[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 14 (Thursday, February 1, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E143-E144]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO GENERAL D.O. GRAHAM

                                 ______


                         HON. DANA ROHRABACHER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, February 1, 1996

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, Gen. Daniel Graham's service to this 
country has been matched by few Americans. As a tribute to him and his 
achievements, I would like to submit for the Record, a letter that 
Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote to General Graham last year, and General 
Graham's obituary as it appeared in the January 3, 1996, edition of the 
New York Times.

                                U.S. House of Representatives,

                                     Washington, DC, May 10, 1995.
       Dear Dan: I am sorry I am not able to join you this 
     evening. However, I do not want my appreciation of your 
     achievements to go unstated.
       Your contributions to U.S. national security and the U.S. 
     space program are exceptionally well known in Congress. As 
     Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, your unflinching 
     analysis of Soviet capabilities and intentions reminded us 
     that the Soviet Union was an unfailing adversary that wished 
     the United States immense harm. Your fortitude in telling 
     elected officials the cold, hard truth, even when they 
     sometimes did not want to hear it, served as a guidepost by 
     which we could reorient U.S. foreign policy and win the Cold 
     War.
       Even in retirement, General Graham, you were dedicated and 
     forward-thinking which you proved by founding High Frontier, 
     a citizen's organization dedicated to leading the United 
     States towards a secure future in space. Your leadership 
     helped President Reagan launch the Strategic Defense 
     Initiative, which has brought us ever closer to ending the 
     threat of nuclear annihilation. However, you were not 
     satisfied to simply improve national security, but you led 
     High Frontier and its sister organization, the Space 
     Transportation Association, to creatively think about the 
     U.S. future in space. Today, under you care and instruction, 
     these two organizations are among the most creative sources 
     of thinking on developing outer space as a national resource. 
     The X-33 program to create a reusable rocket that 
     dramatically lowers the cost of access to space, for example, 
     would not be happening today without the contributions of you 
     and your colleagues.
       In closing, I can only say thank you for your past service 
     in the Cold War and your wonderful contributions to America's 
     future. In formulating a vision for space development, you 
     planted, watered, and nurtured a seed that is growing as we 
     speak and will one day surpass our wildest imagination. Thank 
     you Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham for helping save 
     America.
           Your friend,
                                                    Newt Gingrich.

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 3, 1996]

            D.O. Graham, 70, Creator of `Star Wars' Defense

                            (By Steve Lohr)

       Lieut. Gen. Daniel O. Graham, one of the leading architects 
     of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, 
     also known as ``Star Wars,'' died on Sunday at his home in 
     Arlington, Va. He was 70.
       General Graham died of colon cancer, Brig. Gen. Robert 
     Richardson 3d, a friend and longtime colleague, said 
     yesterday.
       While others, including Dr. Edward Teller, played roles in 
     getting the Reagan Administration to adopt the Star Wars plan 
     to shield 

[[Page E144]]
     the United States from Soviet nuclear attack with space-based missiles, 
     even General Graham's opponents acknowledge that he was 
     probably the most persistent advocate for the approach.
       ``Dan Graham got it on the national agenda and, though it's 
     been modified recently, the ballistic missile defense concept 
     has remained on the agenda ever since,'' said John Pike, 
     director of the space policy project of the Federation of 
     American Scientists, a research group in Washington.
       The Strategic Defense Initiative changed its name to the 
     Ballistic Missile Defense Project in 1993, Mr. Pike noted, 
     but the project is still spending more than $3 billion a year 
     on the kind of high-technology programs that General Graham 
     championed
       A graduate of West Point, General Graham spent 30 years in 
     the military, serving in Germany, Korea and Vietnam. Much of 
     his career was spent in military intelligence as a Soviet 
     specialist, and he became an expert in missile defense 
     systems and satellite surveillance. He rose to become deputy 
     director of the Central Intelligence Agency for two years in 
     the 1970's, before he became the director of the Defense 
     Intelligence Agency from 1974 to 1976, when he retired.
       The general was known as an ardent hawk, even among his 
     Pentagon peers, a man who strongly believed in the 1970's 
     that the rapid growth of the Soviet Union's military was 
     being ignored within the American intelligence community. And 
     it was after General Graham retired from the military that he 
     was able to press his views most effectively.
       In 1976, General Graham advised Ronald Reagan in his first 
     Presidential campaign, which was unsuccessful. In late 1979, 
     the general was again asked to advise Mr. Reagan on military 
     matters in his bid for the Presidency. Even then, General 
     Graham was enthusiastic about shifting the nation's military 
     resources to an antimissile defense. But as the general 
     recalled later, the invitation from Mr. Reagan prompted him 
     to get ``really busy'' on finding a way to pursue an 
     antimissile defense policy.
       In his research, General Graham came upon a plan developed 
     in the Eisenhower Administration to destroy Russian missiles 
     early in flight with Ballistic Missile Boost Intercepts, or 
     Bambi, an early blueprint for space-based battle stations. 
     The project was canceled after the Kennedy Administration 
     concluded that it would be costly and unworkable.
       Yet General Graham came to the view that technical strides 
     in the intervening two decades gave the concept of space-
     based missile defense new life, according to ``Teller's 
     War,'' a 1992 history of Star Wars by William J. Broad.
       In 1981, General Graham set up High Frontier Inc., a policy 
     organization intended to study and promote defense systems in 
     space. In the last few years, High Frontier has focused more 
     on space transportation and support systems instead of 
     missiles, said General Richardson, deputy director of High 
     Frontier in Arlington, Va.
       Born on April 13, 1925, General Graham spent his childhood 
     as the son of farmers near Medford, Ore. He came from a poor 
     family, working in saw mills and orchards as a teen-ager, his 
     son, Douglas, of Arlington, said yesterday.
       General Graham is survived by his second wife, Adele Piro 
     Graham, whom he married in 1994. His first wife, Ruth Maxwell 
     Graham, died in 1989.
       Besides his wife and son, General Graham is survived by six 
     other children, Daniel Jr. of Fairfax, Va.; Melanie of Los 
     Angeles; Laurie of Falls Church, Va.; Elizabeth of Falmouth, 
     Va.; Julianne Stovall of Alexandria, and Margaret Cuccinello 
     of Thomaston, Me.; two brothers, Patrick of San Diego and 
     James of Colorado Springs, and one sister, Sharon Martinez of 
     Pacifica, Calif.

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