[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 85 (Monday, May 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5369]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          TRIBUTE TO LES ASPIN

  (Mr. SKELTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, last night America lost a great military 
thinker and I lost a friend. The death of Les Aspin, former Democratic 
Congressman from Wisconsin and Secretary of Defense, shocked our 
Nation. Les Aspin was my friend. I enjoyed my association with him 
while we worked together in the House Armed Services Committee and 
later while he was Secretary of Defense.
  He was a genuine defense intellectual who understood military and 
strategic issues. More important, he recognized the threats we face in 
a dangerous and unstable world. As chairman of the Committee on Armed 
Services, he helped fashion the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense 
Reorganization Act of 1986. He also supported the use of American arms 
to bring an end to the regime of Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1988 and 
to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991.
  He shaped the Bottom-Up Review which is the framework of today's 
force structure and our national strategy.
  I was active in his campaign, his election, and reelection as 
chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services. While chairman, he 
was kind enough to appoint me to head the military education panel 
which examined all 10 of America's war colleges.
  I shall miss him. We shall miss him. America has lost an outstanding 
expert in military and national security. And I have lost a good 
friend.

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