[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 12 (Wednesday, February 9, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       TRIBUTE TO WELLS C. KLEIN

  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, late last month the Board of Directors 
of the National Migration Forum and the Inter-Action's Committee on 
Migration and Refugee Affairs attempted to pay tribute to the long and 
distinguished service of Wells Klein, a long-time servant and advocate 
for refugees around the world.
  Unfortunately, the event was canceled because of the winter storm 
over Washington. But no storm can diminish his record of service, and I 
am pleased to join with Senate Simpson in offering these brief words of 
tribute.
  Wells Klein is retiring after 20 years as executive director of the 
American Council for Nationalities Service. However, those of us who 
have served on the Senate Refugee Subcommittee knew of his work and 
valued his counsel long before he joined the Council.
  On repeated occasions during the Vietnam war, when we were trying to 
highlight the need and increase support for refugees and civilian war 
casualties, Wells served as a special consultant--traveling to the 
field, reviewing the situation on the front lines, and reporting the 
enormous human costs involved in that tragic conflict. And repeatedly 
he returned to our Subcommittee to outline his findings and 
recommendations and, in the process, to advance the cause of Vietnam's 
war victims. Countless thousands were saved through his work during 
those difficult years.
  Madam President, he has remained true to this commitment since then, 
working to help resettle tens of thousands of Indochinese refugees, 
striving to highlight the needs of refugees and war victims around the 
world--in Cambodia, Central America, and, most recently, the human 
victims of the conflict in Bosnia.
  In addition, Wells has always been ready to help us wrestle with 
legislation to help resettle refugees, to do it better, and to do it so 
we could help more refugees. Over the years he has spent many hours 
testifying before our subcommittee and others in the House and Senate. 
We will always be grateful for his leadership in promoting wiser, more 
generous and more effective legislative tools for assisting refugees.
  Madam President, I simply want to join his colleagues in the 
voluntary agency community in paying tribute to Wells--for his years of 
service with refugees, his many contributions to war victims, and for 
his steadfast leadership of humanitarian causes.
  The world--even a world in conflict--is a better one today for Wells 
Klein having been here, and will continue to be, I am confident, in the 
years ahead as he continues his life-long work.

                          ____________________