[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11050-S11061]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FOREIGN RELATIONS REVITALIZATION ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                           Amendment No. 2033

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending business is amendment No. 2033 
offered by the Senator from Texas.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, Senator Hutchison's amendment providing 
guidance to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Conference on Women in 
Beijing is important for the signal it sends to the administration--and 
to the United Nations.
  The upcoming Beijing Conference offers a smorgasbord for radicals who 
are constantly fighting against traditional family values--paid for, in 
part, by American taxpayers. Organizers of this U.N. Women's Conference 
are determined to peddle their bizarre views of the family and the role 
of women. There is already too much kowtowing to fringe elements at the 
United Nations in New York and that is why this amendment is necessary.
  The Senator from Texas and the Senator from Indiana clearly explained 
the amendment yesterday. It simply urges the U.S. delegation to the 
Beijing Conference to promote genuine women's rights and traditional 
family values, and not the agenda of a few activists who have captured 
the hearts and minds of U.N. bureaucrats.
  In all honesty, Mr. President, it is astounding that an amendment 
even needs to be offered to protect the institutions of motherhood and 
the family. But, experience has shown that if Congress ignores the 
Beijing Conference, the United Nations will soon be pushing every 
country in the world to accept the United Nations strange notion of 
motherhood and family and even gender.
  Some ideas promoted in the Beijing Conference ``Platform for Action'' 
are too bizarre to be believed, as I will explain in a moment. But, the 
American people know exactly what is going on, thanks to a multitude of 
news stories in the Christian and secular media.
  You may remember, Mr. President, that some folks--but not this 
Senator--were sold a worthless bill of goods before last year's U.N. 
Conference on Population Control in Cairo. Senators and Congressmen 
were assured, promised, and guaranteed that Cairo Conference organizers 
and the U.S. delegation would not promote abortion-on-demand as a so-
called international ``reproductive right.'' But that is exactly what 
happened thanks to Tim Wirth, who was being advised by former 
Congresswoman Bela Abzug.
  Senator Hutchison's amendment does not address this issue. But, it 
should come as no surprise that organizers of the Beijing Conference 
are determined to repeat what happened at the Cairo Conference--that 
is, they will attempt to coerce prolife foreign governments into 
creating a so-called ``right'' to abortion-on-demand.
  Making matters worse, Mr. President, is the fact that this conference 
on women's issues is to take place in China of all places, where women 
are routinely forced to undergo abortions and sterilizations against 
their will, in the name of population control. Holding the Conference 
in China is nothing less than a slap in the face to women everywhere. 
It sends the clear signal that the United Nations finds China's 
grotesque behavior acceptable.
  Lest anyone think that I have exaggerated the extent to which the 
United Nations has pandered to extremists, ask yourself why the word 
``mother'' is virtually nonexistent in the Conference ``Platform for 
Action'' document. This is a conference on women, after all. Conference 
organizers prefer ``caretaker.'' The reason: because they dare not 
condemn--indeed they probably endorse--so-called homosexual marriages.
  Ask yourself, Mr. President, why Beijing Conference organizers refuse 
to agree to a definition of the word ``gende'' as meaning only male and 
female. The United Nations apparently has decided that the world is 
made up of five genders: male, female, homosexual, bisexual, and 
transsexual--whatever that is. The U.N. Conference Secretariat stated 
that, ``gender is relative.'' What in the world does that mean?
  This administration is also on record stating that ``gender 
differences'' are ``cultural--changeable, variable.'' [AID ``Gender 
Analysis Tool Kit'']. And what is worse, Mr. President, they arrogantly 
want to shove this nonsense down the throats of American taxpayers, and 
ask them to pay for it.
  It is obvious what is going on. These strange ideas and values may be 
acceptable to U.N. bureaucrats or even to some in this administration, 
but they are not acceptable to the American people, and that is why 
this amendment is important. I urge Senators to support Senator 
Hutchison's amendment.
  It is my understanding that the distinguished Senator, the manager on 
the other side, is willing to accept the amendment.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, we have looked at this amendment. We will 
be happy to accept it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment? If 
not, the question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 2033) was agreed to.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.


                           Amendment No. 2041

(Purpose: To express the sense of Congress regarding the consolidation 
 and reinvention of the foreign affairs agencies of the United States)

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask it 
be stated. It is already at the desk. I ask that the clerk read it 
slowly because the amendment speaks for itself.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting aside the 
pending amendment? Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2041.
       At the end of the bill, add the following:

     SEC.  . SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING CONSOLIDATION AND 
                   REINVENTION OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AGENCIES.

       (a) Findings.--The Congress finds that it is necessary in 
     order to make the Government more efficient and to realize 
     significant budgetary savings for the American taxpayer--
       (1) to consolidate and reinvent foreign affairs agencies of 
     the United States within the Department of State;

[[Page S11051]]

       (2) to provide for the reorganization of the Department of 
     State to maximize efficient use of resources, eliminate 
     redundancy in functions, and improve the management of the 
     Department of State;
       (3) to assist congressional efforts to balance the Federal 
     budget by the year 2002;
       (4) to ensure that the international affairs budget 
     function shoulders an appropriate share of the reductions in 
     United States Government spending necessary to eliminate the 
     $4,800,000,000,000 budget deficit; and
       (5) to strengthen--
       (A) the coordination of United States foreign policy;
       (B) the leading role of the Secretary of State in the 
     formulation and articulation of United States foreign policy;
       (C) the authority of United States ambassadors over all 
     United States Government personnel and resources located in 
     United States diplomatic missions, in order to enhance the 
     ability of the ambassadors to deploy those resources to the 
     best effect that will attain the President's foreign policy 
     objectives; and
       (D) the United States Foreign Service, as the forward 
     deployed civilian force of the United States Government, 
     through renewed emphasis on the original principles which 
     undergird the distinct Foreign Service personnel system. 
     These include worldwide availability, assignments based on 
     the needs of the service, rank in person, and merit-based 
     advancement.
       (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that 
     the President should--
       (1) consolidate within the Department of State, or 
     eliminate, such duplicative, overlapping, or superfluous 
     personnel, functions, goals, activities, offices, and 
     programs that the United States Arms Control and Disarmament 
     Agency, the United States Information Agency, and the Agency 
     for International Development have in common with the 
     Department of State in order to realize a budgetary savings 
     to the American taxpayer of at least $3,000,000,000 during 
     fiscal years 1996 through 1999;
       (2) encourage the United States foreign affairs agencies to 
     maintain a high percentage of the best qualified, most 
     competent American citizens serving in the United States 
     Government while downsizing significantly the total number of 
     people employed by these agencies; and
       (3) ensure that all functions of diplomacy be subject to 
     recruitment, training, assignment, promotion and egress based 
     on common standards and procedures, with maximum interchange 
     among the functions.
  Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, if ever an amendment submitted in this Senate spoke 
for itself, this one does. That is why I asked the able clerk to read 
it in its entirety. And if there is a Senator who can offer an 
equivalent savings while preserving foreign affairs programs, I ask 
that Senator, whomever he or she may be, to do so.
  The point is, and the fact is, they cannot do it. It cannot be done. 
So we are playing games with this business of not voting cloture and 
proceeding on this bill in concert with the administration, which has 
set out at the outset to say we will delay, we will obfuscate, we will 
do everything to block this bill. That is what is going on.
  Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays. We do not need anybody 
except the two managers.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North Carolina yield the 
floor?
  Mr. HELMS. Yes, I yield the floor, of course.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
North Carolina. Let me say to my friend from North Carolina that I 
think it is unfortunate that within a mere matter of hours on a bill we 
proceed to a cloture vote and behave as if somehow there is a major 
effort to delay a bill. I think there are 139 amendments on this bill--
139 amendments; 94 of them--it is now 144 amendments--94 of them are 
from the Republican side of the aisle. Most of them are from my 
colleague from North Carolina.
  So to suggest that a bill that was laid down yesterday--was laid down 
Friday afternoon, to be technically correct--but first debated 
yesterday for a few hours, beginning at 2 o'clock in the afternoon is 
now suddenly, on Tuesday morning, the subject of some kind of delay 
confuses me and, in fact, I think sort of does an injustice to the 
legislative process.
  This is a very important bill. It represents a major overhaul of the 
means by which the United States of America delivers all of its foreign 
policy effort in the world. It has the most significant reorganization 
in it in modern history. It has some $3 billion-plus of cuts. It is a 
very significant altering of the mechanism of foreign policy.
  There are many people in the U.S. Senate, Mr. President, who feel 
that it runs roughshod over the constitutional prerogatives of the 
President of the United States. Let me give you an example. I think 
every word of the amendment that the Senator just put in, with the 
exception of maybe five, I would support.
  I think it is a very strong statement of what the Secretary of State 
ought to do. It is a very strong statement, an exhortation to 
reorganization, we should do that. But it has a specificity as to a 
particular department or a particular movement that we have suggested 
in keeping with constitutional prerogatives of the President ought to 
be decided by the President.
  All we are suggesting is give the President a mandate from the 
Congress to make the cuts, but allow the President to determine exactly 
how they are going to be made.
  I can remember my friends on the other side of the aisle over the 
years that President Reagan and President Bush were in office 
consistently coming to the floor and saying, ``Get the cotton-picking 
micromanaging hands out of the administrative process. Congress 
shouldn't micromanage. Congress shouldn't decide every single movement 
of personnel. There ought to be some administrative capacity here.''
  Here we are suddenly, because President Clinton is in office, and we 
are going totally role reversal back on all of those restraints on 
microman- 
agement, and we are telling them, ``You have to specifically get rid of 
this department, you have to put it here; you have to get rid of this 
department, you have to put it here; you have to get rid of this 
department, you have to put it here.''
  Now, all we have suggested is this would not be a problem if we came 
to the floor and adopted a compromise that was proposed by the 
administration and Democrats, which would have suggested, look, give 
the President a mandate for consolidation, but allow the President to 
decide what he wants to consolidate and where, how it best will 
function.
  Here there is a mandate that you put certain departments within the 
Department of State when all of the former Secretaries of State have 
said, while they may be in favor of the concept, they have no 
confidence that the current State Department has the capacity to effect 
it. We have not addressed that here. There is nothing that deals with 
the capacity of Foreign Service officers to pick up these particular 
missions. There is nothing that deals with the capacity of these 
missions to be effected within the context of the State Department. So 
while, on the one hand, you are making this enormous shift, there is no 
commensurate administrative capacity or enablement to be able to 
actually implement the shift.
  So I just say to my friend, this is an effort to legislate, not an 
effort to delay. Legislating is what we ought to do. We are supposed to 
come to the floor of the Senate and make some wise decisions about how 
to best demand change or mandate it and how best to make these savings.
  I wonder if my friend from North Carolina would be willing to mandate 
the savings but take out the specificity and simply say we are going to 
try to find X amount of savings within this Department in order to try 
to reduce the budget, but leave up to the President the capacity to be 
able to choose where that might occur.
  May I ask my friend from North Carolina--turning to his sense-of-the-
Senate request on page 3, reading at line 15, paragraph 1, the Senator 
says, ``It is the sense of the Congress that the President should 
consolidate within the Department of State or eliminate * * *.'' --I 
wonder if the Senator intends that it be an option of one or the other, 
just to clarify.
  Mr. HELMS. Well, I say to the Senator, I have a corrected amendment 
here, and to call for the regular order on amendment 2031, I will send 
a second-degree amendment----
  Mr. KERRY. I have asked a question of the Senator. But I do have the 
floor.
  Mr. HELMS. Of course you do. But I thought you wanted a remedy.
  
[[Page S11052]]

  Mr. KERRY. I wanted to know what his intention was before I give up 
the floor for any further action. I am trying to find out the status of 
the amendment.
  Mr. HELMS. I will answer that in due time, I say to the distinguished 
Senator. If he yields the floor, I will do it right this minute.
  Mr. KERRY. I would like to just pursue a few thoughts, Mr. President, 
before we perfect this. I gather now that it does need an amendment, 
needs to be perfected. I may not object to that. I want to clarify what 
it is we are precisely talking about.
  Mr. HELMS. If the Senator will yield, why do you not put in a quorum 
call, we will discuss it, and I think he will agree to the 
modification.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I will do that in a moment in order to try 
to see if we can make an agreement on this. The Senator from 
Connecticut was here a moment ago. I know he wanted to address this 
particular amendment. So I am hopeful to give him that opportunity. I 
simply say to my friend again--and we can discuss this privately while 
in a quorum call--it is something we have had some discussion on in the 
past. I personally am not averse to some kind of consolidation, and I 
have said that to the Senator. I personally think that there are ways 
to more effectively deliver the interests of the United States through 
our foreign policy establishment.
  I do not think that this particular recommendation ought to be 
treated lightly, and I have never suggested that. What I do think is 
that we should try to construct a mechanism which affords the 
administration the maximum amount of flexibility in keeping with the 
notion that it is really their responsibility to decide which ``t'' to 
cross and which ``i'' to dot. I think, as the Senator from Connecticut 
will demonstrate, there are very strong feelings here about one 
particular shift versus another. So I ask my friend if, rather than 
putting in a quorum call, he and I could spend a minute visiting while 
the Senator from Connecticut addresses the amendment.
  Mr. HELMS. That is a call of the Chair. We have two Senators seeking 
recognition. I will leave that to the Chair.
  Mr. KERRY. I yield the floor.
  Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
  Ms. SNOWE. I certainly want to speak to this amendment and to the 
issue of consolidation, because I think it is more. As I said yesterday 
in my opening statement, I thought it was essential that there should 
be bipartisanship on this consolidation. This is not a new issue. In 
fact, Secretary of State Christopher had recommended this originally, 
only to be rejected in the inner-agency process. The Vice President has 
said through the process of reinventing Government he recommended and, 
in fact, said they would submit a proposal to the Congress that would 
yield $5 billion in savings through the consolidation, through the 
merging and streamlining within the State Department and its related 
agencies. We have yet to see that proposal.
  There has been no proposal forthcoming from the administration to 
achieve the goals that are outlined in the authorization in this 
amendment before us today, or as mandated by the budget resolution that 
passed the Congress. We have a certain mandate to meet specific funding 
levels for the 150 account, and the consolidation helps us to reach 
that goal. So the administration, for the last 5 or 6 months, has not 
worked with the committee on this consolidation proposal in any 
fashion. They have not been proactive; they have not made 
recommendations. They simply rejected the idea of any consolidation. 
This is not a new issue.
  Five former Secretaries of State did support this proposal. The fact 
is, they were not reticent in their support for this proposal. Former 
Secretary of State Eagleburger said that this consolidation was 
necessary in order to change the focus at the top within the State 
Department. This would be the impetus for creating the change that is 
necessary for this consolidation to work and that it was vital because 
the State Department was going to have to approach its own agenda 
differently in advancing foreign policy goals.
  After rejecting the Secretary of State's plan within the 
administration, the only proposal the administration made with respect 
to consolidation and merging were two small elements within the 
department. One was consolidating the State Department and the USIA 
Office of Inspector General and a merger of the State Department Office 
of Foreign Missions and the Bureau for Diplomatic Security. That was 
it.
  So we are now saying that we are going to move forward with the 
proposal. But that still could include the administration's proposal 
because the mechanism that is included in this legislation allows the 
President to propose alternatives or refinements to this plan and is 
required to submit a reorganization plan for each agency that would be 
considered by Congress by a resolution of approval under expedited 
procedures.
  So we give the President the opportunity to address this particular 
consolidation plan. But today they have been silent. So I think that we 
have an obligation to move forward on this issue because five former 
Secretaries of State said this is the direction we should take in order 
to reintegrate these policy functions,
 but also to make sure that we revitalize these agencies and these 
functions. That is what is important.

  We have provided a detailed way in which to streamline and 
consolidate the funding and personnel of foreign affairs agencies.
  We need to take that approach. The administration, and I know that no 
one thinks that we should dictate to the administration as to how we 
should consolidate, but the President has a right to offer a plan. It 
is not just going to be this President who will be affected by this 
consolidation. It is not aimed at a Democratic President by a 
Republican Congress, because future Presidents--certainly I hope there 
will be future Republican Presidents--will also have to live under this 
consolidation proposal.
  I said yesterday it is not a Republican plan, it is not a Democratic 
plan. It is an American plan as to how to make the State Department 
more efficient and function more effectively in administering our 
foreign policy goals.
  I hope we can support this consolidation. I think it is worthwhile 
for the future. We have had a number of people who testified before the 
subcommittee, suggesting this would be the appropriate approach to 
take. We have to look differently at the way in which we handle our 
goals within the State Department.
  It is the end of the cold war. We have to make a transition to a 
balanced budget. We have to consider new approaches.
  This requires us to look at the kind of consolidation and integration 
in our foreign affairs infrastructure that will be more flexible and 
cost effective. I think that is what is so important. We need a more 
flexible foreign policy structure. That is why it requires us to 
integrate our program decisions with changing, and frequently changing, 
policy goals.
  It was less of a problem before the cold war ended. We had a single 
particular focus. Today, that is not the case. What was the rule is now 
the exception. What was the exception is now the rule. That is why this 
consolidation is so essential.
  I hope that rather than engaging and saying this is a partisan 
approach, we want it to be a bipartisan approach. Unfortunately, the 
administration was unwilling to be forthcoming in any suggestions, 
other than to say they were opposed to it. I yield the floor.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Frederic 
S. Baron, a Pearson fellow in my office, be permitted privileges of the 
floor for the duration of the debate on S. 908 and S. 961.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, a number of Senators on both sides of 
the aisle have focused with some seriousness on the questions raised in 
this bill. The amendment currently before the Senate, offered by the 
Senator from North Carolina, is, of course, a serious proposal and 
deserves the kind of reasoned consideration that our colleague from 
Massachusetts has described.
  I rise to speak about the impact of the bill before the Senate on one 
particular agency, which is the U.S. Information Agency, and to make 
the case, 

[[Page S11053]]
respectfully, to my colleagues and to the chairman of the committee and 
members who come forth with this proposal, why I believe the USIA 
uniquely should not be consolidated as part of the State Department, 
although the general request for consolidation I think is a very worthy 
one.
  Mr. President, I suppose I could spend this time explaining and 
defending the work of the USIA. It is a modest but highly effective 
foreign affairs agency. I do first want to say that I believe more is 
at issue here than just the work of the USIA.
  The proposal to consolidate or perhaps to abolish the USIA presents 
another opportunity in this debate to address the choice that has been 
referred to here on the floor that we face at this juncture in our 
history between two profoundly different views of America's role in the 
post-cold-war world.
  The choice, put simply, is this: Will America remain involved and 
lead in shaping the values and ideas, the military realities and the 
markets of the modern world? Will we continue to reach out in search of 
economic opportunities, cultural enrichment, and the alliances that 
strengthen our national security? Or will we step back and become a 
detached and reactive power that regards the wider world chiefly as a 
source of difficulty and danger?
  Mr. President, I am convinced that on both sides of the aisle here 
the overwhelming majority of my colleagues have chosen the former 
course, which is to say staying involved in the world, exercising 
America's leadership role in the world, because that is not only the 
correct course but the realistic course.
  Having made that choice, it seems to me that we are then left with 
the question of methods. What is the method we choose to remain 
involved and to remain the leader of the world, not just the free 
world, but the world overall?
  Mr. President, I understand that some of my colleagues who share my 
concern for maintaining America's involvement and leadership have 
reservations about some aspects of our foreign aid program, including 
our involvement in the United Nations and other international 
institutions.
  Mr. President, I want to respectfully suggest that for anyone who 
thinks that America must lead in today's world, it does not make common 
sense to favor the consolidation of the functions of the USIA to the 
Department of State, or certainly not to favor the abolition of the 
USIA. In fact, if we reduce our foreign aid and scale back our 
involvement in other multilateral organizations, as other parts of the 
bill before the Senate would do, I suggest that we will even have a 
greater need for a more robust, and I might say agile, USIA.
  Mr. President, the distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator 
Helms, and his committee, I say, have acted on a sound impulse, which 
is that we do need a searching reappraisal of the way we conduct our 
foreign policy in the post-cold-war era. The committee has produced a 
coherent, centralized, new architecture for our foreign affairs 
agencies.
  However, no organization is an end in itself. Organizations are tools 
that we create to carry out our strategic and moral purposes as a 
nation. What are the goals? What is the strategy that the new 
centralized foreign affairs edifice laid out in this bill is meant to 
serve?
  It is, indeed, an impressive organization, but I think we have to 
continue to come back and ask, What is its purpose? In that sense, what 
is our purpose--our American purpose--in the world, after the cold war?
  Today, the cold war that possessed our thinking and our energies for 
four decades is over. The period of conflict with aggressive global 
totalitarianism reaches back another generation even beyond the 
beginning of the cold war. That is at an end. We are grappling with 
large and difficult questions about what role America should play in 
the world that go deeper than our country has faced for over a half 
century.
  Now, the problems we face in developing a broad foreign policy to 
guide us into the next century are extraordinarily difficult. As was 
clear on the Senate floor last week in the debate on Bosnia, we have 
not yet reached a universal consensus about just when and how and under 
what circumstances the United States should exert its power and 
prestige in world affairs.
  But disagree as we may about the specifics, so far as I have 
suggested a moment ago, I think we have maintained a remarkably broad 
consensus about one thing; that is, that the United States must 
continue our engagement with the world and must retain the capacity to 
lead, not out of the goodness of our hearts, but in the interests of 
our security and our principles.
  That brings me back to the proposed consolidation or abolition of the 
U.S. Information Agency. Why is this such a key matter--an issue that I 
personally regard as a fork in the foreign policy road?
  Mr. President, although we are searching for a new course for the 
future, I want to argue here that we should not abandon existing 
institutions just because they were developed during the cold war. 
Rather, we should profit from our experience in the cold war, which 
was, obviously, a very difficult and trying experience, but it was 
ultimately a successful experience.
 Where once we faced the Soviet Empire and feared a third world war, 
now, democracy and free market systems are establishing themselves from 
Vilnius to Vladivostok.

  It is clear our military might was central to our success in the cold 
war. So, too, was the skill and perseverance of our diplomats and 
negotiators, and our political leaders. But what else ultimately helped 
us win this struggle that we sometimes overlook? My answer to that is 
that we engaged people, not just governments, but the people of the 
nations who were our potential adversaries in debate and discussion 
about the values, ideas and interests that guide the United States in 
world affairs. Our not-so-secret weapon here in the cold war was 
information and contact with people throughout the world, particularly 
those living under totalitarian regimes with the democratic world.
  I think that had an enormous influence and helped and inspired 
peoples who were captive behind totalitarian walls to sustain their 
hopes and ultimately to rise up and create the pressure that 
miraculously crumbled the Berlin wall and all that it represented.
  Mr. President, rather than wiping our foreign policy slate clean, I 
think we should draw upon the successes of the past to develop the 
foreign policy strategies for America's future. We must do this work 
together. Republican administrations can and should take credit for 
some of the great successes of public diplomacy which have enduring 
relevance today. The Reagan administration revived our understanding of 
the importance of values, ideas, and information in international 
affairs, and strongly supported the independent role of the USIA in 
conveying those values, ideas, and information. Far from losing 
importance, our values, ideas, and information--and an independent 
USIA--I think will be even more crucial as we chart our course in the 
next phase of world history after the cold war.
  This new world is ever more democratic, ever more integrated into a 
global market economy, ever more linked by electronic communications. 
In such a world, relations among governments obviously remain 
important. But, frankly, such government-to-government relations simply 
do not matter as much as they did before. Increasingly, I believe, 
relations between countries will depend, as they have in the recent 
past, upon the perceptions and interests of the public within those 
countries, and particularly of what might be called key subsections of 
the public within those countries--political and intellectual elites, 
are two examples.
  So, U.S. foreign policy in the next phase, with communications 
particularly growing as rapidly and in as revolutionary a fashion as 
they do today, must go beyond government-to-government relations and 
reach the people of the world.
  We always say the world is a small world. It is a dramatically 
smaller world today. When I can sit at my personal computer--I have 
just been educated in the last several months--and try to reach one of 
my children who is at school in Boston, in the State of my colleague 
from Massachusetts, and find I cannot get into the so-called ``Gopher'' 
index to Massachusetts, so I go to the worldwide index of indexes and I 
am instructed to go through the index 

[[Page S11054]]
of the University of Southern Australia in Perth, find an opening 
there, then go to North America, then to the United States, then to 
Massachusetts, then, at the risk of offending my colleague and alumnus 
of Yale, to Harvard, then to my son's room--and all of that happening 
in about 20 seconds--it is a very, very small world indeed.
  We all know one of the forces that brought the Berlin wall crumbling 
down was the availability of knowledge within the countries of the 
former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe about what was happening 
elsewhere, knowledge that they obtained in ways that could not be 
stopped by the dictators. They obtained it over the radio and they 
obtained increasingly over the fax machine and the personal computer.
  So the central roles of the Department of State as I see them are to 
develop our overall foreign policy and manage the relations our 
Government has with the governments of other countries. The Department 
of State, obviously, has extraordinary experience and skill at the work 
of government-to-government relations. But, as a recent statement by 
Freedom House put it: ``Public diplomacy--which is to say--our open 
efforts to win understanding and support among the peoples of foreign 
countries on matters that affect U.S. national interests--suffers when 
it is subordinated to the demands of formal diplomacy.''
  This Freedom House statement is a remarkable statement for its 
content and those who have signed it. It lays out in greater detail the 
argument for the separation of public diplomacy from formal diplomacy.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Freedom House letter 
on the USIA be printed in the Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, this statement is especially impressive 
for the list of leaders in America's foreign affairs community who have 
endorsed it--a list that includes Democrats and Republicans, 
conservatives and liberals. The signatories include, and it is a large 
list, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser in the 
Carter administration, Dr. Edward Feulner of the Heritage Foundation, 
our distinguished former colleague, Senator Malcolm Wallop, Lane 
Kirkland, President of the AFL-CIO, Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr, and 
Ambassadors Jeane Kirkpatrick and Andrew Young, all signing this 
statement. A remarkable group, reflecting a broad consensus across 
ideological and partisan lines in the foreign policy leadership of our 
country, in favor of keeping the USIA independent and strong, not 
consolidating it into the State Department.
  These opinion leaders base this judgment on long, practical 
experience in the tough work of international relations. They 
recognize, and I quote again from their statement: ``The culture of the 
State Department differs substantially from the culture of USIA.'' 
Formal diplomacy requires quiet, sometimes even secret negotiation; 
careful attention to consistency, nuance and form; and a willingness to 
continue even when the pace is painfully slow. That is the work of the 
State Department. Public diplomacy--the work of the USIA--requires 
openness, rapid response, and a willingness to put aside differences in 
order to make the most of agreement on broader themes that are shared 
by people throughout the world.
  It says the obvious to say I have the highest respect for the foreign 
policy and diplomatic professionals of the Department of State. But 
their training and their experience, in my opinion, does not prepare 
them for the work in the informational environment, in the 
communications environment, the public-to-public environment, in which 
USIA and its officers and employees operate.
  Let me say, responding to what has been said here a while ago, that 
the President and the Secretary of State should clearly determine the 
foreign policy of the United States. It is in the management and 
implementation of that policy that I believe the distinctions between 
formal and public diplomacy, between the State Department and an 
independent USIA, have their importance. It is in the management and 
implementation that the differences in organizational cultures add 
their respective values to the product.
  The value of distinct organizational cultures is no novel, New Age 
idea. It was grasped by President Eisenhower when he founded USIA, and 
has proven itself in foreign affairs, now, for more than 40 years.
  Operational autonomy is increasingly followed by corporations and 
other large financial institutions in the private sector. Centralized, 
pyramidal structures are what modern management is, frankly, trying to 
avoid. Teamwork is a recipe for success in both the public and private 
sectors. And the essence of teamwork, as it is understood in the modern 
organizational context, is in using the different talents of the 
different members of the team in working to achieve a common goal. That 
is why I believe, here, organizationally, the better course is to leave 
USIA independent.
  As so many have said before me in this debate, victory in the cold 
war presents the United States with rare new opportunities. To grasp 
these opportunities, to advance our national interests and our moral 
principles, a more forward-positioned, engaged in aggressive economic, 
political, cultural, and communications, stance is required. The new 
world we face also holds many challenges and dangers and obviously we 
must be prepared to meet them. But I think we can best overcome those 
challenges and avert or mitigate those dangers and build a more stable, 
peaceful, and democratic international environment through purposeful 
engagement--engagement which is enhanced by the kind of active public 
diplomacy that an independent USIA can carry out.
  What we now have is a plurality of means for engaging the wider 
world, and presenting American policy and projecting American interests 
and principles to different audiences, and one might say different 
consumers, worldwide. USIA inhabits the realms of the media, of 
education, of what we are happy to call in this country civil society, 
and what we are hoping to help develop in many of the fledgling new 
democracies that were former wards of the Soviet Union.
  The USIA, incidentally, Mr. President, serves all agencies of the 
U.S. Government, not just the Department of State--but Commerce, 
Justice, Treasury, Defense, and others.
  It is useful, I think, to all involved, that the USIA's program stand 
at one removed from the government-to-government functions carried on 
by the Department of State. When the Voice of America carries a news 
broadcast on a subject that is of some discomfort to a foreign 
government, is it not a good thing that our Ambassador can honestly say 
that the Voice of America is not controlled by--or organizationally 
aligned with--the Department of State?
  Or to give another example, when one of our exchange programs brings 
a scholar from a foreign country to the United States who may be out of 
favor with the government of his country, is it not helpful that our 
ambassador can point out that the USIA, which has brought this scholar 
to America, is separate from the Department of State? And when that 
dissident goes home, will he or she not find it useful honestly to 
assert that their visit to the United States was not a foreign policy 
mission in behalf of the Department of State?
  Mr. President, this formal separation is central I think to the 
credibility of our exchange and broadcast programs which have so well 
served America's interest in the cold war, which have so well served 
the interests and the aspirations of people living behind the Iron 
Curtain during the cold war and can so well serve people throughout the 
world who still yearn to be free?
  People listening to USIA broadcasts around the world know that they 
are not hearing a propaganda instrument of the State Department but an 
independent voice--incidentally, a voice speaking so often in their 
language--reporting on world events and reflecting the views and values 
of the American people and helping make links between them in this 
country and the people of this country.
  Mr. President, the United States Information Agency should not be 
part of the reorganization of foreign affairs agencies that are central 
to this bill. I say that respectfully. One of the 

[[Page S11055]]
amendments that I have filed among the 144 that are filed would remove 
the USIA from the consolidation aspects of this bill, with the minor 
exception of the consolidation of inspector general functions, and 
would maintain the USIA as an effective and independent agency.
  We learned in the cold war that persuasion and involvement with 
peoples is the most powerful instrument that American democracy has in 
foreign affairs. The power of an idea, the power of an American idea, 
of the American idea conveyed to people around the world, ultimately is 
what cracked the Berlin wall. The kind of engagement USIA had, for 
instance, with Solidarnosc--not just with people generally, but with 
specific heroes in the fight for freedom--with Solidarity in Poland or 
with the pro-democracy movements in Central America is the kind of 
engagement we need today throughout the world, and particularly, may I 
say, with the coming generation of leaders in China and with the 
modernizers in the Islamic world.
  This is no time to pull back and stop speaking to the people of the 
world and their future leaders. This is the time to continue effective 
public diplomacy through the USIA--independent and strong--to meet new 
challenges, seize new opportunities, and advance America's principles 
and strategic interests throughout the world.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
                               Exhibit 1

                     [From Roll Call, May 11, 1995]

                  The Future of U.S. Public Diplomacy

       New proposals have been advanced to place the United States 
     Information Agency (USIA)--long the chief instrument of 
     American public diplomacy--under the centralized control of 
     the State Department. We believe this proposed consolidation 
     and centralization would weaken American public diplomacy.
       Why should the USIA remain independent? Through its 
     broadcasting, numerous exchange programs and links with 
     people throughout the world, it already is highly successful 
     in promoting American interests and articulating who we are 
     and how our policies and values are shaped. The State 
     Department has a different though related role. It explains 
     U.S. foreign policy to Americans and presents our 
     government's official positions to foreign governments. The 
     State Department values quiet negotiations, government-to-
     government contacts, protracted discussion, compromise and 
     sometimes secrecy. A credible public diplomacy, by contrast, 
     requires openness, the ability to respond quickly to rapidly 
     changing world events, and independence in reporting, 
     analysis and comment. In short, the culture of the State 
     Department differs substantially from the culture of the 
     USIA.
       There are other important reasons to retain the USIA's 
     present status.
       Public diplomacy and formal diplomacy. While formal 
     diplomatic relations conducted by the State Department are an 
     important aspect of our government's diverse engagement with 
     other societies, public diplomacy--our open efforts to win 
     understanding and support among the peoples of foreign 
     countries on matters that affect U.S. national interests--
     suffers when it is subordinated to the demands of formal 
     diplomacy. We have long-term interests in developing flexible 
     relationships with foreign educators, journalists, cultural 
     leaders, minority and opposition leaders that must not be 
     subjected to the daily pressures of official government-to-
     government affairs. USIA has filled this niche by setting up 
     exchanges that introduce foreign representatives to U.S. 
     governmental, nongovernmental, private, business and cultural 
     institutions.
       American values: independent voices, one theme. The 
     promotion of American political and economic values has been 
     an auspicious aspect of our foreign policy in recent times. 
     The spread of democracy and the global communication 
     revolution indicate that this form of engagement in foreign 
     affairs will be of great importance in the future. 
     Diversification and independence--not centralization and 
     uniformity--make the U.S.'s message more meaningful and 
     credible. The USIA's broadcasting and exchange programs 
     should remain free of interference from officials with 
     responsibilities in other areas. Radio Free Europe/Radio 
     Liberty, Voice of America and Radio Marti remains vital 
     sources of information around the world. In East Central 
     Europe and the former Soviet Union (where independent media 
     continue to face difficulties) RFE/RI is trusted precisely 
     because of its journalistic integrity. This would be 
     seriously compromised if they were perceived as official 
     organs of State Department policy.
       Re-orientation before re-organization. The structure of our 
     foreign affairs agencies needs to be considered in light of 
     America's global strategy in a rapidly changing international 
     environment. Reorganization not rooted in a clear and 
     comprehensive understanding and consensus about goals and 
     missions cannot work or last. The USIA and federally-funded 
     international broadcasting have track records of success and 
     will continue to work. Indeed, with today's menacing 
     phenomena of international criminal activity, terrorism, 
     inter-ethnic hatreds and anti-democratic forces around the 
     world, the work of USIA is more critical than ever.
       We understand that there will have to be some significant 
     reorganization and re-prioritization in foreign policy. Those 
     who have offered proposals for change have done some service. 
     The world has changed, in no small measure because of our 
     multilayered and multi-faceted foreign policy structures. Our 
     goal should be coordination between agencies, not the kind of 
     consolidated administrative centralism that will not work. 
     The task of the State Department and the public diplomacy 
     agencies should nurture one another, but must remain separate 
     to be truly effective.
         Ned W. Bandler, Vice Chairman, Freedom House; Saul 
           Bellow, Author; Hon. Michael Barnes, Former 
           Congressman, Chairman, Center for National Policy; 
           Walter Berns, American Enterprise Institute; Daniel J. 
           Boorstin, Librarian of Congress Emeritus, Historian; 
           Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Former National Security 
           Advisor, Center for Strategic & International Studies; 
           Hon. John H. Buchanan, Jr., Former Congressman; Hon. 
           Richard R. Burt, Former Ambassador to Germany; Hon. 
           Henry E. Catto, Chairman of the Board Catto and Catto, 
           Former Director, USIA; William Van Cleave, Director, 
           Center for Defense & Strategic Studies, Southwestern 
           Missouri State University; Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, 
           Executive Director, Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, Center 
           for Human Rights; James S. Denton, President, National 
           Forum Foundation; Patricia Murphy Derian, Former 
           Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and 
           Humanitarian Affairs; Vivian Lowery Derryck, President, 
           African American Institute; Larry Diamond, Senior 
           Research Fellow, Hoover Institution; Hon. Paula 
           Dobriansky, Former Associate Director, USIA; William C. 
           Doherty, Jr., Executive Director, American Institute 
           for Free Labor Development.
         Thomas R. Donahue, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO; Susan 
           Eisenhower, Chairman, Center for Post Soviet Studies; 
           Hon. Dante B. Fascell, Former Chairman, House Foreign 
           Affairs Committee; Hon. Geraldine A. Ferraro, Former 
           Congresswoman; Edward J. Feulner, Jr., President, The 
           Heritage Foundation; Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr., Former 
           Chairman, Board for International Broadcasting, Forbes 
           Magazine; Al From, President, Democratic Leadership 
           Council; Alton Frye, Senior Vice President & National 
           Director, Council on Foreign Relations; Hon. Frank J. 
           Gaffney, Jr., President, Center for Security Policy; 
           Hon. Bruce Gelb, Former Director, USIA; Ernest Green, 
           Chairman, African Development Foundation; Samuel P. 
           Huntington, John M. Olin Center for Strategic Studies 
           of Harvard University; John T. Joyce, President, 
           International Union of Brick Layers & Allied Craftsmen; 
           Hon. Max M. Kampelman, Former U.S. Ambassador, 
           Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Lane 
           Kirkland, President, AFL-CIO; Hon. Jeane J. 
           Kirkpatrick, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United 
           Nations; Bette Bao Lord, Chairman, Freedom House Board 
           of Trustees; Bruce K. MacLaury, President, Brookings 
           Institution.
         Hon. Leonard H. Marks, Marks and Cohn; Will Marshall, 
           President, Progressive Policy Institute; Adam Meyerson, 
           Editor Policy Review; Charles Morgan, Jr., Attorney; 
           John Norton Moore, Director, Center for Law & National 
           Security, University of Virginia School of Law; Steven 
           W. Mosher, Director, Asian Studies Center, The 
           Claremont Institute; Joshua Muravchik, Resident 
           Scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Father Richard 
           John Neuhaus, Executive Director, Institute for 
           Religion and Public Life; Michael Novak, American 
           Enterprise Institute; Hon. Charles H. Percy, Former 
           Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Robert L. 
           Pfaltzgraff, Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts 
           University; Richard Ravitch, Attorney; Walter Raymond, 
           Jr., Former Special Assistant to the President for 
           National Security Affairs; William S. Reese, President, 
           Partners of the Americas; Peter Rodman, Director, 
           National Security Program, Nixon Center for Peace & 
           Freedom; Burns W. Roper, Former Chairman, Roper Starch 
           Worldwide; Hon. Eugene V. Rostow, National Defense 
           University; John Seiganthaler, Chairman, Freedom Forum 
           First Amendment Foundation, Vanderbilt University.
         Al Shanker, President American Federation of Teachers; 
           Walter J. Schloss, Chairman, Walter J. Schloss 
           Associates, Inc; Nina Shea, President, Puebla 
           Institute; Marvin L. Stone, Former Editor, US News & 
           World Report; R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., Editor-in-Chief, 
           The American Spectator; Hon. Malcolm Wallop, Former 
           U.S. Senator; Ben J. Wattenberg, Syndicated Columnist; 
           George Weigel, President, Ethics and Public Policy 
           Center; Allen Weinstein, President, The Center for 
           Democracy; Hon. Charles Z. Wick, Former Director, 

[[Page S11056]]
           USIA; Jacques D. Wimpfheimer, Chairman, American Velvet Company; Hon. 
           Andrew Young, Former Ambassador to the United Nations; 
           James J. Zogby, President, Arab American Institute.

  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Thank you Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I would like to thank the Senator from Connecticut for 
a very thoughtful statement not just about USIA, but most importantly 
about the overall changes that are taking place in the world and the 
implications for the United States and for our foreign policy.
  I think he has demonstrated the vision that is essential to any kind 
of decisionmaking with respect to the shuffling of the parts of our 
foreign public diplomacy effort. So I thank him for having shared those 
thoughts with us and I think provided a very important and credible 
statement with respect to this issue.
  Mr. President, I would like to express further, following up on some 
of the things that the Senator from Connecticut has said, I think it is 
really important for us to understand, the United Nations 
particularly--and for a lot of appropriate reasons, I might add--the 
administration of the United Nations has been just sort of a morass 
without any seeming sense of concern or culpability, although I think 
in the last year perhaps the message may be beginning to get through.
  But clearly, the ineffectiveness of the United Nations with respect 
to certain concerns, notwithstanding great successes, has clouded the 
image of that institution in its 50th anniversary so that for a lot of 
Americans, it is a very quick take. They think of foreign policy and 
they tend to think not of a global climate change treaty, not of the 
Montreal protocol which will reduce CFC's in the air and help to 
preserve the ozone layer, they do not think about the treaty to 
preserve Antarctica or the treaties with respect to arms control 
through the years that made an enormous difference in helping to win 
the cold war; they tend to think of the big symbols, and generally 
speaking, the symbols of either confusion or sometimes failure.
  The result is, if you want to get a good applause line when you go 
home and give a speech, you can very quickly pick up a line that talks 
about how you should not be giving aid to other countries, that the aid 
ought to be coming back, you know, to whatever city in one State. If 
you say that when you are in a particular place, people are quick to 
respond and say, ``Boy, that is right. We ought to be get that money, 
not these other folks.'' And in some cases, unfortunately, it is true. 
AID and others have had some programs sometimes that lack 
accountability.
  But name for me the corporation in America that has not sometimes had 
an advertising campaign that has been overboard or an excess of expense 
accounts or an excess in departments. Most of the great buy-outs of the 
1980's were predicated on a lot of those far too expansive corporate 
budgets where value was not limited and people saw that they had an 
opportunity to come in, pare down, create a far more productive entity, 
raise the share value, and sell it for a killing. Indeed, that happened 
over and over again.
  This is no different. There is no bureaucracy on the face of this 
planet that does not have organizational problems. The question is, 
what are we trying to do here, and what are the interests of the United 
States?
  Foreign policy is not some foreign engagement exclusively. Foreign 
policy is the art of achieving our interests abroad. It is really an 
extension of the interests in every community here in our country. It 
is not really a foreign affair. It is a domestic interest that is 
represented through whatever happens abroad.
  So when we engage in Latin America in an antidrug program, we are 
representing the interests of people in Kansas City, in San Francisco, 
in Boston, in New York, in Los Angeles, and all across this country. 
And to whatever degree we can get the cooperation of Colombians or the 
cooperation of Ecuadorians or Panamanians or the Caribbean countries in 
helping us to prevent the flow of cocaine or helping to prevent the 
flow of laundered money, we are representing our interests. That helps 
us here at home. It keeps perhaps 1 kid, 20 kids, hopefully 1,000 or a 
million kids out of trouble.
  It seems to me that in the same way, Mr. President, in dozens of 
other ways, our interests are represented through the diplomatic 
efforts of our State Department in ways that a lot of Americans just 
take for granted on a daily basis. Take, for instance, the interests of 
New England in fishing. We have two of the most important fishing ports 
in all of the country in Gloucester and New Bedford, MA. Until 
recently, our fishermen were able to go up and drag off the coast of 
Canada for scallops. Now, because of an international treaty, we are 
not allowed to do that anymore, and we have huge tensions with Canada 
over the questions of fishing. We have huge tensions over the fish that 
are caught there, that are sold in the United States at a lesser price, 
that take away from our fishermen and their livelihood.
  So these are the relationships. This is not a foreign interest. This 
is not an expenditure of money somehow that goes to someone else's 
benefit abroad. It goes to our benefit, Mr. President. Hopefully, if 
well represented and well negotiated, it goes to our benefit.
  There are dozens of other ways in which examples abound about how our 
interests are or are not represented. We have millions of Americans 
traveling abroad every year, millions probably even as I speak right 
now. They expect to be able to walk into an embassy or a consulate 
office and get answers. They expect to be able to get a visa. They 
expect to have their interests represented. If they get in an accident 
abroad, if they have a sickness abroad, if something happens where they 
are falsely arrested or some other event takes place, we need to be 
able to represent the interests of those citizens abroad.
  Increasingly, Mr. President, in every single sector that is important 
to the interests of Americans, we have been cutting over the last few 
years.
  We made an enormous cut in the foreign affairs budget just 2 years 
ago. We made a cut 2 years before that. It has become sort of the 
whipping boy, if you will, of the budgetary process because there is no 
easy, quick constituency in the United States that leaps up and says, 
``Oh, yes, I identify with that money.''
  Already out of a $1.5 trillion budget, we spend less than 1 percent 
of the total budget on all of our foreign affairs interests, including 
foreign aid, and most of the foreign aid of this country, as we know, 
goes to two countries: Egypt and Israel. So, if you take the almost $12 
billion, I think it is, that goes to Egypt and Israel, we are leaving 
ourselves something like $8 billion for everything else that we wind up 
doing around the world in respect to all of our treaties, all of our 
negotiations, all of our representing of our citizens, all of our 
efforts to try to deal with international crime, with international 
customs problems, with all of the other interests that we have across 
this planet.
  I inform my colleagues that overseas workload has increased 
dramatically. My colleague from Connecticut was talking a few minutes 
ago about what has happened with respect to the sort of closing in of 
the world. The fact is that because the world is now smaller, because 
there are more airlines flying more places, because communications are 
easier, because there is a much broader middle class, not just in 
America, but in many other countries, people are traveling more. And 
because of that travel, there is far more of a relationship between 
nations than there was previously, much more commerce, much more just 
to keep track of.
  The workload for our embassies in just issuing passports, the 
workload in this country in issuing passports, is a 60 percent increase 
in the last few years. The overseas consular operations have exploded--
visas, increased services to Americans, refugee admissions. We have 
opened 30 new posts in the last 3 years because of the collapse of the 
Soviet Union and Europe. And yet, notwithstanding all of that increase, 
there has been no financial increase whatsoever. All of these new 
posts, all of this new work has been taken up by virtue of 
consolidation, cuts, deferred maintenance, reductions.
  Mr. President, I respectfully suggest that a hard analysis of what 
has been happening to the budget with respect 

[[Page S11057]]
to the State Department and the capacity of our Foreign Service 
entities to do their jobs over the last years has been such a 
significant reduction that we are getting to the point where we are 
losing our capacity to represent our own interests.
  This is not smart anymore. This is the old story of cutting off your 
nose to spite your face. This is shooting yourself in the foot. It is 
reducing our own influence. I suggest that we ought to think hard about 
where we are going.
  The State Department's budget has been frozen in recent years. In 
fact, the fiscal year 1996 request is underfunded by over $200 million, 
or by 10 percent when inflation and the exchange rate losses are 
factored in. That is an important thing to recognize, Mr. President. We 
operate our foreign offices, obviously, in a lot of places where the 
currency is fluctuating. So we send people there with an expectation 
that we are going to spend x amount of dollars. But because the dollar 
may go down, you wind up having a huge increase in expenses and it 
costs you a lot more to do the same business.
  Have we increased the amount of money to represent that kind of 
increase in costs? No. We have taken it out of the building fund, we 
have taken it out of maintenance, we have cut other sectors, and we are 
beginning to get to the point where we are reducing our own capacity.
  The State Department has already reduced its work force by 1,300 
positions, and it has cut administrative expenses by almost $100 
million. We have reduced the size of the senior Foreign Service already 
by 10 percent, and we have cut diplomatic security programs by 15 
percent. This is what has already happened.
  Now we approach this bill, and I want to share with my colleagues why 
I think there is such a problem in this bill.
  Despite the fact that this bill meets the administration's 1996 
appropriations accounts for the State Department and the USIA, the 
aggregate funding in this bill for 1996 is $450 million below the 1995 
enacted level, and it is $330 million below the President's 1996 
request. The total funding in the bill decreases sharply over the next 
3 fiscal years. The authorized funding under this bill for fiscal year 
1999 is over $1.3 billion below the 1995 enacted level.
  I will add, Mr. President, that those cuts, that $1.3 billion by 
1999, does not reflect the steep reductions in foreign aid funding 
levels for fiscal years 1996 and 1997 that are in the foreign aid bill. 
So when you add those cuts to the foreign aid bill, you wind up with 
the most significant reduction; in fact, you go below the function 150 
budget resolution figures for the next 2 years. I do not think we ought 
to go below the budget resolution figures in the 150 account for those 
next 2 years, given the reductions that have taken place in the last 
years.
  Mr. President, 10 years ago, in the height of the cold war, when you 
had a bipolar world with this intense focus on basically the Soviet 
bloc and China and whatever satellite countries of theirs were creating 
havoc in other parts of the world, our total international affairs 
budget was 2.44 percent of the total budget of our country--2.44. 
Today, it comprises only 1.3 percent. And in the last decade, the 
appropriations for function 150 have declined by $15.6 billion in 
fiscal year 1996 dollars. They have gone from $36.8 billion in 1985 
down to $21.2 billion in 1995, all of that cut, notwithstanding what 
the Senator from Connecticut and I have just said with respect to an 
increase in responsibility, an increase in the number of relationships 
and an increase in the numbers of issues that we now face.
  I might add, Mr. President, now that you have a world where you do 
not just deal with the Soviet Union and the whole focus is not on arms 
control and the arms race, you actually have unleashed a whole set of 
additional forces that make diplomacy far more complicated. In many 
ways, when you had the Soviet Union and the United States and people 
were dividing up along those lines, you had a much easier dynamic to 
work with than the current international economic competitive 
structure, with all of the attendant environmental, crime, refugee, 
ethnic conflict and other issues that have been liberated.
  I respectfully suggest that the world we face today requires a 
knowledge of what is happening in countries, an understanding of that 
ethnic force, an understanding of who is who within the criminal 
constellation, an understanding of the dynamics of how we can assist 
other countries to move toward sustainable development--a host of 
issues that are far more difficult to leverage and that require 
personal relationships in the leveraging. Yet, here we are withdrawing 
ourselves from the very capacity to create those kinds of personal 
relationships.
  Under the budget resolution, discretionary funding for the 
international affairs budget is reduced by $2.1 billion in fiscal year 
1996 alone. And by fiscal year 2002, the Budget Committee's target date 
for the balanced budget, the mark for the function 150 discretionary 
funding is $14.7 billion.
  Mr. President, we are going to go from $36.8 billion in 1985 to $14.6 
billion in the year 2002, and we are somehow going to pretend that we 
are going to represent the domestic interests of the United States 
abroad with that budget while simultaneously meeting the needs of a 
country that prides itself in being the leader of the free world. I do 
not think it makes sense. I think it is ill considered. I think it is 
shortsighted. I think it is contrary to our national interests, and it 
may not be hyperbole to suggest that it is even dangerous for the 
interests of this country.
  I recognize that economies have to be achieved in all respects, with 
respect to the Federal budget, including international affairs. But the 
dollar alone cannot be the sole measurement with respect to what we are 
doing. We do not just have a fiscal deficit, Mr. President, we have a 
leadership deficit, we have an involvement deficit, we have a presence 
deficit.
  If you travel to Asia today, you will find greater presence of French 
and Germans and Japanese than you will Americans. I am consistently 
asked by foreign businessmen when the United States of America is going 
to get its act together and have the kind of presence necessary to 
signal our determination to be a real player beyond what our weaponry 
gives us.
  It seems to me that those are the kinds of things we ought to be 
thinking about as we arrive at a budget, not just an arbitrary 602(b) 
figure that is thrown out by a couple of people sitting around saying, 
``We will give this much to this committee and that much to that 
committee,'' without a real measurement of what the real impact is in 
the overall interest of our country.
  In addition to the problematic budget areas, Mr. President, this bill 
also contains several provisions that are designed to undermine and 
place restrictions on the United States' participation in the United 
Nations system. For example, the bill mandates that the United States 
withdraw from several international organizations, including the 
International Labor Organization, and it eliminates funding for U.S.-
assessed contributions to these organizations.
  In addition, the bill places conditions on the full payment of the 
U.S.-assessed contributions to the United Nations and to peacekeeping 
operations that serve to weaken our leverage at the United Nations at 
the very moment when our leadership is needed.
  It is very difficult to go to Mr. Akashi and Boutros Boutros-Ghali 
and suggest to them that the role of the United Nations ought to be 
different, and they ought to heed our advice at the same time we are 
pulling back from an obligation, as well as from other involvement and 
efforts of the United Nations. If ever we wanted to invite others to 
begin to spur whatever leadership we might be offering, it seems to me 
that that is one of the ways to do it.
  So, Mr. President, I would hope that in the course of the 
deliberation on this bill we can try to rectify, to whatever degree 
possible, some of these things, so that we get back to the spirit of 
bipartisanship that governed the movement of this bill in the last 11 
years that I have been here. There was an unfortunate vote along party 
lines sending this bill to the floor. It is my hope that we can use 
this time now in the legislative process to harmonize 

[[Page S11058]]
and bring together a bipartisan effort when I think the Congress is 
most well-served and certainly when the interests of the country are 
served. Everybody knows that this country has been strongest when its 
foreign policy is bipartisan. The great standard was written by Arthur 
Vandenberg. In recent days, we have had joint efforts--whether it was 
Senators Lugar and Nunn, who joined together with respect to Russia, or 
whether it was Senator McCain and others here, who joined together with 
respect to Southeast Asia--and we have been able to show that 
bipartisanship makes a difference and it makes this country strong. I 
hope we can find that in further efforts with respect to this 
legislation.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, Senator Kerry is one of the most articulate 
human beings I have ever heard. I wish that he had somehow recognized 
in his eloquent comments the many efforts that we made--when I say 
``we,'' I mean the Foreign Relations Committee majority--to work with 
the administration.
  I myself pleaded with the Vice President of the United States to let 
us get together, as the Senator has recommended. The bureaucracy 
prevailed in the Vice President's office. I am not being personally 
critical of the Vice President. He has many things on his plate. But, 
in this case, the ball got away from him, and the heads of three 
agencies, which were going to be rolled into the State Department where 
they belong, prevailed.
  Warren Christopher, the Secretary of State, went through the same 
agony last fall after the election when he recommended the sort of 
reorganization that the pending legislation represents. Secretary 
Christopher got his comeuppance, and he took it like a man. He is a 
faithful, loyal member of the administration. He wrote a letter the 
other day to Senator Dole, which was amazing to me. Sometime during 
this debate, I am going to put his letter in the Record and my response 
to it.
  I wish we could get together, but at this moment, the White House is 
calling the tune. There is nothing wrong with that. That is the way the 
administration works. But they cannot have it both ways, that we want 
to do this and that, when in fact they have done everything in this 
world, including personal invective, to undermine the pending 
legislation. There were news conferences at the National Press Club 
downtown. One of the bureaucrats made all sorts of remarks, including 
one that I had written this bill on the back of an envelope. The press 
came to me and said, ``What do you think about that?'' I said, ``Well, 
Abraham Lincoln did pretty well on the back of an envelope. I hope I 
have done fairly well.''
  But it has been a personal affront to these people that anybody could 
suggest that their bureaucracies be trimmed. Let me tell you something 
about the U.S. Information Agency. There is a great push to keep it 
like it is. But let me tell you, Mr. President, if you retain the U.S. 
Information Agency as it is, it will cost $320 million over the next 2 
years and $600 million during the 7-year effort to balance the budget.
  Now, all the people who have been lobbied to keep the USIA just like 
it is better bear in mind what the Budget Committee is going to say 
about that. And all sorts of suggestions have been made that, well, we 
are doing well, we just need to do better.
  Well, tell me about the 600 people, Federal employees, in the U.S. 
Embassy at Cairo, whose sole responsibility is to give away the 
American taxpayers' money. What sense does that make? It costs $200,000 
a year to post one Federal employee overseas. They have 600 of them at 
Cairo alone.
  Mr. President, I have several dear friends among the heads of State 
of other countries who come to Washington, and they come to see me in 
my capacity with the Foreign Relations Committee. If I had to pick a 
favorite, I guess it would be Eugenia Charles, who is the former Prime 
Minister of Dominica. I am sad to say that the Prime Minister is not 
running for reelection. She is a pleasant, down-to-earth lady. She 
always comes in my office with a smile on her face. The last time she 
was here, which was about 3 or 4 weeks ago, give or take, she walked in 
and said, ``Well, Senator, I see you are trying to do something about 
your foreign aid program.'' I said, ``Yes, ma'am, I am.'' She said, 
``Well, it is none of my business, but something ought to be done. Do 
you realize, Senator, that it costs you more money to give away money 
than you give away?'' And that is it. It is the bureaucracy that just 
grows and grows and grows, and these efforts with the pending 
legislation, from the administration that has not cooperated with the 
committee at all--John Kerry tried to. I do not know what sort of 
instructions he got from the people downtown to the contrary. But I 
wish we could sit down and work out the difficulties. I am not going to 
give away the store. I am not going to change this bill so that it does 
not meet the budget resolution which was adopted by this Senate and the 
House of Representatives. No, sir, I am not going to do that.
  But if we can have an understanding that we are working on the same 
team, being the Senate of the United States, trying to get a job that 
needs to be done and needs badly to be done, then we can pull this bill 
down and we can operate in good faith. But I cannot have Bill Clinton's 
people looking over somebody's shoulder, because Bill Clinton already 
said he is going to veto it, and he does not even know what is in the 
bill. He wants to keep the status quo. He does not want to save any 
money on foreign aid. Otherwise, he would have sent somebody in good 
faith up here to work with the committee, which we urged him to do, 
which we urged his Vice President to do. But we were stonewalled.
  So do not give me all this stuff about the administration has not 
been consulted. Later on in the debate, we will talk about this 
business of micromanagement. There has been plenty of what some would 
call micromanagement in the past.


                Amendment No. 2042 to Amendment No. 2041

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the 
desk to amendment No. 2041.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.

       The Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2042 to amendment No. 2041.

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the word ``Sec.'' and insert the 
     following:

       .  SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING CONSOLIDATION AND 
                   REINVENTION OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AGENCIES.

       (a) Findings.--The Congress finds that it is necessary in 
     order to make the Government more efficient and to realize 
     significant budgetary savings for the American taxpayer--
       (1) to consolidate and reinvent foreign affairs agencies of 
     the United States within the Department of State;
       (2) to provide for the reorganization of the Department of 
     State to maximize efficient use of resources, eliminate 
     redundancy in functions, and improve the management of the 
     Department of State;
       (3) to assist congressional efforts to balance the Federal 
     budget by the year 2002;
       (4) to ensure that the international affairs budget 
     function shoulders an appropriate share of the reductions in 
     United States Government spending necessary to eliminate the 
     $4,800,000,000,000 budget deficit; and
       (5) to strengthen--
       (A) the coordination of United States foreign policy;
       (B) the leading role of the Secretary of State in the 
     formulation and articulation of United States foreign policy;
       (C) the authority of United States ambassadors over all 
     United States Government personnel and resources located in 
     United States diplomatic missions, in order to enhance the 
     ability of the ambassadors to deploy those resources to the 
     best effect that will attain the President's foreign policy 
     objectives; and
       (D) the United States Foreign Service, as the forward 
     deployed civilian force of the United States Government, 
     through renewed emphasis on the original principles which 
     undergird the distinct Foreign Service personnel system. 
     These include worldwide availability, assignments based on 
     the needs of the service, rank in person, and merit-based 
     advancement.
       (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that 
     the President should--
       (1) consolidate and eliminate, such duplicative, 
     overlapping or superfluous personnel, functions, goals, 
     activities, offices, and programs that the United States Arms 
     Control and Disarmament Agency, the United States Information 
     Agency, and the Agency for International Development have in 
     common with the Department of State in order to realize a 
     budgetary savings to the American taxpayer of at least 
     $3,000,000,000 during fiscal years 1996 through 1999;

[[Page S11059]]

       (2) encourage the United States foreign affairs agencies to 
     maintain a high percentage of the best qualified, most 
     competent American citizens serving in the United States 
     Government while downsizing significantly the total number of 
     people employed by these agencies; and
       (3) ensure that all functions of diplomacy be subject to 
     recruitment, training, assignment, promotion and egress based 
     on common standards and procedures, with maximum interchange 
     among the functions.

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, let me get back to one of the most heavily 
lobbied portions of the pending bill.
  I said a while ago that keeping the U.S. Information Agency as it is 
will cost $320 million over the next 2 years, and $600 million during 
our 7-year effort to balance the budget. Those who do not care whether 
the budget is balanced or not in 7 years, do not care very much one way 
or another.
  The effort to keep the U.S. Information Agency independent of the 
Department of State is misguided and it is out of step. The time has 
come to recognize the problem and to reorganize our entire foreign 
relations apparatus.
  As John Kerry has said with his customary eloquence, public diplomacy 
is an extremely important part of the way this country conducts 
business with other countries. It is, after all, the way we convey 
American values and interests, and the way that we communicate the 
American dream to the people around the world.
  Accordingly, Mr. President, it ought to be part and parcel of the 
larger foreign policy effort, not shunted away out of sight, out of 
mind. As the single agency charged with the conduct of U.S. foreign 
relations, the Department of State must be given a clear mandate and 
must be provided with all the tools of the trade. Diplomacy can be a 
most effective tool, but its effectiveness can be truly realized only 
when it is synchronized with all the rest of the diplomatic 
initiatives.
  That is just not the opinion of Jesse Helms, a member of the Foreign 
Relations Committee. Five Secretaries of State have said the same 
thing. They have endorsed this bill which President Clinton, Vice 
President Gore, and now poor Warren Christopher, who is caught in a 
bind, say they oppose.
  Now, S. 908 acknowledges what has to be the centrality of public 
diplomacy of foreign affairs, by putting public diplomacy at the center 
of the foreign affairs apparatus.
  I ask, what is a better way to make sure that this tool gets used 
frequently, than to provide it to those who need it and to those who 
will use it, by creating an Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy within 
the Department of State, as this bill proposes? We will strengthen our 
core foreign policy apparatus, and 5 former Secretaries of State have 
testified and written letters of endorsement of this very proposal that 
is the pending business in the U.S. Senate.
  As for the U.S. Information Agency, its consolidation into the State 
Department will allow us to stretch our dollars devoted to foreign 
policy. It will cut out the waste. It will cut down on the bureaucracy. 
It will cut out functions that really are not essential to our foreign 
policy. They may be desirable, but they are not essential.
  Now, in the case of international broadcasting, the irony is that S. 
908, the pending bill, is the best deal in town. They will not find a 
better one--not from Bill Clinton, not from Al Gore, not from anybody 
else. Right here, it is pending before the U.S. Senate.
  S. 908, Mr. President, assures the continuation of the restructuring, 
the reduction, and the consolidation of broadcasting elements that 
began last fall. This bill will ensure that the Congress and the 
administration keep their commitment to support broadcasting around the 
world. Some of the people--lobbyists--who are opposing S. 908 would 
have you believe otherwise.
  Broadcasting, under this bill, will remain independent and will be 
operated by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is a nonpartisan 
board that sets the broadcasting policy.
  In a very real way, S. 908, despite the protests of people who will 
save it, passes the litmus test of USIA itself. It strengthens the role 
of public diplomacy in our foreign policy apparatus by integrating it 
with larger foreign policy concerns.
  As has been shown, S. 908 in no way eliminates or reduces the 
capabilities needed to convey the American message to foreign 
populations. That is the job it was created to do in the first place.
  It preserves those capabilities, but it also makes a strong move to 
abolish waste and needless bureaucratic duplication. That is where some 
nerves have been rubbed raw.
  Make no mistake, the amendment to retain USIA, any effort to retain 
USIA independently, is a proposal to retain wastefulness and 
inefficiency. It is a tired old litany. I hope the Senate, if and when 
we are given an opportunity to vote on the matter, will understand what 
it is all about.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Thank you Mr. President. I think the chairman has 
accurately stated the dilemma that faces members here in terms of 
making decisions about whether or not to move forward with a specific 
consolidation proposal.
  The real question is whether or not there is support--bipartisan 
support--for a consolidation proposal.
  We heard from Senator Kerry this morning, who said that he supports 
consolidation, the idea of consolidation. He basically said the same 
thing in committee.
  The problem is, there has been no specific proposal forthcoming to 
achieve the goals of consolidation. That is the problem. Everybody 
talks about consolidation, eliminating duplicating functions and 
responsibilities, but there is no specific plan that has been put 
forward by the minority, on the committee or here on the floor, that 
achieves the goals that are necessary and indeed mandated by the budget 
resolution.
  Even the Vice President said, back on January 27, that he would come 
forward with a plan for reinventing Government and these agencies in 
the State Department that would achieve a savings of $5 billion. We 
have no such plan.
  The only recommendation the Vice President has made is eliminating 6 
missions and streamlining the contracting services within the agencies. 
That is it. That will not achieve $5 billion. Even our savings are less 
than $5 billion. The fact is the budget resolution requires us to 
achieve $3.6 billion.
  Now, somebody can say how we do it differently. I cannot understand, 
frankly, why the minority could not accept the principles that are 
embodied in the amendment that is before the Senate. It says, and it is 
a sense of Congress, that the President should consolidate and 
eliminate duplicative, overlapping or superfluous goals, activities, 
offices, and programs that the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament 
Agency, the U.S. Information Agency, and the Agency for International 
Development have in common with the Department of State, in order to 
realize budgetary savings to the American taxpayers. That leaves $3 
billion during fiscal years 1996 through 1999.
  That is the essence of the amendment now pending before the Senate. 
It incorporates the principles of consolidation.
  It is obvious that there is not an interest in working together in a 
bipartisan way to come up with a consolidation plan that can get a 
majority of support here.
  Now, the President--and I can understand, there is a dilemma here for 
those on the minority side--the President proposed in his budget to 
increase the 150 account by $1 billion. The budget resolution that 
passed this Congress requires us to cut by $3.6 billion. That is what 
we have to do.
  The President does not want to cut the foreign affairs account. He is 
asking for a $1 billion increase.
  That is why I think we are meeting the resistance from the other side 
with respect to consolidation, because they do not want to consolidate. 
They do not want to eliminate. They do not want to do anything to 
change the status quo. That is what last year's election was all 
about--to change the status quo on how we conduct our business. That is 
what we have to do. That is our mandate here. It surprises me in a lot 
of ways to suggest that there are not ways in which we can do that. I 
happen to think that consolidation is necessary because I think it will 
reinvigorate the departments and the agencies. I think it will 
reinvigorate the 

[[Page S11060]]
State Department in the way it conducts its foreign policy 
decisionmaking. I think it is necessary.
  Does anyone here suggest that we should not look at the exchange 
programs? I am a strong advocate of the exchange programs. But, believe 
it or not, the exchange programs have doubled. They have actually 
doubled since 1990. They have doubled in the 1980's. So they doubled in 
the 1980's and they have doubled since 1990. We are proposing that we 
cut $400 million in the exchange programs that are duplicative. They 
are spread out all over the U.S. Government. We are saying we should 
consolidate and manage them because we do think they are important, 
especially in this post-cold-war period. It is important for our young 
people to have a chance to understand the cultures of governments of 
other countries. But does anybody think that we should not do it a 
little bit differently, given the proliferation of those exchange 
programs? I say not.
  What about the Agency for International Development? As I said, the 
Director has done an outstanding job since he has been in that 
position. But there is much more to be done. Even he said, several 
years ago before he took that position, that the agency was a disaster. 
We have spent on development assistance since the agency was created 
$144 billion, and we still provide countries with assistance. Countries 
have received development assistance from 35 to 51 years consecutively. 
We have not made any headway.
  The point is, we have to do things somewhat differently. We should 
tie development assistance to our foreign policy goals. There is 
nothing wrong with that. Indeed, I think we will maximize the benefits 
for our taxpayers, but also for our specific goal.
  Sixty percent of the employees of the Agency for International 
Development work here in Washington, DC. There are 9,000 employees in 
the Agency for International Development--9,000. Just the 
administrative costs alone represent 25 cents on every development 
dollar we spend, but that does not take into account the grants. That 
is where the other 4,000 employees come in. We have 5,000 under the 
traditional administrative costs and overhead, and then we have another 
4,000 employees that are paid through the grants that we issue through 
development assistance in the Agency for International Development.
  Is anyone suggesting that we should not cut or reform those programs 
to maximize the benefits for the American taxpayers and, indeed, the 
program? No one is saying that the essence of development assistance 
and helping countries for sustainable development for the future to 
become independent economically is not essential. It absolutely is. The 
question is how we achieve those goals.
  That is what we are attempting to do with this legislation: To 
consolidate and to improve the way in which we deliver these programs.
  Public diplomacy--I have been a very strong proponent of the 
broadcasting functions under the USIA. Again, the question is whether 
or not we can move those functions within the State Department. I had 
concerns about maintaining the independence and integrity of the 
broadcasting functions of radio, for example. But we maintain that 
critical firewall in this legislation because we have a broadcasting 
board of governors. So we will maintain the independence and integrity 
of radio. But there is not anything to say that we cannot do things 
differently in bringing them into the State Department hierarchy.
  Edward R. Morrow, who was once the USIA Director, said that 
oftentimes the agency was always brought in when a policy crash landed, 
but was never there when there was a takeoff. I think they will correct 
that longstanding problem. I think it is our responsibility to reform 
the public diplomacy structure. We create an Under Secretary for Public 
Diplomacy. We create a fifth person so that preserves the Foreign 
Service officers and their skills, because I have a great deal of 
respect for their professionalism and their dedication to their job. 
There is no greater demonstration of the way in which they perform than 
at the various embassies around the world. In fact, they are integrated 
fully into the process within the embassy. That is exactly the same 
kind of procedure we want to duplicate here in Washington, DC. 
Everybody works together.
  Today, in a more democratic world than ever before, the foreign 
policy in those countries is very, very essential to the formation of 
policy in this country. That is what public diplomacy has become, an 
essential responsibility. I think we can emphasize that even more by 
taking the USIA and putting it into the State Department. We are not 
here to deemphasize it or say it is a lesser priority; absolutely not. 
We are saying it is very much a priority, and we are going to protect 
the integrity and the independence of broadcasting. In fact, we had the 
nomination hearing for the eight individuals who serve on that board, a 
very distinguished group of individuals that will bring a broad array 
of experience into the public and private sector to manage this board 
in this transition. I have a great deal of confidence in their ability 
to manage a very crucial change in the broadcasting function.
  I hope, as generally can be the case, that we just do not have this 
natural visceral reaction in opposition to any kind of change. I am 
certainly willing to consider any proposal and any ideas to reform the 
consolidation that we have before us. I think we have to make a 
decision that consolidation is very, very essential. But we are not 
getting any specific or concrete ideas from the other side as to how to 
achieve it. We keep hearing, well, we support consolidation. But we 
have been hearing that for 6 months, and nothing has come forward that 
would suggest that they have a plan or indeed actually support any kind 
of plan for consolidation.
  We will hopefully go through this legislation and hopefully we will 
have a vote, which I am going to ask for in a moment on the pending 
amendment, because I think it is important that we find out where 
everybody stands on the principle of consolidation of the State 
Department and its related agencies.
  We are here today because we need to change the way in which we 
handle the organizational structure of the State Department and other 
agencies. But we certainly want to do everything we can to make it 
right.
  Senator Kerry mentioned the fact that we have increased 
responsibilities on the embassies and our diplomatic corps. That is 
certainly true. In fact, this last year, I attempted to mandate a cost 
sharing so we apportion the costs within each embassy among a variety 
of agencies, because the State Department is not the only one that 
creates costs within our embassies. We have the Department of Commerce, 
the Department of Defense, and other agencies that have 
responsibilities for those embassies, and yet they do not pay their 
fair share of cost.
  Unfortunately, I was not successful. I am not saying that we just 
should cut. I am saying that we should cut in a responsible way through 
consolidation. I do not think anybody can disagree on the purpose of 
consolidation.
  So as we move forward in this debate, perhaps there will be some 
interest on the other side, and most specifically the administration, 
which obviously is governing the course and the direction of this 
legislation, with respect to accepting the idea of consolidation or 
not.
                      opposition to abolishing aid

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I oppose abolishing the Agency for 
International Development and merging its programs and personnel into 
the State Department. This proposal will do more than simply move some 
boxes around on an organizational chart; it will make fundamental 
changes in the ability of AID to perform its mission. As a result, it 
threatens our ability to protect and advance important American 
interests.
  Let me begin by identifying three primary elements of AID's mission.
  First, there is a clear and compelling humanitarian interest. AID's 
programs tells others, and reminds us, that the United States is a 
caring and compassionate Nation. That compassion and caring reflect 
both our character as a country and our recognition that we have the 
resources and the responsibility to do what we can to help those in 
need. Compassion has a place in foreign policy and our main instrument 
in this regard--in feeding children, providing housing and medical 
care, building 

[[Page S11061]]
roads and sewers, and so much more--is AID.
  Second, AID is the instrument through which we get on with the task 
of building functional democracies around the world. What we sought to 
preserve throughout the cold war, we can now expand. Country after 
country, on continent after continent, want to establish representative 
governments, democratically elected and based on the rule of law and a 
respect for human rights and liberties. The development assistance and 
expertise developed by AID is the way to get them the resources they 
need to achieve a result we all want. While there is an element of 
altruism in such programs, there is also a cold calculation that it 
serves our national interest. Wherever we are successful in ensuring 
that democratic principles take root, we are less likely to face the 
prospect of intervention in a political crisis, with it the high costs 
of peacekeeping and emergency relief operations.
  Third, AID's overseas assistance efforts provide for both immediate 
and long-term economic benefits to the United States.
  In the short run, nearly 80 percent of AID's grants and contracts go 
directly to American firms and private organizations. This creates 
American jobs, encourages American exports, and expands domestic 
prosperity. Over the longer run, our current and prospective foreign 
assistance efforts help to create future overseas markets for American 
goods and services in developing countries. A built-in, long-term 
preference for American exports bodes well for continued employment and 
prosperity here as well.
  So, Mr. President, the functions that AID preforms are important. And 
the question now is whether we can continue that work in a new 
organizational structure.
  I do not think we can or need to for three reasons.
  First, AID is already reorganizing. The Agency is reinventing itself 
in order to become both more efficient and effective. Under the 
leadership of its Administrator, Brian Atwood, AID has already cut its 
costs. Overseas, AID will have closed 21 missions between 1994 and 
1996. In its domestic operations, AID has eliminated 90 offices in 
Washington. Overall, AID has cut 70 senior positions and reduced total 
staff by over 1,200. Moreover, AID is adopting a new development 
strategy. Recognizing that its limited resources make it impossible to 
be all things to all people, it is targeting fewer countries for more 
intensive assistance. While some may criticize this almost triage-like 
approach, it certainly reflects a willingness to adopt a leaner focus 
to the problems it confronts.
  Second, the suggestion that the savings will come out of 
``administrative reforms'' is simply not credible. As I have indicated, 
AID has already scaled back. I do not believe there will be significant 
additional administrative savings from this consolidation. The reality 
is that AID's overseas operations, like all U.S. Government agencies 
and departments operations in our embassies and consulates, already are 
fully integrated into State Department administrative services on a 
reimbursable basis. So, the proposed consolidation would not save any 
money abroad. And domestically, there is no room in the State 
Department to house AID's employees and functions, so we will not save 
on building costs here in Washington, either.
  The net result, I fear, is a further reduction in our developmental 
programs. Some may say ``well its about time.'' But that kind of 
response is usually based on a profound misunderstanding of just how 
much we spend on foreign aid. While many believe that such programs 
account for 8 to 10 percent of all Federal spending, in reality they 
now constitute only \1/2\ of 1 percent of all spending by the U.S. 
Government. This level of spending already places us in the lowest 
ranks of the developed world in terms of per capita spending on foreign 
aid and assistance programs. Indeed, from 1956 to 1993, our share of 
official development assistance worldwide has dropped from 63 to 17 
percent. Our current effort, then, is inadequate. This bill makes it 
even worse. And, as a result, it threatens our ability to protect the 
national interests I identified at the beginning of these remarks.
  Finally, Mr. President, I have to note the major irony involved in 
this proposal. This proposal to augment and centralize the State 
Department is made by precisely the same people who profess to believe 
that ``big government'' should be decentralized and made more flexible.
  Let me conclude, Mr. President, with this simple observation. 
Destroying AID is not the way to accomplish our foreign policy 
objectives. It would not be efficient or effective, and we should not 
do it.


                          ____________________