[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 80 (Wednesday, June 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 CALLING FOR THE RESIGNATION OF JOYCELYN ELDERS AS SURGEON GENERAL OF 
                           THE UNITED STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 5 minute.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I had planned to come to the floor tonight 
to discuss D-day, the major turning point in 1944 in the Pacific, the 
battle for the islands of Saipan and Tinian. Both of them turned into 
major air base islands for the 20th Air Force and Gen. Curtis Lemay and 
the eventual destruction of the warlords' machine of conquest coming 
from Imperial Japan.
  As a matter of fact, it was the final collapse of Tinian that caused 
the resignation in disgrace of Hideki Tojo, warlord Tojo. Most people 
know Hitler was driven to suicide by General Eisenhower in the great 
crusade of our efforts across Europe and into Germany, but Tojo went 
into disgraced isolation after the battle that took place from June 15, 
just nine days after D-day on the beaches of Normandy had started.
  Only July 9 we had completely taken the island of Saipan, with 
civilians so terrified by propaganda of our Marines and National Guard, 
Army soldiers, that they jumped to their death off what became known as 
the Banzai Cliffs. And then on the island of Tinian, we invaded on July 
24, finished that operation on August 1, where again, on what is called 
Suicide Cliffs, terrified civilians with their babies in their arms 
jumped to their death, and those few that had faced surrender found out 
that Americans were truly the most unusual conquerors in all of 
history, that we were bringing them freedom, not oppression.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Congressional Record a very excellent 
Washington Post article from the invasion day itself, June 15, and I 
will discuss it next week:

               Saipan: Little Fanfare for the Other D-day

                         (By William Branigin)

       Marpi Point, Northern Marianas.--As the Japanese woman 
     scrambled along the edge of what came to be known as Banzai 
     Cliff here on the island of Saipan, she turned to glance at 
     American Marines calling to her.
       Film shot by a combat cameraman that day in July 1944 
     caught a look of terror on her face just before she jumped to 
     her death.
       Pfc. Guy Gabaldon, a highly decorated Marine who learned to 
     speak Japanese while growing up in East Los Angeles, 
     remembers pleading with her not to throw her baby to the 
     jagged rocks below before she jumped. But like thousands of 
     other Japanese civilians and soldiers who leaped from cliffs, 
     blew themselves up with grenades or made suicidal charges on 
     Saipan and neighboring Tinian, the woman chose death rather 
     than capture by the Americans.
       This and other terrible scenes followed the U.S. landing on 
     Saipan on June 15, 1944. For two Marine divisions commanded 
     by Lt. Gen. Holland M. ``Howling' Mad'' Smith--the spearhead 
     of an invasion force that eventually totaled 71,000 men--it 
     was D-Day in the Pacific war against imperial Japan.
       Like the more famous landing on the beaches of Normandy 50 
     years ago, the invasion of Saipan, code-named Operation 
     Forager, marked a critical point in World War II and was the 
     scene of some of the war's bloodiest combat. It caused the 
     resignation of Japan's military commander and prime minister, 
     Gen. Hideki Tojo, allowed land-based U.S. bombers to 
     devastate the Japanese homeland and helped cripple the 
     country's shipping.
       ``Saipan has the same importance as Normandy,'' said Samuel 
     McPhetres, a historian here. ``It gave the Americans a 
     foothold within bombing range of Tokyo and led to the 
     eventual end of the war a year later.'' It also marked the 
     first time that American forces encountered large numbers 
     of Japanese civilians.
       But unlike this month's commemoration of the Allied 
     invasion of Normandy, ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary 
     of the Pacific D-Day are going ahead with little fanfare. The 
     highest-ranking U.S. official scheduled to attend the 
     dedication today of the $3 million American Memorial Park are 
     the Air Force and Navy commanders on nearby Guam. About 150 
     U.S. veterans, and 52 Japanese, including 11 veterans, are to 
     attend commemorations at the park.
       For many of Saipan's native Chamorro and Carolinian 
     inhabitants, the low-key nature of the anniversary 
     celebration may be just as well. Although the island is U.S. 
     territory and has received more than $250 million from 
     Washington since 1986, its economy depends heavily on 
     Japanese tourism and investment.
       The Northern Mariana Islands, the largest of which are 
     Saipan, Tinian and Rota, were sold by Spain to Germany in 
     1898 and taken over by Japan in 1914. Japanese settlers 
     established sugar plantations and brought in laborers from 
     Okinawa and Korea.
       Today, the islands are the only enemy territory occupied by 
     U.S. forces during World War II that later became part of the 
     United States. Under a commonwealth arrangement, the 
     islanders became U.S. citizens in 1986.
       Yet more than 85 percent of the tourists who visit Saipan 
     are Japanese, and Japan accounts for an estimated 95 percent 
     of outside investment. Japanese investors own almost all the 
     major hotels, and the Japanese war memorials that dot the 
     island far outnumber the American ones.
       ``I hate to remind the Japanese that they lost the war 50 
     years ago,'' said Froilan Tenorio, the islands' governor. 
     ``They could be very sensitive. . . . I want to build this 
     thing, I just don't want to publicize it.''
       Some Saipanese are cool to the idea of glorifying the 
     victors of a battle of outsiders that caused so much death 
     and destruction. An estimated 700 islanders--nearly a fifth 
     of the native population at the time--died during the 
     invasion and its aftermath. U.S. shelling leveled the main 
     town of Garapan; its inhabitants had to take refuge in caves.
       ``The natives who died here were innocent victims,'' said 
     Ramon Villagomez, 45, a justice on the commonwealth's Supreme 
     Court, ``You don't ask them to thank those people who brought 
     the war here.''
       During the war, Villagomez said, an uncle of his was killed 
     by a bullet, an older sister starved to death, and a 2-year-
     old brother was nearly given away to another family.
       ``We were caught in the middle of a war we were ignorant 
     about,'' said Abel Olopai, a government official who was 10 
     years old when the Marines landed. He and his parents took 
     refuge in a cave for more than a week with 30 other families, 
     he said. When they emerged, they wore loincloths and held up 
     crosses so they would not be mistaken for Japanese.
       ``We were anxious to get out of that terrible misery in the 
     caves,'' he said. ``We were so glad when the Marines came by 
     and got us out.
       Saipan-born Takeo Toma, one of thousands of Japanese who 
     visit shrines and memorials on Saipan every year, was less 
     happy to see the Marines. Then a 17-year-old civilian 
     employee of Japan's South Seas Development Co., he was 
     captured and, with co-workers, put in a prison camp.
       ``I still believed some relief army would come to help 
     us,'' Toma recalled at a June 5 ceremony to honor colleagues 
     who perished. ``All the Japanese believed the Americans were 
     devils at that time.
       The battle actually began June 11, four days before the 
     invasion, when a U.S. naval task force of more than 500 ships 
     and 900 carrier-based planes started pounding Saipan.
       Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, the Japanese naval commander on 
     Saipan who had commanded the Japanese fleet in the attack on 
     Pearl Harbor, wired a desperate message to Tokyo: ``Hell is 
     upon us.'' He and the army commander on Saipan, Maj. Gen. 
     Yoshitugu Saito, were left to defend the island with 31,600 
     soldiers and sailors.
       On D-Day, the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions, after a ritual 
     prelanding breakfast of steak and eggs, began hitting 
     Saipan's southwestern beaches under heavy Japanese artillery 
     and machine-gun fire. About 8,000 Marines landed within the 
     first 20 minutes. By day's end, the Americans had secured a 
     beachhead 10,000 yards long and more than 1,000 yards deep, 
     at a cost of more than 2,000 casualties.
       Japan dispatched a powerful naval strike force to Saipan, 
     but it was intercepted by units of the 800-ship 5th Fleet. In 
     a two-day battle that became known as ``the Marianas turkey 
     shoot,'' American pilots shot down more than 400 Japanese 
     planes. Two 30,000-ton Japanese carriers were sunk, and the 
     fate of Saipan was sealed.
       In his orders for a final suicidal counterattack on July 7, 
     Saito commanded his men to kill seven Americans each. At the 
     spot now known as the Last Command Post, Saito knelt facing 
     toward home, shouted ``Long live the emperor'' and plunged 
     his sword into his body as an aide shot him in the head. 
     Nagumo also took his own life.
       What followed shocked even the most battle-hardened 
     Marines. Entire families of Japanese, terrified by their 
     leaders' warnings that the Americans would torture and skin 
     them alive, rape the women and roast the babies, committed 
     suicide en masse.
       They huddled around grenades and blew themselves up or 
     jumped to their deaths at Marpi Point from the sites now 
     known as Banzai Cliff, which overlooks the rocky coastline, 
     and Suicide Cliff, an 800-foot-high outcropping inland. Some 
     families lined up in order of age, the youngest first, and 
     each child was pushed over the edge by the next older until 
     the oldest was pushed by the mother and the mother by the 
     father. Then the father ran over the cliff--backward, so as 
     not to see his last step.
       For Guy Gabaldon, then an 18-year-old Marine private, the 
     cliff suicides were the worst memories of a brutal campaign. 
     As a poor Hispanic child in East Los Angeles, he had been 
     taken in for a time by a Japanese family. On Saipan, he put 
     his language skill to use as a Marine scout to try to talk 
     Japanese into surrendering.
       Often he could only watch as the Japanese plunged to their 
     deaths. ``I tried to convince them not to jump off,'' 
     Gabaldon, now 68, said in an interview here. ``I would shout, 
     `Aunt, please don't do it. Don't kill your baby.' But the 
     women would toss their babies off the cliff anyway and jump 
     after them.''
       Saipan was declared secured on July 9, 1994. A small band 
     of troops under Capt. Sakae Oba continued to hold out, 
     surrendering in December 1945, four months after Japan 
     capitulated.
       The Americans paid a high price for victory in the 24-day 
     campaign: 3,255 dead, 13,061 wounded and 326 listed as 
     missing. But the Japanese paid much more dearly. According to 
     figures compiled by the Marianas Visitors Bureau, of the 
     31,629 Japanese military personnel on the island, about 
     29,500 died.
       Gabaldon, who was wounded while searching for Oba, 
     received the Navy Cross--the Navy's second-highest award 
     for heroism--for capturing more than 1,000 Japanese, some 
     of them single-handedly while on one-man patrols in enemy 
     territory. He talked 800 soldiers and civilians on Banzai 
     Cliff into surrendering, and he also claims to have killed 
     33 Japanese soldiers in battle on Saipan and Tinian.
       In 1957, the former Marine was featured on the TV program 
     ``This Is Your Life.'' A movie about his exploits, ``From 
     Hell to Eternity,'' was made.
       The invasion of Saipan was followed by the capture of 
     neighboring Tinian and the liberation of Guam, an island in 
     the Marianas chain held by the United States since 1898 but 
     seized by Japan at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 
     December 1941.
       With Saipan, Tinian and Guam under its control, the United 
     States began its buildup for a planned invasion of Japan. 
     From bass in the Marianas, the new long-range B-29 
     Superfortress bomber attacked Tokyo and other targets.
       ``Our war was lost with the loss of Saipan,'' Japanese Vice 
     Adm. Shigeyoshi Miwa said, according to a history by Don A. 
     Farrell. From then on, Miwa said, U.S. forces ``could cut off 
     our shipping and attack our homeland.''
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, the reason I am cutting this short, and my 
apologies to all the World War II veterans from all of the Pacific 
theaters, those that were fighting 50 years ago in Burma, fighting with 
former President Bush, George Bush, off the aircraft carriers in the 
Marianas Islands campaign, those mopping up very bloody operations of 
combat on Biak Island and on the mainland of New Guinea.
  And, of course, the Germans dug in their heels at Cherbourg 50 years 
ago, and we had two young Army men win the Medal of Honor. Instead of 
surrendering when they were surrounded, they followed Hitler's orders 
to fight to the death.
  There was tremendous heroic conflict all over, but I have to discuss 
the conflict going on in our political system today, the demonizing of 
humble Christian people like my own five grown children in their 
thirties, who all believe they are part of what is now lossely called, 
sometimes viciously called, the religious right.
  I want to pick up where my friend, the gentleman from Florida, Cliff 
Stearns, left off. I called for Joycelyn Elders' resignation from this 
microphone back in February, along with about five or six other people 
in the Clinton administration. Two of them heeded my plea. They were 
going anyway, with or without my protestations, Webster Hubbell and 
Bernard Nussbaum.
  However, this Joycelyn Elders case is absolutely phenomenal. When I 
got back from D-day with our distinguished chairman, the gentleman from 
Mississippi, Sonny Montgomery, my sons told me, ``Dad, do you know what 
happened between the press and Admiral Joycelyn Elders while the 
President was gone? She got in the press' face and said that Clinton 
came up to her shortly before he left for Europe and said, `I am 
following everything you are doing. I am proud of you. I support you. 
Keep it up.'''
  If that is the case, and I have a suspicion she is telling the 
truth--as a matter of fact, it seems she tells the truth on anything 
and everything, no matter what it is, lets out her feelings to the 
detriment of the White House, where is the press, the hard-bitten, 
driving-for-a-hot-story press, asking Clinton if he does support 
everything she says and does?

                              {time}  1910

  To pick up on what the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns] was 
mentioning, at that meeting up in New York today, at the Lesbian and 
Gay Health Conference--health--not--she praised all of these groups for 
their work. I repeat, she again labeled the un-Christian religious 
right.
  She now seems to attack across the board, throws in Orthodox Judaism. 
Her particular point of bigotry that only 30-some Senators brought out 
in the Senate confirmation hearings, and I say it again on this floor, 
Joycelyn Elders is an anti-Catholic bigot which I have pointed to time 
after time with priests and bishops in Arkansas asking the President to 
bring this out before he appointed her. The President had to make 
excuses for her. She pretty much, to her credit, refused to apologize. 
There was a kind of a weak, circular type of phony dialogue that went 
on. It backed off enough Senators that she got her confirmation, and of 
course she had Ted Kennedy, the Senator from Massachusetts, at her 
side.
  She went on to say this morning, June 22, ``We've got to be strong to 
take on those people who are selling our children out in the name of 
religion.
  ``Nobody has to teach us how to have sex. God taught us how to have 
sex.''
  Did he really teach that to the 8-year-olds and the 9-year-olds?
  Then she said, ``I've known your President a long time. I taught him 
well.''
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an article on Vic Fazio and the 
definition of McCarthyism, and how Fazio is maybe flirting with heading 
in that direction. This article on Mr. Fazio was in today's paper. Also 
my press release and an article from Richard Benedetto, ``Doubts Dog 
President's Every Move,'' on how Joycelyn Elders certainly is not 
serving the man who put her in that position.
  The articles referred to follow:

                     [From Reuters, June 22, 1994]

           Elders Attacks Religious Right, Praises Gay Groups

       New York.--Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, no stranger to 
     controversy, took on the religious right Wednesday, saying it 
     was selling out American youth in the name of religion.
       In the keynote address to the Lesbian and Gay Health 
     Conference, Elders praised gay and lesbian groups for their 
     work on AIDS awareness and said they must add their voices to 
     press for a comprehensive health care package.
       She was warmly received, with her speech frequently 
     interrupted by applause and at least two standing ovations.
       She attacked what she called the ``un-Christian religious 
     right'' for its opposition to education programs in such 
     areas as sex and AIDS.
       ``We've got to be strong to take on those people who are 
     selling our children out in the name of religion,'' she said 
     to wild applause from the audience of several hundred.
       ``We've got to be as aggressive as they've been,'' she 
     said.
       She said that health education does not mean teaching young 
     people how to have sex.
       ``Nobody has to teach us how to have sex. God taught us how 
     to have sex. We've got to teach them responsibility.''
       She called on the participants to press for a full health 
     care package that would ensure coverage for all.
       ``I'm going to ask you to help bring the energy of your 
     movement to the health care debate,'' she said.
       While there can be discussions about how to finance the 
     system, universal coverage must be part of the program, 
     Elders said, adding that President Clinton was fully 
     committed to this principle.
       ``I've known your president a long time. I taught him 
     well,'' she said.
       Elders has been involved in a number of controversies since 
     becoming surgeon general including the question of condoms 
     for high school students to prevent the spread of AIDs and 
     studying the legalization of some illegal drugs.
                                  ____


         Fazio Says Religious Right Is Pushing GOP to Extremes

                             (By Dan Balz)

       The chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign 
     Committee criticized the religious right yesterday as a 
     ``radical,'' ``intolerant'' fringe force that threatens to 
     take control of the Republican Party, words that triggered 
     angry complaints of ``religious bigotry'' from Republican 
     officials and others.
       Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Calif.) charged that Republicans are 
     being pushed to the political extremes by the growing power 
     of the religious right and predicted that Democrats will reap 
     the benefits in elections this fall and in 1996.
       ``The Republicans accept the religious right and their 
     tactics at their own peril, for these activists are demanding 
     their rightful seat at the table, and that is what the 
     American people fear most,'' Fazio said.
       Democrats are worried about major losses in the fall 
     elections, and Fazio's speech indicated that he and other 
     Democrats hope to shift the focus away from public 
     dissatisfaction with incumbents in Congress by raising 
     questions instead about what kind of candidates the 
     Republicans will be offering.
       Although Fazio lumped a number of groups into what he 
     called ``the radical right,'' his principal target was the 
     role of religious conservatives in the Republican Party.
       Yesterday's flurry of charges and countercharges marked the 
     angriest exchange of words between the parties since 
     religious and social conservatives scored victories in 
     Republican Party contests in Virginia, Texas and Minnesota 
     over the past month.
       Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour 
     immediately accused Fazio of ``Christian bashing'' and said 
     Fazio's speech at the National Press Club was part of ``an 
     orchestrated strategy'' by the Democratic Party that amounted 
     to ``religious bigotry.''
       Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, 
     staged a counter-news conference minutes after Fazio's well-
     publicized speech to denounce the Democratic leader for 
     trying ``to divide the American people based on religion.''
       Saying that 30 years ago Alabama's George C. Wallace used 
     the race card to divide voters in the South, Reed said, 
     ``Today Vic Fazio and the Democrats are playing the religious 
     card.''
       But Fazio and other Democratic leaders dismissed Republican 
     complaints and denied that Fazio's speech was part of an 
     overall strategy for the fall campaigns.
       ``It's completely false,'' Fazio said of the charge of 
     bigotry. ``Our goal here is to not impugn anyone's right to 
     practice their religion or express their views. We're talking 
     about the Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell wing, which is 
     becoming the dominant wing of the party, and they know it--
     and they know how devastating it is to their party.''
       ``I think it's a real straw man to make claims of religious 
     bigotry,'' said Democratic National Committee Chairman David 
     Wilhelm. ``Haley needs to stop crying foul whenever there's 
     criticism of the religious right because the issue is not 
     religion, it's legitimate disagreement among people of equal 
     faith whose faith leads them to opposite conclusions on 
     issues of policy.
       The strength of the Christian conservatives has triggered 
     debate within the GOP itself. Fazio, sensing an opportunity 
     for the Democrats, stepped into this debate yesterday, saying 
     Republican leaders have surrendered to the radical right 
     because Republicans have no issues to run on this year and 
     know they cannot win elections without the help of religious 
     conservatives.
       But he added, ``The issues and values espoused by these 
     candidates [who enjoy support of religious conservatives] are 
     out of touch with the more moderate swing voters in many 
     suburban districts. Republicans will face a backlash that 
     will favor the Democratic candidate.''
       Fazio said he fears that the ``radical right'' wants ``to 
     forget there's a separation between church and state'' and he 
     is concerned about banning of books and magazines or 
     discrimination on the basis of sexual preference.
       ``I don't think there's any reason why people who have 
     religious faith***shouldn't be part and parcel of the 
     political process,'' he said. ``But should they come together 
     as a force to change the direction of their party? Should 
     they be intolerant of others in the party who may not agree 
     with them? Should they attempt to impose their personal 
     religious views and ethical beliefs on the party system?''
       Asked how the role of religious conservatives in the 
     Republican Party is different from the role of organized 
     labor in the Democratic Party, Fazio replied:
       ``Well, I think the organized labor movement in the 
     Democratic Party comes at most issues on the basis of 
     personal beliefs.'' He added that he does not think labor has 
     been as powerful within the Democratic Party as the religious 
     right is in the GPO.
       The Christian Coalition's Reed rejected Fazio's charge of 
     intolerance, saying his organization has worked to elect 
     Republicans in Texas, Georgia and elsewhere who favor 
     abortion rights.
       ``I don't believe the Republican Party is or should be a 
     wholly owned subsidiary of any special interest, including 
     ours,'' he said.

                   [From the USA Today, June 9, 1994]

             Doubts Dog President's Every Move, Every Poll

                         (By Richard Benedetto)

       Jobs are up, inflation's low. And, despite foreign fumbles, 
     the USA is at peace.
       By every traditional measure, President Clinton should be 
     riding high in the polls, yet recent surveys find growing 
     disquiet with his presidency.
       A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll this week finds the electorate 
     less interested in his accomplishments and more concerned 
     about who Clinton, might be.
       Those doubts have helped keep Clinton's approval ratings 
     low at a time he needs to be building beyond the 43% who 
     elected him in 1992.
       The degree to which Clinton is able to ease questions about 
     his character will count as much as legislative achievement 
     as he moves closer to 1996. And it could mean the difference 
     between victory and defeat.
       ``Bill Clinton seems to have given people cause for 
     specific cynicism.'' say Rutgers University political 
     scientist Ross Baker. ``And no president, given the sort of 
     dispirit abroad in the country, will do well. Bill Clinton 
     just does worse. He has to get his act together'' for 1996.
       Poll analysis finds many have reservations about his moral 
     leadership, and genuine splits over whether he shares their 
     values and is honest and trustworthy enough for the job.
       More specifically: 35%, likely fueled by the continuing 
     charges about financial dealings and extramarital affairs, 
     say Clinton has tended to lower the stature of the 
     presidency.
       A third of the nation ``strongly disapproves'' of Clinton's 
     presidency.
       Only one in 10 say they'd ``definitely'' vote for him in 
     1996; 32% definitely won't.
       Support is deep as well. One out of four say they like 
     Clinton, but those numbers have not grown over the 16 months 
     of his presidency.
       About one in five make up a narrow band of undecided, swing 
     voters who most likely will mean the difference between re-
     election in 1996 or a ticket back to Little Rock.
       Duke University presidential scholar James David Barber 
     says Clinton has a communications problem, that he needs to 
     find more ways to talk directly to the American people and 
     seriously explain to them in simple terms what he is trying 
     to achieve, and how much he is accomplishing.
       ``People see a lot of him but they don't necessarily hear a 
     lot of him,'' Barber says. ``He needs to do weekly, 15-minute 
     talks like Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats.''
       Barber says Clinton may not be getting credit for 
     achievements because they're being obscured by so many 
     ``troubles'' in the country that continue to keep people 
     uneasy: rising crime, rampant poverty, economic displacement, 
     declining education and continued dissatisfaction with 
     government itself.
       Clinton has little wiggle room as he maneuvers the 
     political minefield toward reelection. Among the dangers 
     Clinton faces over the next two-plus years:
       The fate of his health-care reform legislation.
       The results of the 1994 election.
       The long-term performance of the economy.
       The outcome of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paula 
     Jones, a former Arkansas state worker.
       Hearings on his Whitewater land dealings.
       His ability to get a handle on foreign affairs.
       ``If this was 1996, and it was November, I'd say I was 
     going to vote for him again. But with two years to go, it'll 
     depend on what happens between now and 1996,'' says Gary 
     Smith, 45, a Bristol, Ind., postal worker, a Republican who 
     voted for Clinton in 1992.
       Clinton political adviser Paul Begala insists Clinton has 
     no character problem, just nasty political opponents who keep 
     throwing mud and keep trying to fan the flames of discontent.
       ``Republicans and the radical right have made a conscious 
     effort to undermine this president in a coordinated 
     strategy,'' he says.
       Everett Ladd of the Roper Center for Public Opinion 
     Research attributes the galvanizing of Clinton detractors to 
     two tenets: They are opposed to big government, and have 
     serious reservations about his character.
       ``It's a confluence of the personal and the political,'' he 
     says.
       White House communications director Mark Gearan generally 
     agrees Clinton has a lot of work ahead, but discounts the 
     character issue.
       ``People will be looking at whether we have maintained 
     faith with our commitment to create jobs, keep the economy 
     going, provide health care and reduce crime,'' he says.
       Indeed, those who support Clinton tend to be measuring him 
     primarily on job performance. They like his willingness to 
     tackle health care, his efforts to shake up the status quo, 
     his hard work, his knowledge of the issues.
       ``I'm a registered Republican, but I voted for Clinton 
     because I thought the country needed something different,'' 
     says Smith.
       But Clinton detractors appear to be judging him on a far 
     more personal level. They say he's indecisive, a weak leader, 
     unable to get a grip on foreign policy, a poor example of 
     moral authority, a person who tells people what they want to 
     hear.
       ``People are kind of iffy about him because they're not 
     sure they can trust him,'' says Rosio Sanchez, 20, a San 
     Diego college student.
                                  ____


                       A Crisis Without a Crisis

       By most standards, President Clinton is not facing a major 
     crisis.
       But he can't seem to muster more than 43% re-election 
     support, the same percentage he got in the 1992 election. And 
     40% of the electorate appears to be solidly opposed to him.
       And when people are asked to rate him on a 10-point scale 
     of whether they like or dislike him, numbers suggest he's in 
     deep trouble:
       25% say they like him very much; 19% say they don't like 
     him very much.
       It's almost as if he's in a crisis without a crisis.
       Indeed, Clinton's like-dislike numbers fall into a range 
     similar to those measured for other presidents facing some of 
     the toughest times in their tenures.
       He's slightly lower than Lyndon Johnson in August 1967, 
     when antiwar protests were building, body counts were 
     mounting in Vietnam and the country was splitting. Seven 
     months later Johnson decided not to seek re-election.
       He's slightly higher than Richard Nixon in August 1973, 
     when Senate Watergate hearings were causing people to pause 
     from their vacations to watch. A year later, Nixon resigned.
       He's a little better than Jimmy Carter in August 1980, when 
     U.S. hostages were being held in Iran and a rescue attempt 
     had failed. Three months later, Carter lost his re-election 
     effort to Ronald Reagan.
       And he's about where Ronald Reagan was in June 1982, when 
     the nation, gripped by a recession, was in a sour mood. The 
     economy eventually recovered and Reagan went on to win a 
     second term.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. Abercrombie). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.

  [Mr. WELDON addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter in 
the Extensions of Remarks.]

                          ____________________