[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 30, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4420-S4423]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WHO NEEDS AMBASSADORS?

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, Richard N. Gardner, the U.S. Ambassador 
to Spain, recently addressed the American Society of International Law 
on the subject, ``Who Needs Ambassadors?''
  Ambassador Gardner, who served in the Department of State under 
President Kennedy, as Ambassador to Italy under President Carter, and 
now as President Clinton's Ambassador to Spain, is among the Nation's 
most highly regarded experts on international relations, and is 
uniquely qualified to answer this important question.
  Ambassador Gardner is rightly concerned about the fervor of some to 
slash our already small foreign policy budget because of the simplistic 
view that the Nation's foreign policy requirements are less significant 
than during the cold war.
  Ambassador Gardner emphasizes that our foreign policy before the cold 
war was ``trying to create a world in which the American people could 
be secure and prosperous and see their deeply held values of political 
and economic freedom increasingly realized in other parts of the 
world.'' He also reminds us that this is still the purpose of our 
foreign policy.
  There is a tendency by some to suggest that there is a lesser need 
for a U.S. presence abroad, and that in an era of instantaneous 
information, a fax machine is all we need to conduct foreign policy. As 
Ambassador Gardner points out, however, our embassies serve many 
important functions, not least of which are to build bilateral and 
multilateral relationships for mutual benefit, serve as the eyes and 
ears of the President and the State Department, and carry out U.S. 
policy objectives abroad. As Ambassador Gardner notes: ``Things don't 
happen just because we say so. Discussion and persuasion are necessary. 
Diplomacy by fax simply doesn't work.''
  The foreign policy budget of this country is only about 1 percent of 
our total budget. Yet some in Congress propose to reduce it even 
further. As Ambassador Gardner states, further cuts ``will gravely 
undermine our ability to influence foreign governments and will 
severely diminish our leadership role in world affairs.''
  Global interdependence is a fact of life. The United States foreign 
policy is best served by actively engaging with other nations, rather 
than reacting at greater cost to events we don't see coming because we 
are trying to conduct foreign policy on the cheap.
  Mr. President, I believe that my colleagues will be interested in 
Ambassador Gardner's remarks and I ask unanimous consent that his 
address be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                         Who Needs Ambassadors?

                        (By Richard N. Gardner)

       I was tremendously honored and pleased when Edith Weiss 
     asked me to be the banquet speaker at this year's ASIL 
     meeting.
       Honored because I know how many illustrious statesmen and 
     scholars have preceded me in this role. Pleased because your 
     invitation gives me the chance to return from my diplomatic 
     assignment in Madrid to be with many old friends, such as my 
     Columbia Law School colleagues Oscar Schachter, Louis Henkin 
     and Lori Damrosch, and with President Edie Weiss who took one 
     of my seminars some twenty years ago when she came to 
     Columbia Law School as a Visiting Scholar.
       Edie, your Presidency of this Society is a splendid 
     recognition of your achievements as teacher, public servant, 
     and scholar. My congratulations also to Charles Brower, your

[[Page S4421]]

     President-elect, one of the world's leading experts in 
     international arbitration, whose service as Judge in the 
     Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal earned the admiration of us all.
       This Society is now 90 years old. I came to my first annual 
     meeting when the Society was just half its present age--in 
     1951, to be exact. I was in my third year at Yale Law School 
     and had fallen under the hypnotic spell of Myres McDougal and 
     Harold Lasswell. My exposure to them and to the other 
     ``greats'' of your 1951 meeting persuaded me to make a career 
     in international law. I have never regretted this decision.
       Fourteen years after my first annual meeting, in 1965, you 
     made me one of your two banquet speakers. The other banquet 
     speaker was Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Louis Sohn was the 
     Toastmaster and explained to me that I was on the program in 
     case the Secretary of State didn't show up.
       That did not in the least diminish my pleasure in being on 
     that podium. I delivered a brief summary of what I'm sure was 
     a rather too detailed lecture about U.N. decision-making 
     procedure and power realities.
       Secretary Rusk delivered his speech on Vietnam, which 
     provoked a lively discussion period. I recall that one of the 
     questions to the Secretary was about the possible role of 
     fact-finding in the Vietnamese conflict. It was asked by a 
     young international lawyer named Thomas Franck. At the end of 
     the evening Secretary Rusk asked me: ``Who is that young man? 
     I think he'll go far.''
       When President Jimmy Carter appointed me U.S. ambassador to 
     Italy, my son--then 13 years old--said, ``Dad, you mean 
     you're going to be ambassador to Italy, and also get paid for 
     it?'' Thanks to President Clinton, I'm now one of only three 
     Americans in history who have been privileged to serve as 
     ambassador in both Rome and Madrid. I feel very fortunate, 
     indeed, to be in Madrid, although I'm also pleased that I am 
     being paid for it.
       But I also come to you as a deeply troubled ambassador. I 
     am troubled by the lack of understanding in our country today 
     about our foreign policy priorities and the vital role of our 
     embassies in implementing them. I sometimes think that what 
     our ambassadors and embassies do is one of our country's best 
     kept secrets.
       During the Cold War there was also confusion and ignorance, 
     but at least there was bipartisan consensus on the need for 
     American leadership in defending freedom in the world against 
     Soviet aggression and the spread of totalitarian communism.
       Much of my work as ambassador to Italy was dominated by 
     this overriding priority. At a time when some Italian leaders 
     were flirting with the compromesso storico--a government 
     alliance between Christian Democrats and an Italian Communist 
     Party still largely oriented toward Moscow--I was able to 
     play a modest role in making sure the Italians understood why 
     the United States opposed the entry of Communist parties into 
     the governments of NATO allies.
       When the Soviet Union began threatening Europe by deploying 
     its SS-20 missiles, it was vitally important for NATO to 
     respond by deploying the Pershing 2 and cruise missiles. It 
     soon became clear that the deployment could not occur without 
     a favorable decision by Italy. Our embassy in Rome was able 
     to persuade an Italian Socialist Party with a history of 
     hostility to NATO to do an about-face and vote for the cruise 
     missile deployment in the Italian Parliament along with the 
     Christian Democrats and the small non-communist lay parties.
       Some years later Mikhail Gorbachev said it was the NATO 
     decision to deploy the Pershing and cruise missiles--not the 
     Strategic Defense Initiative as some have claimed--that 
     helped bring him to the realization that his country had to 
     move from a policy based on military threats to one of 
     accommodation with the West.
       So at the height of the Cold War, it did not take a genius 
     to understand the need for strong U.S. leadership in the 
     world and for effective ambassadors and embassies in support 
     of that leadership.
       Today, however, there is no single unifying threat to help 
     justify and define a world role for the United States. As a 
     result, we are witnessing devastating reductions in the State 
     Department budget which covers the cost of our embassies 
     overseas.
       Hence the title of my speech tonight, ``Who Needs 
     Ambassadors?'' I am sure this audience needs no lecture on 
     the subject. But let's face it--the world view of the people 
     in this room is not the world view of most Americans.
       The constructive international engagement we all believe in 
     will continue to be at risk until we all do a better job of 
     explaining its financial requirements to the American people 
     and the Congress.
       Now that there is no longer a Soviet Union and a Communist 
     threat, what is our foreign policy all about? And what is the 
     current need for ambassadors and embassies?
       We need to give simple and understandable answers to these 
     questions, showing how foreign policy and diplomacy impact on 
     the values, interests and daily lives of ordinary Americans. 
     in giving my own answers tonight, I'll be saying many things 
     you will find obvious. But as Adlai Stevenson once said: 
     ``Mankind needs repetition of the obvious more than 
     elucidation of the obscure.'' This is particularly true in 
     this new world of complexity and unprecedented change.
       A common refrain heard today is that American foreign 
     policy lacks a single unifying goal and a coherent strategy 
     for achieving it. But precisely because the post Cold War 
     world is so complex, so rapidly evolving, and characterized 
     by so many diverse threats to our interests, it is difficult 
     to encapsulate in one sentence or one paragraph a definition 
     of American foreign policy that has global application.
       Perhaps we should start by recalling what our foreign 
     policy was all about before there was a Cold War. It was 
     about trying to create a world in which the American people 
     could be secure and prosperous and see their deeply held 
     values of political and economic freedom increasingly 
     realized in other parts of the world. Well, that is still the 
     purpose of our foreign policy today.
       Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, with broad 
     bipartisan support from Republicans like Wendell Wilkie and 
     Arthur Vandenberg, sought to implement these high purposes 
     with a policy of practical internationalism, which I define 
     as working with other countries in bilateral, regional and 
     global institutions to advance common interests in peace, 
     welfare and human rights.
       Our postwar ``founding fathers'' in both political parties 
     understood the importance of military power and the need to 
     act alone if necessary in defense of U.S. interests. But they 
     also gave us the United Nations, the Bretton Woods 
     organizations, GATT, the Marshall Plan, NATO and the Point 
     Four program as indispensable instruments for achieving our 
     national purposes in close cooperation with others.
       Why did they do these things?
       Because they understood the growing interdependence between 
     conditions in our country and conditions in our global 
     neighborhood.
       Because they understood that our best chance to shape the 
     world environment to promote our national security and 
     welfare was to share costs and risks with other nations in 
     international institutions.
       And because they understood that our national interest in 
     the long run would best be served by realizing the benefits 
     of reciprocity and stability only achievable through the 
     development of international law.
       Listening to much of our public debate, I sometimes think 
     that all this history has been forgotten, that we are 
     suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. I submit that 
     the basic case for American world leadership today is 
     essentially the same as it was before the Cold War began. It 
     is a very different world, of course, but the fact of our 
     interdependence remains. Obviously, in every major respect, 
     it has grown.
       In his address to Freedom House last October, President 
     Clinton spelled out for Americans why a strong U.S. 
     leadership role in the world is intimately related to the 
     quality of their daily lives:
       ``The once bright line between domestic and foreign policy 
     is blurring. If I could do anything to change the speech 
     patterns of those of us in public life, I would almost like 
     to stop hearing people talk about foreign policy and domestic 
     policy, and instead start discussing economic policy, 
     security policy, environmental policy--you name it.
       ``Our personal, family, and national security is affected 
     by our policy on terrorism at home and abroad. Our personal, 
     family and national prosperity is affected by our policy on 
     market economics at home and abroad. Our personal, family and 
     national future is affected by our policies on the 
     environment at home and abroad. The common good at home is 
     simply not separate from our efforts to advance the common 
     good around the world. They must be one and the same if we 
     are to be truly secure in the world of the 21st century.''
       What are the specific foreign policy priorities in the 
     Clinton Administration? In a recent speech at Harvard's 
     Kennedy School, Secretary of State Warren Christopher 
     identified three to which we are giving special emphasis--
     pursuing peace in regions of vital interest, confronting the 
     new transnational security threats, and promoting open 
     markets and prosperity.
       The broad lines of American policy in these three priority 
     areas are necessarily hammered out in Washington. But our 
     embassies constitute an essential part of the delivery system 
     through which those policies are implemented in particular 
     regions and countries.
       This includes not only such vital multilateral embassies as 
     our missions to the UN in New York, Geneva and Vienna, and to 
     NATO and the European Union in Brussels, but also our 
     embassies in the more than 180 countries with which we 
     maintain diplomatic relations.
       Americans have fallen into the habit of thinking that 
     ambassadors and embassies have become irrelevant luxuries, 
     obsolete frills in an age of instant communications. We make 
     the mistake of thinking that if a sound foreign policy 
     decision is approved at the State Department or the White 
     House, it does not much matter how it is carried out in the 
     field.
       This is a dangerous illusion indulged in by no other major 
     country. Things don't happen just because we say so. 
     Discussion and persuasion are necessary. Diplomacy by fax 
     simply doesn't work.
       Ambassadors today need to perform multiple roles. They 
     should be the ``eyes and ears'' of the President and 
     Secretary of State; advocates of our country's foreign policy 
     in the upper reaches of the host government; resourceful 
     negotiators in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. They 
     need to build personal relationships of mutual trust with key 
     overseas decision-makers in government and the private 
     sector. They should

[[Page S4422]]

     also radiate American values as intellectual, educational and 
     cultural emissaries, communicating what our country stands 
     for to interest groups and intellectual leaders as well as to 
     the public at large.
       In a previous age of diplomacy, U.S. ambassadors spent most 
     of their time dealing with bilateral issues between the 
     United States and the host country. Bilateral issues are 
     still important--assuring access to host country military 
     bases, promoting sales of U.S. products, stimulating 
     educational and cultural exchanges are some notable examples. 
     And every embassy has the obligation to report on and analyze 
     political and economic developments in the host country that 
     may impact on U.S. interests.
       But most of the work of our ambassadors and embassies today 
     is devoted to regional and global issues--indeed, to acting 
     upon the three key priorities identified by Secretary 
     Christopher in his Kennedy School speech. Let me give you 
     some examples based on my experience in Madrid and with my 
     fellow ambassadors in Europe:
       On the first priority: pursuing peace in regions of vital 
     interest:
       We are working with our host countries to fashion common 
     policies on the continued transformation of NATO, Partnership 
     for Peace, NATO enlargement, and NATO-Russia relations.
       After having secured host country support for the military 
     and diplomatic measures that brought an end to the fighting 
     in Bosnia, we are now working to assure the implementation of 
     the civilian side of the Dayton Agreement, notably economic 
     reconstruction, free elections, the resettlement of refugees, 
     and the prosecution of war crimes.
       We are working with host governments to restore momentum to 
     the endangered Middle East peace process by mobilizing 
     international action against the Hamas terrorists and their 
     supporters, providing technical assistance and economic aid 
     to the Palestinian authority, encouraging the vital Syrian-
     Israeli negotiations, and promoting regional Middle East 
     economic development.
       We have been consulting with key European governments such 
     as Spain as well as with the EU Commission in Brussels on how 
     to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.
       Although they share this common objective, the Europeans 
     generally oppose the U.S. embargo and the Helms-Burton 
     legislation, while doing nothing to limit investment in Cuba 
     by their citizens. Our embassies are increasingly busy trying 
     to promote allied unity on measures that will increase the 
     pressure on Castro to end his repressive regime.
       On the second priority: confronting the new transnational 
     threat:
       Having worked successfully with our host governments for 
     the unconditional and indefinite extension of the Non-
     Proliferation Treaty--a major diplomatic achievement--we are 
     focusing now on building support for a Comprehensive Test Ban 
     Agreement, on keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the 
     hands of countries Like Iran, Iraq and Libya, and on securing 
     needed European financial contributions for the Korean Energy 
     Development Organization, an essential vehicle for 
     terminating North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
       We are working to strengthen bilateral and multilateral 
     arrangements to assure the identification, extradition and 
     prosecution of persons engaged in drug trafficking, organized 
     crime, terrorism and alien smuggling, and we are building 
     European support for new institutions to train law 
     enforcement officers in former Communist countries, such as 
     the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest.
       And we are giving a new priority in our diplomacy to the 
     protection of the global environment, coordinating our 
     negotiating positions and assistance programs on such issues 
     as population, climate change, ozone depletion, 
     desertification, and marine pollution. For we have learned 
     that environmental initiatives can be vitally important to 
     our goals of prosperity and security: negotiations on water 
     resources are central to the Middle East peace process, and a 
     Haiti denuded of its forests will have a hard time supporting 
     a stable democracy and keeping its people from flooding our 
     shores.
       On the third priority: promoting open markets and 
     prosperity:
       Having worked with out host countries to bring a successful 
     conclusion to the Uruguay Round, we are now busily engaged in 
     discussing left-over questions like market access for 
     audiovisuals, telecommunications, and bio-engineered foods, 
     and new issues like trade and labor standards, trade and 
     environment, and trade and competition policy.
       We are also encouraging the enlargement of the European 
     Union to Central and Eastern Europe and we are reporting 
     carefully on the prospects of the European Monetary Union by 
     the target date of 1999 and on the implications of an EMU for 
     U.S. interests.
       You can see from this still incomplete catalogue of our 
     activities that our embassies in Europe are in a very real 
     sense global embassies engaged on global as well as on 
     bilateral and regional problems. You might even say we are 
     busy carrying out the foreign policy of the president and the 
     Secretary of State from ``platform Europe.''
       In carrying out this rich global foreign policy agenda we 
     will be greatly assisted by the agreement that was reached in 
     Madrid last December between President Clinton, Prime 
     Minister Felipe Gonzalez and President Jacques Santer of the 
     European Commission on the ``New Transatlantic Agenda'' and 
     its accompanying ``U.S.-EU Action Plan.''
       These documents were a major achievement of Spain's EU 
     presidency. They represent an historic breakthrough in U.S. 
     relations with the European Union, moving those relations 
     beyond consultation to common action on almost all of the 
     foreign policy questions I cited earlier and many others I 
     have no time to mention.
       A senior-level group from the United States, the European 
     Commission and the EU Presidency country (currently Italy) is 
     responsible for monitoring progress on this large agenda and 
     modifying it as necessary.
       Just as our embassy in Madrid had a special role in U.S.-EU 
     diplomacy during Spain's EU Presidency, Embassy Rome now has 
     special responsibilities. The action will pass to Embassy 
     Dublin when Ireland takes the EU presidency in the second 
     half of the year.
       The Madrid documents commit the U.S. and the EU to building 
     a new ``Transatlantic Marketplace.'' We have agreed to 
     undertake a study on the reduction or elimination of tariffs 
     and non-tariff barriers between the two sides of the 
     Atlantic. Even as the study proceeds, we will be looking at 
     things that can be done rather promptly, such as eliminating 
     investment restrictions, duplicative testing and 
     certification requirement, and conflicting regulations. This 
     means more work not only in Brussels and Washington but in 
     each of our embassies.
       We will also be following closely the EU's 
     Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) that is now opening in 
     Turin. The common foreign and security policy provided for in 
     the Maastricht Treaty is still a work in progress. Although 
     the EU provides substantial economic aid and takes important 
     regional trade initiatives, it has so far proved unable to 
     deal with urgent security crises like those in the former 
     Yugoslavia and the Aegean.
       The IGC offers an opportunity to revise EU institutions and 
     procedures so that a common foreign and security policy can 
     be made to work in an EU whose membership could grow from 15 
     to 27 in the decade ahead. We hope that opportunity will be 
     seized.
       What changes the IGC should make in the Maastricht Treaty 
     is exclusively for the EU countries to decide, but the United 
     States is not indifferent to the outcome. We believe our 
     interests are served by continuing progress toward European 
     political as well as economic unity, which will make Europe a 
     more effective partner for the United States in world 
     affairs.
       I have tried to provide a sense of what U.S. foreign policy 
     is all about in 1996, especially in Europe, and of the 
     critical role that ambassadors and embassies play. I have 
     chosen examples from Europe both because Europe plays a 
     global role and because Europe is currently my vantage point, 
     but you would undoubtedly learn about a rich menu of activity 
     from my ambassadorial colleagues in other key regions of the 
     world if they were here with us tonight.
       The question that remains to be answered is whether the 
     American people and the Congress are willing to provide the 
     financial resources to make all this activity possible. The 
     politics of our national budget situation has ominous 
     implications for our foreign policy in general and our 
     international diplomacy in particular.
       Let us begin with some very round numbers. We have a Gross 
     Domestic Product of about $7 trillion and a federal budget of 
     about $1.6 trillion. Nearly $1.1 trillion of that $1.6 
     trillion goes to mandatory payments--the so-called 
     entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and social 
     security and also federal pensions and interest on the 
     national debt. The remaining $500 billion divides about 
     equally between the defense budget and civilian discretionary 
     spending--which account for some $250 billion each.
       Of the $250 billion of civilian discretionary spending, 
     about $20 billion used to be devoted on the average of years 
     to international affairs--the so-called 150 account. This 
     account includes our assessed and voluntary payments to the 
     UN, our bilateral aid and contributions to the international 
     financial institutions, the U.S. Information Agency's 
     broadcasting and educational exchange programs, and the State 
     Department budget.
       Congressional spending cuts have now brought the 
     international affairs account down to about $17 billion 
     annually--about 1 percent of our total budget. Taking 
     inflation into account, this $17 billion is nearly a 50 
     percent reduction in real terms from the level of a decade 
     ago. For Fiscal Year 1997, the Congressional leadership 
     proposes a cut to $15.7 billion. Its 7-year plan to balance 
     the budget would bring international affairs spending down to 
     $12.5 billion a year by 2002.
       Keep in mind that about $5 billion of the 150 account goes 
     to Israel and Egypt--rightly so, in my opinion, because of 
     the priority we accord to Middle East peace. So under the 
     Congressional balanced budget scenario only $7.5 billion 
     would be left four years from now for all of our other 
     international spending.
       These actual and prospective cuts in our international 
     affairs account are devastating. Among other things, they 
     mean:
       That we cannot pay our legally owing dues to the United 
     Nations system, thus severely undermining the world 
     organization's work for peace and compromising our efforts 
     for UN reform.
       That we cannot pay our fair share of voluntary 
     contributions to UN agencies and international financial 
     institutions to assist the world's poor and promote free 
     markets, economic growth, environmental protection and 
     population stabilization;

[[Page S4423]]

       That we must drastically cut back the reach of the Voice of 
     America and the size of our Fulbright and International 
     Visitor programs, all of them important vehicles for 
     influencing foreign opinion about the United States;
       That we will have insufficient funds to respond to aid 
     requirements in Bosnia, Haiti, the Middle East, the former 
     Communist countries and in any new crises where our national 
     interests are at stake;
       That we will have fewer and smaller offices to respond to 
     the 2 million requests we receive each year for assistance to 
     Americans overseas and to safeguard our borders through the 
     visa process.
       And that we will be unable to maintain a world-class 
     diplomatic establishment as the delivery vehicle for our 
     foreign policy.
       A final word on this critical last point. The money which 
     Congress makes available to maintain the State Department and 
     our overseas embassies and consulates is now down to about 
     $2.5 billion a year. As the international affairs account 
     continues to go down, we face the prospect of further cuts. 
     The budget crunch has been exacerbated by the need to find 
     money to pay for our new embassies in the newly independent 
     countries of the former Soviet Union.
       In our major European embassies, we have already reduced 
     State Department positions by 25 percent since Fiscal Year 
     1995. We have been told to prepare for cuts of 40 percent or 
     more from the 1995 base over the next two or three years.
       In our Madrid embassy, to take an example, this will leave 
     us with something like three political and three economic 
     officers besides the ambassador and deputy chief of mission 
     to perform our essential daily diplomatic work of advocacy, 
     representation and reporting in the broad range of vitally 
     important areas I have enumerated. Our other embassies face 
     similarly devastating reductions.
       I have to tell you that cuts of this magnitude will gravely 
     undermine our ability to influence foreign governments and 
     will severely diminish our leadership role in world affairs. 
     They will also have detrimental consequences for our 
     intelligence capabilities since embassy reporting is the 
     critical overt components of U.S. intelligence collection. In 
     expressing these concerns I believe I am representing the 
     views of the overwhelming majority of our career and non-
     career ambassadors.
       I know this conclusion will be greeted with incredulity by 
     people who see hundreds of people in each of our major 
     embassies overseas. What is not generally realized is that 80 
     percent of more of these people are from agencies other than 
     the State Department. They are from the Department of 
     Defense, Commerce and Agriculture, the Drug Enforcement 
     Administration and the FBI, the IRS and the Social Security 
     Administration, and so forth. And most of the 20 percent that 
     is the reduced State Department component of the embassies is 
     performing either consular work or administrative tasks in 
     support of the largely non-State diplomatic mission.
       Do not misunderstand me. The non-State component of an 
     embassy is very important to our overseas interests. But the 
     agendas of the non-State agencies are narrow and specialized. 
     As the State Department component is slashed in relation to 
     other agencies, it inevitably eviscerates our core diplomatic 
     mission and diminishes the capacity of an ambassador to 
     direct and coordinate the varied elements of his embassy in 
     pursuit of a coherent foreign policy. Moreover, the drastic 
     reduction in foreign service positions discourages the entry 
     of talented young people and forces the selection out of many 
     senior officers with experience and skills we can ill afford 
     to lose.
       Under the pressure of Congressional budget cuts, the State 
     Department is eliminating 13 diplomatic posts, including 
     consulates in such important European cities as Stuttgart, 
     Zurich, Bilbao and Bordeaux. The Bordeaux Consulate dated 
     back to the time of George Washington. Try explaining to the 
     French that we cannot afford a consulate there now when we 
     were able to afford one then when we were a nation of 3 
     million people.
       The consulates I have mentioned not only provided important 
     services to American residents and tourists, they were 
     political lookout posts, export promotion platforms, and 
     centers for interaction with regional leaders in a Europe 
     where regions are assuming growing importance. Now they will 
     all be gone.
       Closing the 13 posts is estimated to save about $9 million 
     a year, one quarter of the cost of an F-16 fighter plane. 
     Bilbao, for example, cost $200,000 a year. A B-2 bomber costs 
     about $2,000 million. I remind you that $2 billion pays 
     nearly all the salaries and expenses of running the State 
     Department--including our foreign embassies--for a year.
       Let us be clear about what is going on. The commendable 
     desire to balance our national budget, the acute allergy of 
     the American people to tax increases (indeed, their desire 
     for tax reductions), the explosion of entitlement costs with 
     our aging population, and the need to maintain a strong 
     national defense, all combine to force a drastic curtailment 
     of the civilian discretionary spending which is the principal 
     public vehicle for domestic and international investments 
     essential to our country's future.
       Having no effective constituency, spending on international 
     affairs is taking a particularly severe hit within the 
     civilian discretionary account and with it the money needed 
     for our diplomatic establishment. The President and the 
     Secretary of State are doing their best to correct this state 
     of affairs, but they will need greater support from the 
     Congress and the general public than has been manifest so far 
     if this problem is to be properly resolved.
       I submit that it will not be resolved until there is a 
     recognition that the international affairs budget is in a 
     very real sense a national security budget--because diplomacy 
     is our first line of national defense. The failure to build 
     solid international relationships and treat the causes of 
     conflict today will surely mean costly military interventions 
     tomorrow.
       As a unique fraternity of international lawyers you know 
     all this. I'm restating the obvious tonight because what is 
     obvious to us does not seem obvious to our body politic. And 
     let's not forget that you can't advance the cause of 
     international law without international diplomacy.
       Along with other constituencies adversely affected by the 
     hollowing out of our foreign affairs capability--businessmen, 
     arms controllers, environmentalists, citizen groups concerned 
     about human rights, disease, poverty, crime, drugs and 
     terrorism--you must make your voices heard in the Congress 
     and the mass media.
       I close this lugubrious discourse with a story. Danielle 
     and I recently invited two bright third graders from the 
     American School of Madrid to be overnight guests in our 
     residence. During dinner Danielle asked one of them, a 
     precocious little boy of 8, if he knew what ambassadors do.
       The little boy looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled and 
     said, ``Save the world.''
       As you can imagine, I was pleased by that answer. But then 
     the little boy thought some more and asked: ``Just how do you 
     save the world?''
       I don't claim that ambassadors save the world. But until 
     our country can answer the question ``Who needs 
     ambassadors?''--and who needs embassies--we will be heading 
     for big trouble.

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