has\nbecome a fixture of our vocabulary and our pronouncements on the widest\nrange of subjects, and at times would seem to dominate political\ndiscourse. It might do well to make a connection as Francis Fukuyama\ndoes in the current issue of Commentary. In his review of a new book by\nGeorge Gilder with the suggestive title Telecom: How Infinite Bandwidth\nWill Revolutionize Our World, Fukuyama makes the connection.\n  Why, then, do those convinced that the revolution is already\ntriumphant shake their heads so sadly at those of us who ``just don't\nget it?'' True, people want to feel good about themselves, and it helps\nto believe that one is contributing to some higher social purpose while\npursuing self-enrichment. But it must also be conceded that the\ninformation-technology revolution really does have more going for it\nthan previous advances in, say, steam or internal combustion (or, one\nsuspects, than the coming revolution in biotechnology).\n  The mechanization of production in the 19th and early 20th centuries\nrewarded large-scale organization, routinization, uniformity, and\ncentralization. Many of the great works of imagination that accompanied\nthis process, from Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times to Aldous Huxley's\nBrave New World, depicted individuals subsumed by huge machines, often\nof a political nature. Not so the information revolution, which usually\npunishes excessively large scale, distributes information and hence\npower to much larger groups of people, and rewards intelligence, risk,\ncreativity and education rather than obedience and regimentation.\nAlthough\n\n[[Page S11839]]\n\none would not wish to push this too far, it is probably no accident\nthat the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes did not survive\nthe transition into the information age.\n  Is it possible to hope that we might give some serious thought to the\npossible connection? And to ask ourselves just how we measure up in\nthis regard?\n  That said, is it not extraordinary and worrying that of a sudden we\nfind ourselves in a state of great agitation concerning security\nmatters all across our government, from our nuclear laboratories at\nhome to embassies abroad to the topmost reaches of government? The late\nLars-Erik Nelson described it as ``spy panic.'' In the process the\npossibility emerges that our national security will be compromised to a\ndegree unimaginable by mere espionage. The possibility is that we could\ngrievously degrade the most important institutions of foreign and\ndefense policy--our capacity for invention and innovation--through our\nown actions.\n\n  Take the matter of the loss, and evident return in clouded\ncircumstances of two hard drives containing sensitive nuclear\ninformation from the Nuclear Energy Search Team at Los Alamos National\nLaboratory. This June, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson asked two of\nour wisest statesmen, the Honorable Howard H. Baker, Jr., and the\nHonorable Lee H. Hamilton, to enquire into the matter. Here are the Key\nFindings of their report of September 25th.\n  While it is unclear what happened to the missing hard drives at Los\nAlamos National Laboratory, it is clear that there was a security lapse\nand that the consequences of the loss of the data on the hard drives\nwould be extremely damaging to the national security.\n  Among the known consequences of the hard-drive incident, the most\nworrisome is the devastating effect on the morale and productivity of\nLANL, which plays a critical national-security role for the Nation.\n  The current negative climate is incompatible with the performance of\ngood science. A perfect security system at a national laboratory is of\nno use if the laboratory can no longer generate the cutting-edge\ntechnology that needs to be protected from improper disclosure.\n  It is critical to reverse the demoralization at LANL before it\nfurther undermines the ability of that institution both to continue to\nmake its vital contributions to our national security, and to protect\nthe sensitive national-security information that is critical to the\nfulfillment of its responsibilities.\n  Urgent action should be taken to ensure that Los Alamos National\nLaboratory gets back to work in a reformed security structure that will\nallow the work there to be successfully sustained over the long term.\n  Almost alone among commentators, Lars-Erik Nelson pursued the matter,\ndescribing the interviews Senator Baker and Representative Hamilton had\nwith lab personnel.\n  They now report that ``the combined effects of the Wen Ho Lee affair,\nthe recent fire at [Los Alamos] and the continuing swirl around the\nhard-drive episode have devastated morale and productivity at [Los\nAlamos].\n  The employees we met expressed fear and deep concern over the . . .\nyellow crime-scene tape in their workspace, the interrogation of their\ncolleagues by . . . federal prosecutors before a grand jury and the\nresort of some of their colleagues to taking a second mortgage on their\nhomes to pay for attorney fees.\n  There is no denying that Lee and whoever misplaced the computer\ndrives committed serious breaches of security. But the resulting threat\nto our safety is only theoretical; the damage to morale, productivity\nand recruitment is real.\n  Employees were furious at being forced to take routine lie-detector\ntests, a requirement imposed on them by a panicky Secretary of Energy.\n. . .\n  Obviously, there is a need for security in government. A Los Alamos\nemployee gave Baker and Hamilton an obvious, easy solution.\nUnfortunately, it will be the one most likely to be adopted: ``The\nsafest and most secure way to do work is not to do any work at all.''\n  In the course of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government\nSecrecy (of which more later), a Commission member, then-Director of\nCentral Intelligence John M. Deutch, revealed to the American people\nthe extraordinary work of the VENONA project, an enterprise of the Army\nSecurity Agency during and after World War II. During the war the\nagency began to copy KGB traffic from and to the United States. On\nDecember 20, 1946, Meredith K. Gardner--I am happy to say still with\nus, buoyant and brilliant as ever--``broke'' the first. Dated 2\nDecember 1944, it was a list of the principal nuclear scientists at Los\nAlamos. Bethe, Bohr, Fermi, Newman, Rossi, Kistiakowsky, Segre, Taylor,\nPenney, Compton, Lawrence and so on. The Soviets knew, and in time\nstole essentials of the early atom bomb. But what they could not do,\nwas to slow down or deter the work of these great men, who would take\nus further into the age of the hydrogen bomb. Next, their successors to\nyet more mind-bending feats. The Soviets could not stop them. Would it\nnot be the final triumph of the defunct Cold War if we stopped them\nourselves?\n\n  Do not dismiss this thought. If you happen to know a professor of\nphysics, enquire as to how many ``post-docs'' are interested in weapons\nresearch, given the present atmosphere. To work at one-third the salary\navailable elsewhere, and take lie detector tests.\n  And then there is intelligence. Nelson quotes a ``former top\nintelligence official'' who told him, ``If you're not taking secrets\nhome, you're not doing your job.'' And yet here we are harassing John\nM. Deutch, a scientist of the greatest achievement, a public servant of\nepic ability for--working at home after dinner. Would it be too far-\nfetched to ask when will the next Provost of the Massachusetts\nInstitute of Technology choose to leave the banks of the Charles River\nfor the swamps of the Potomac?\n  Now I don't doubt that, as opposed to an intelligence official, there\nare ambassadors who don't take their work home at night. Over the years\nthe United States has created a number of postings with just that\nattraction. But these are few. The great, overwhelming number of our\nambassadors and their embassy associates are exceptional persons who\nhave gone in harm's way to serve their country. I was ambassador to\nIndia at the time our ambassador to Sudan and an aide were abducted\nfrom a reception by Islamic terrorists, spirited away and murdered.\nSome days later the Egyptian envoy in New Delhi asked to see me. He had\na message from then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to tell me that\ntheir intelligence sources reported I would be next. It is a not\nuncommon occurrence. But nothing so common as taking work home, or\nworking in a--usually heavily armored--embassy limousine. Ask any\nformer ambassador to Israel. Our embassy in Tel Aviv is an hour's drive\nfrom the capital in Jerusalem. The drive up and back is routinely used\nto dictate memoranda of conversation, type them on a laptop. Whatever.\nThis fall, the superbly qualified, many would say indispensable\nambassador to Israel, Martin S. Indyk, was stripped of his security\nclearances for just such actions. I cite Al Kamen's account in The\nWashington Post.\n  Just the other day, ambassador to Israel Martin S. Indyk was deep\ninto the State Department doghouse for ``suspected violations'' of\nsecurity regulations. His security clearance was suspended, so he\ncouldn't handle classified materials. He needed an escort while in the\nState Department building. The department's diplomatic security folks\nwanted him to stay in this country until their investigation was\ncompleted.\n  At a White House briefing Monday, a reporter asked if Indyk could\n``function as ambassador? Do we have a functioning ambassador?''\n  ``Not at the moment,'' press secretary Jake Siewert said.\n  Allow me to cite a report by the redoubtable Jane Perlez, who was\njust recently reporting from Pyongyang on the psychotic security\nmeasures in the capital of North Korea. Eerily similar antics were to\nbe encountered on September 30, Ms. Perlez reported:\n\n State Dept. Unfreezes Hundreds of Promotions After Delay for Security\n                                 Review\n\n       Washington, Sept. 29.--A continuing security crackdown at\n     the State Department led to the freezing of promotions for\n     more than 200 senior officials, pending a review of their\n     security records, department officials said today.\n       The director general of the Foreign Service, Marc Grossman,\n     said he was assessing the promotion files for security\n     violations\n\n[[Page S11840]]\n\n     before sending the promotions to the White House, which then\n     dispatches them to Congress for approval.\n       The release of the list was delayed after the suspension of\n     the security clearance of one of the department's most senior\n     officials, Martin S. Indyk, ambassador to Israel, and a\n     sudden vigilance by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright,\n     who is under pressure from Congress on security problems.\n       This evening, the department said that ``under 10''\n     officials had been barred from promotions after Mr.\n     Grossman's review of 400 candidates. The nearly 400 people\n     included 200 midlevel officials, whose promotions were\n     released today after a weeklong delay.\n       As word of the latest action spread through the department,\n     an assistant secretary of state complained at a senior staff\n     meeting this week that management faced ``rage'' in the\n     building and increasingly demoralized employees, according to\n     several accounts of the session.\n       Others, as well as diplomats abroad, complained of a\n     poisonous atmosphere in the department created, in part, by\n     security officials who grilled junior Foreign Service\n     officers about their superiors. One senior official said the\n     obsession with security had created a ``monster'' out of the\n     bureau of diplomatic security, which Congress generously\n     finances to the detriment of other areas of the department.\n       In a yet more eerie analogy, one department employee\n     described the situation as a ``security jihad.''\n       It doesn't stop. It accelerates! Just this month The\n     Washington Post reported the resignation of senior diplomats,\n     the suspension of another, the firing of a further two over\n     security matters.\n       J. Stapleton Roy, one of the nation's two most senior\n     foreign service officers and a three-time U.S. ambassador,\n     has resigned in protest after Secretary of State Madeleine K.\n     Albright suspended his deputy without pay and fired two other\n     long-time State Department officials over a missing top-\n     secret laptop computer. . . .\n       The departure of Roy and the reassignment of [Donald]\n     Keyser will rob the department of two of its top China\n     experts. The son of a missionary, Roy grew up in China,\n     returned to the United States to go to Princeton University,\n     then joined the foreign service. He later served as\n     ambassador to China, Indonesia and Singapore. Keyser had\n     served in Beijing three times, had been the State\n     Department's director of Chinese and Mongolian affairs, and\n     most recently held the rank of ambassador as a special\n     negotiator for conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh and former\n     Soviet republics.\n       ``That's a lot of brainpower suddenly removed from the\n     State Department,'' said William C. McCahill, a recently\n     retired foreign service officer who served as the deputy\n     chief of mission in Beijing. ``Keyser is a brilliant analyst\n     and a person of great intellectual honesty and rigor. Stape\n     is the kind of person you want in INR, someone who can think\n     beyond today and tomorrow, who can think beyond established\n     policy.''--The Washington Post, December 5, 2000.\n\n  With some hesitation I would call to mind the purge of the ``China\nhands'' from the Department of State during the McCarthy era. As our\nCommission established with finality, there was indeed a Soviet attack\non American diplomacy and nuclear development during and after World\nWar II. There were early and major successes. The design of the first\natom bomb. But not much else, and for not much longer. The real\ndamage--the parallels are eerie--to American security came from the\ndisinclination of the intelligence community--then largely in the\nArmy--to share information with ``civilians.'' Specifically, documents\nobtained from the F.B.I. indicate that President Truman was never told\nof the Army Signals Security Agency's decryptions of Soviet cables\nduring and after the war. He thought the whole business of Communist\nspying was a ``red herring.'' In 1953 he termed Whittaker Chambers and\nElizabeth Bentley ``a crook and a louse.'' American diplomacy and the\nDepartment of State in particular were for years haunted by charges\nthey could readily have dealt with had they but known what their own\ngovernment knew. And who issued the instruction that the President was\nnot to be told? General Omar N. Bradley whom the President had made\nChairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Admittedly it is hard to prove\na negative.) But I was reassured by an article in the Summer edition of\nthe ``Bulletin'' of the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence. In\nit, Deputy CIA historian Michael Warner votes with the judgment I\noffered earlier in my book ``Secrecy.''\n  What might it be that Secretary Albright needs to know today but has\nnot been told? A generation hence we might learn. If, that is, the\ncurrent secrecy regime goes unaltered.\n  For the moment, however, I have further distressing news for\nAmbassador Stapleton if he should have occasion to return to the\nDepartment of State main building for one or another reason. I have\njust received a copy of a letter sent to David G. Carpenter, Assistant\nSecretary of State for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Another\nrecently retired Ambassador, a statesman of large achievement and\nimpeccable reputation recently called at Main State, to use their term.\nHe was frisked at the entrance. He was allowed into the building, but\nassigned an ``escort,'' who accompanied wherever he went. Including,\nthe ambassador writes, ``the men's room.''\n  It is difficult not to agree with the Ambassador's assessment that\n``the `escort' policy is insulting and totally out of proportion to any\ndesired enhancement of security.'' But then so is so much of security\npolicy as it has evolved over the past sixty years.\n  What is to be done? Surely we must search for a pattern in all this.\nOur Commission proposed a simple, direct formation. Secrecy is a form\nof regulation.\n  In the previous Congress, legislation was prepared to embody the\nessentials of the Commission recommendations. All classified materials\nwould bear the name and position of the person assigning the\nclassification and the date, subject to review, that the classification\nwould expire. It is not generally realized, but apart from atomic\nmatters, under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and a few other areas\nthere is no law stipulating what is to be classified Confidential,\nSecret, Top Secret--and there are numerous higher designations. It is\nsimply a matter of judgement for anyone who has a rubber stamp handy.\nOur bill was unanimously reported from the Committee on Governmental\nAffairs, under the fine chairmanship of Senator Fred Thompson, with the\nfull support of the then-ranking Committee member, our revered John\nGlenn. But nothing came of it. The assorted government agencies,\ncovertly if you like, simply smothered it. The bureaucracy triumphed\nonce more. Thomas Jefferson's dictum that ``An informed citizenry is\nvital to the functioning of a democratic society'' gave way before the\nself-perpetuating interests of bureaucracy.\n  I am pleased to report that this year's Intelligence Authorization\nbill, which is now at the White House awaiting President Clinton's\nsignature, includes the Public Interest Declassification Act. The\nmeasure establishes a nine-member ``Public Interest Declassification\nBoard'' of ``nationally recognized experts'' who will advise the\nPresident and pertinent executive branch agencies on which national\nsecurity documents should be declassified first. Five members of the\nBoard will be appointed by the President and four members will be\nappointed by the Senate and the House.\n  The Board's main purpose will be to help determine declassification\npriorities. This is especially important during a time of Congress'\ncontinual slashing of the declassification budgets. In addition to the\nroutine systematic work required by President Clinton's Executive Order\n12958, the intelligence community is also required to process Freedom\nof Information Act requests, Privacy Act requests, and special searches\nlevied primarily by members of Congress and the administration.\n  There is a need to bring order to this increasingly chaotic process.\nThis Board may just provide the necessary guidance and will help\ndetermine how our finite declassification resources can best be\nallocated among all these competing demands.\n  My hope is that the Board will be a voice within the executive branch\nurging restraint in matters of secrecy. I have tried to lay out the\norganizational dynamics which produce ever larger and more intrusive\nsecrecy regimes. I have sought to suggest how damaging this can be to\ntrue national security interests. But this is a modest achievement\ngiven the great hopes with which our Commission concluded its work. I\nfear that rationality is but a weak foil to the irrational. In the end\nwe shall need character as well as conviction. We need public persons\nthe stature of George P. Shultz, who when in 1986 learned of plans to\nbegin giving lie detector tests for State Department employees, calmly\nannounced that the day that program began would be the day he submitted\nhis resignation as Secretary of State. And so of course it\n\n[[Page S11841]]\n\ndid not begin. And yet with him gone, the bureaucratic imperative\nreappears.\n  And so Mr. President, I conclude my remarks, thanking all my fellow\nSenators present and past for untold courtesies over these many years.\n\n                          ____________________"]], "columns": ["granule_id", "date", "congress", "session", "volume", "issue", "title", "chamber", "granule_class", "sub_granule_class", "page_start", "page_end", "speakers", "bills", "citation", "full_text"], "primary_keys": ["granule_id"], "primary_key_values": ["CREC-2000-12-15-pt1-PgS11837"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 20.662119146436453, "source": "Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API", "source_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/developers/api/v1", "license": "Public Domain (U.S. Government data)", "license_url": "https://www.regulations.gov/faq"}