[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 138 (Monday, September 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H12183-H12191]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BILL CLINTON, SECURITY CLEARANCE AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, good afternoon to my good friend. We are
certainly going to miss him here. What a great 20 years he brought to
his country's service following his reserve military service.
Mr. Speaker, I thought that the U.S. Senate might move more swiftly
on Friday last and that we might adjourn sine die on Friday, the 27th
of September. Then there would have been no special orders. We would
have gone out sine die. My high school Latin tells me that means done,
no further legislative action, House and Senate are gone, traditional
call from the White House to the leader of the Senate, Mr. Trent Lott,
and the man second in line to the presidency after the vice presidency,
the Speaker of the U.S. House. But it did not happen. I thought I had
done the last special order on Thursday night. Then on Friday night,
since we did not go out sine die, I thought I had done the last special
order on Friday night. Saturday, we were in and out, recesses, and I
did not get a chance to come to the floor with something that I did not
have time for Thursday or Friday that really was the most important
thing I wanted to say and the core of how I wanted to personally close
out the 104th Congress, as I had closed out the 102d Congress in 1992,
with three of the most experienced military men in this Chamber, the
only aerial ace from the Signal Corps in World War I, Army Air Corps,
Army Air Force, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, the only ace to ever serve
in this House, Duke Cunningham came to this floor with me for over a
week with Duncan Hunter, Army paratrooper, ranger from Vietnam, 2 corps
area, and, of course, the greatest hero that we have serving at the
current time in this House, Sam Johnson of Texas, savagely tortured in
Hanoi, Kept in solitary confinement longer than the United States was
in World War II.
World War II was a 6-year war for our Allies, nations like conquered
France and brave Great Britain hanging on, desperately, before we were
bombed at Pearl Harbor. Great Britain was virtually alone with exiled
forces of other nations, Belgium, Netherlands and their colonies, now
gone their own way around the world. Of course, free Frenchmen that had
made it through Dunkirk to England, but Britain was alone but for the
United States.
The war was less than 4 years in Europe, 3 years and 5 months it took
us to drive Hitler to suicide, less than 3 years and 5 months. Sam
Johnson of Dallas was in solitary confinement.
The other day I said to him, right here in this Chamber, he was
standing right here, I was leaning against this desk. I said, Sam, with
all the times they broke you, did you ever go on the air in Hanoi, that
is an expression for taking a torture-extracted propaganda statement
and running it on the radio, because I know some heroes, one of them
former squadron commander of mine that was savagely tortured for
months, finally broken, went on the air but you could tell the
deliberate awkwardness of their statements, that they were beaten into
this.
Sam Johnson of Dallas, standing right here, Mr. Speaker, said some
incredible words to me: I never did give them what they wanted.
Then he said, you know, because this is typical of his humility, all
human beings are different. He slapped me on the back of my hand. He
said, some people you do that to them and they caved. We actually had
two officers who were full traitors who collaborated with the enemy
their entire captivity without ever having been tortured. And we had
seven enlisted men. The officers were always held in Hanoi. The
enlisted men had survived the medieval brutality of the camps in South
Vietnam so they came to Hanoi already utterly demoralized from watching
20 or 30 of their friends shrivel up and die, and they collaborated
horribly.
All of them should have been court martialed, but the Secretary of
the Army, Bo Callaway, said, and he was very wrong on this, that Army
people do not have to recognize the authority of Air Force or Navy
commanders in a prison camp. That is totally wrong.
So he said, these Army enlisted men, getting orders from senior Air
Force and Navy officers, they did not have to obey them. Once he did
that, it put now Senator John Warner, who was then Secretary of the
Navy, in a box. So he had to let this traitor naval commander and this
traitorous marine lieutenant colonel go. I am merciful that I do not
mention their names. They are burned in the front of my brain.
But from that range of collaborator traitor to psychological torture
to a slap on the wrist, there were a handful, like Congressman Johnson,
who were broken but never broken enough to make them cooperate. They
might break them to bow, and some they could not even break to do that.
Three men they tortured to death, beat them to death over a long period
because they would not bow. But Sam Johnson was one of the unique 11
that were put in a small, horrible little camp in downtown Hanoi,
tailored for them, called Alcatraz wherever every cell was separated by
a big space or another cell so they could only communicate by coughing
or the sweep of a broom. One of the men was left behind there, Air
Force Captain Stewarts, Ron Stewarts. His goodbye to his Nation, to his
friends, and his family was, It has been an honor serving with you, God
bless you. And he tapped that out with the sweep of a broom, and his
remains were returned two decades later.
Now, I tell that story to give the listeners, the 1,300,000 listeners
to C-SPAN, the quality of Sam Johnson on this floor, with naval ace
Duke Cunningham, Army Officer Duncan Hunter, and this post Korean war
Air Force fighter pilot. And for 4 days we tried to get a message out
to the Nation. And the message was simply that Bill Clinton, I want to
say this slowly and deliberately and I defy someone to contradict me,
Bill Clinton could never
[[Page H12184]]
have gotten the security clearance to serve in the U.S. Army, my
father's service, in the U.S. service, the service of five Presidents
in my lifetime, the U.S. Air Force, the service of Ronald Reagan when
it was the Army Air Force. He could never have been accepted into the
FBI, the CIA. He could never have been a Secret Service officer, the
ones who will throw their bodies in front of him to catch a bullet. He
would never have been accepted in the Customs department. He would
never have been accepted in any solitary U.S. Marine Corps, given in
any service that requires a security clearance.
How did he get to be Commander in Chief over all of these men, of
them putting their lives down for him? Why did the fathers of two Medal
of Honor winners, one just died 5 days before I went down to watch the
commissioning of a ship named after his hero, Delta Force, Special
Forces, master sergeant's son, Gary Gordon, why did Gary Gordon's
father refuse to shake Clinton's hand? Why did Herb Shughart say to
him, you are not fit to be the Commander in Chief and, refused to shake
his hand at the White House at the ceremony where the sons of these two
fathers were posthumously being awarded the Medal of Honor? Because
they sensed this.
How did he get to be Commander in Chief? You can get a top secret
clearance, even if your whole life is clouded by treachery, by getting
elected to the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, being chosen Vice President
on a ticket that wins or winning as the President of the United States.
Article II, section 2 says, simple words, 16 words: The President of
the United States shall be the Commander in Chief of the military
forces. There is a comma, and then it says, he is the commander in
chief when the militia is called up, militia meaning what we now call
the National Guard or reserves.
Now, a hero, a survivor of the Bataan Death March tried to warn the
Nation. I have his letter in front of me. He wrote to the Nation. He is
the recipient of the medal next one down from the Medal of Honor. If
there had been more eyewitnesses to his courage on Bataan and his
bravery in the Japanese prison camps, he was in the camps about as long
as Sam Johnson was in solitary confinement, 3\1/2\ years, Sam Johnson,
of course, served 7. But he wrote a letter to the Nation on September
7, 1992, 4 years and 23 days ago, and he warned the Nation what would
happen if Clinton was elected President of the United States. I have
his letter before me, and I am going to read it.
But I also have in front of me a letter written years earlier, 1969,
23 years earlier, by Bill Clinton, supposedly at Oxford but had not
even signed into his dormitory, no record that he ever went to class
the second year, but drawing the $700 a month, that would be about
$2,000 a month now from the Rhodes scholarship set up by the British
Sir Cecil Rhodes. He was drawing the money, organizing demonstrations
against his country in a foreign land.
That immediately disqualifies him from any security clearance. A
footnote, one of my pals in pilot training, class 55-H, great pilot,
good guy, his parents were born in the Ukraine. They came to him after
he was through pilot training. He had finished everything. He had
waited 7 months, as I had, as a precadet enlisted man because after the
Korean war, different country, there were so many people lined up to
fly F-86 Saber jets or Thunderjets or bombers or serve in our Air
Force. I had to wait 7 months to start pilot training, after I had
passed my test.
{time} 1500
Started my test the day Stalin died, my dad's birthday, March 5,
1953.
So this young man waited all those months, got through pilot
training, graduated with me near the top of his class. We are all
waiting around buying our rings, and I remember going to the book store
for the headquarters building at Bryan Air Force Base, College Station,
TX, and he was picking up his ring, and he says, ``Well, I am going to
wear my ring, but I will never be an officer and I will never get my
wings.''
Why? He says, ``Because my parents were born in the Ukraine. They are
good people. They came over here. But the FBI cannot run a thorough
background check on them, so I am not going to be--and I was born in
America, but I am not going to get my wings or commission.''
I see his picture, and I was the editor of our graduation book, pilot
training, Mr. Speaker. I look at his picture there, and it says second
lieutenant. I will not use his name; maybe he did not want it known;
maybe he worked it out years later; I do not know.
But I think about that when I think of Clinton as Commander in Chief,
with his background, organizing demonstrations, calling them the fall
offensive, and not realizing that the fall offensive title came out of
Hanoi.
As a matter of fact, 4 years and 23 days later, guess what I found
out this week, Mr. Speaker? That it was not Hanoi who named it the fall
offensive, it was the Kremlin, the KGB. I find out in documents now
that were classified, they spent more money on the propaganda war, of
which Clinton was a part, than they spent funding 98 percent of the war
in Vietnam.
So here first is a touch of Clinton's letter, December 3, 1969, to
Colonel Holmes. He wrote a letter--he drew his lottery number, 319, on
the 1st of December. He wrote to Yale Law School on the 2d of December,
that is all in the letter, kissing off being an army lawyer, a JAG,
going through ROTC as a graduate in law school with the University of
Arkanas, which he told Colonel Holmes he was going to do. That is why
he went back to Oxford.
Supposedly he was to finish up being a Rhodes scholar, and come back,
and then go through law school, go back to the undergraduate. It was a
brand new program initiated in 1969, and he only had to do 2 years ROTC
and 1 summer camp instead of what I was doing in college, 4 years and 2
summer camps.
So he writes to Yale on December 2, 1969, with all the political
letters, Fulbright, Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, all that political
mentioning that helped him beat his induction showup date of July 28,
1969.
But he writes to Yale on the 2d, draws that lottery number, 319, on
the 1st, and writes them the 2d, and then he has got this little bit of
business to clear up to keep Colonel Holmes tamped down and to let him
know how he really euchred him and pulled the wool over his eyes.
And he says--now Ted Koppel read this to the Nation on Lincoln's
birthday, February 12, 1969, with Clinton sitting there, giving him his
total, own ``Nightline'' show. He was plummeting in New Hampshire. He
had dropped to third in the polls. He only had 18 percent. And Koppel
gives him his own ``Nightline'' show all by himself.
Why would he do that? Because Charter FOB, who is down at South
Carolina, at Hilton Head, at the Renaissance New Year's Day
intellectual gathering; Clinton, as President, has been there 4 years
in a row, and of course Rick--gosh, why would I forget his last name?
It will come to me. The producer of Ted Koppel's ``Nightline'' show for
the first 14 years was now the executive producer of--no longer the
producer of ``Nightline,'' he was now the executive producer of Peter
Jennings' ``Evening News,'' and he still is.
Rick Kaplan, K-A-P-L-A-N, calls up--he is an adviser to Clinton, FOB,
friend of Bill's, and he calls up and leans on Koppel: Do this for
Clinton, give him this show.
So while Clinton is sitting there Koppel, does not do what he would
do to a Republican, to a Dole or a Reagan or a Bush; he reads the whole
letter and says it is a remarkable document, and Clinton had to wince
through a few tough periods, but they spun it and gave them the whole
day to explain it away, the whole half-hour.
And then they went into overtime as though this candidate, running
third in New Hampshire with 18 percent, in free fall, was Margaret
Thatcher or Helmut Kohl or Bibi Netanyahu. It is unbelievable.
Here is the way Clinton starts the letter:
We did this 4 years ago. America was not listening, Cunningham,
Hunter, Johnson, and Dornan. We did it, Tiger flight. I will try again
solo here.
The text of the letter Bill Clinton wrote to Col. Eugene Holmes,
director of the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, December 3,
1969:
I am sorry to be so long in writing. I know I promised to let you
hear from me at least once a month, and from now on I will--he never
wrote again--but I have had some time to think about his first letter--
first letter,
[[Page H12185]]
never a second--almost daily since my return from England. I have
thought about writing about what I want and ought to say--he is still
in England; that is inaccurate.
First I want to thank you not just for saving me from the draft.
Colonel Holmes feels that is a terrible line, and he will quote later
why. He said there are things you do not know. He says I have written
and spoken and marched against the war in Vietnam. One of the national
organizers of the Vietnam moratorium is a close friend of mine. That is
now-prominent homosexual David Mixner who was the one that talked
Clinton into his first dust-up in the press, trying to force
homosexuals in the face of our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin
Powell, and all the 4 CINCs who are now all retired, and the current
CINCs I know personally, and they all tell me that it is a fight that
is not going to go away if there is a second term.
He goes on to say no government really rooted in limited
parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its citizens
fight and kill and die in a war they oppose.
Now how would that have worked in World War II?
And he said a war which in any case does not involve the peace and
freedom of the Nation--well, what peace and freedom for the United
States is involved in Bosnia? in Haiti? in Somalia? and in Iraq?
American interests are not just to defend the continental States or
Hawaii and Alaska, which, by the way, we do not defend from missile
attack, single missile attack, 6 missiles.
I am going to ask to put Clinton's whole letter in the Record, Mr.
Speaker, and then I am going to quote twice more from it. May I do
that?
The letter referred to is as follows:
For the Record--Text of Bill Clinton's Letter to ROTC Colonel
The text of the letter Bill Clinton wrote to Col. Eugene
Holmes, director of ROTC program at the University of
Arkansas, on Dec. 3, 1969:
I am sorry to be so long in writing. I know I promised to
let you hear from me at least once a month and from now on I
will, but I have had to have some time to think about this
first letter. Almost daily since my return from England I
have thought about writing, about what I want and ought to
say.
First, I want to thank you, not just for saving me from the
draft, but for being so kind and decent to me last summer
when I was as low as I have ever been. One thing which made
the bond we struck in good faith somewhat palatable to me was
my high regard for you personally. In retrospect it seems
that the admiration might not have been mutual had you known
a little more about me, about my political beliefs and
activities. At least you might have thought me more fit for
the draft than ROTC.
Let me try to explain. As you know, I worked for two years
in a very minor position on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. I did it for the experience and the salary but
also for the opportunity, however small, of working every day
against a war I opposed and despised with a depth of feeling
I had reserved solely for racism in America. Before Vietnam,
I did not take the matter lightly, but studied it carefully
and there was a time when not many people had more
information about Vietnam at hand than I did.
I have written and spoken and marched against the war. One
of the national organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium is a
close friend of mine. After I left Arkansas last summer, I
went to Washington to work in the national headquarters of
the Moratorium, then to England to organize the Americans
here for demonstrations Oct. 15 and Nov. 16.
Interlocked with the war is the draft issue which I had not
begun to consider separately until early 1968. For a law
seminar at Georgetown I wrote a paper on the legal arguments
for and against allowing the Selective Service System, the
classification of selective conscientious objection for those
opposed to participation in a particular war, not simply
participation in war in any form.
From my work I came to believe that the draft system itself
was illegitimate. No government really rooted in limited
parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its
citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a
war which even possibly may be wrong, a war which in any case
does not involve immediately the peace and freedom of the
nation.
The draft was justified in World War II because the life of
the people collectively was at stake. Individuals had to
fight if the nation was to survive, for the lives of their
countrymen and their way of life. Vietnam is no such case.
Nor was Korea an example where, in my opinion, certain
military action was justified, but the draft was not for the
reasons stated above.
Because of my opposition to the draft and the war I am in
great sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill
and maybe die for their country (i.e. the particular policy
of a particular government) right or wrong. Two of my friends
at Oxford are conscientious objectors. I wrote a letter of
recommendation for one of them to his Mississippi draft
board, a letter which I am more proud of than anything else I
wrote at Oxford last year. One of my roommates is a draft
resister who is possibly under indictment and may never be
able to go home again. He is one of the bravest, best men I
know. His country needs men like him more than they know.
That he is considered a criminal is an obscenity.
The decision not to be a resister and the related
subsequent decisions were the most difficult of my life. I
decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one
reason to maintain my political viability within the system.
For years I have worked to prepare myself for a political
life characterized by both practical political ability and
concern for rapid social progress. It is a life I still feel
compelled to try to lead. I do not think our system of
government is by definition corrupt, however dangerous and
inadequate it has been in recent years. (The society may be
corrupt, but that is not the same thing, and if that is true,
we are all finished anyway.)
When the draft came, despite political convictions, I was
having a hard time facing the prospect of fighting a war I
had been fighting against, and that is why I contacted you.
ROTC was the one way left in which I could possibly, but not
positively, avoid both Vietnam and resistance. Going on with
my education, even coming back to England, played no part in
my decision to join ROTC. I am back here and would have been
at Arkansas law School because there is nothing else I can
do. In fact, I would like to have been able to take a year
out, perhaps to teach in a small college or work in some
community action project and in the process to decide whether
to attend law school or graduate school and how to begin
putting what I have learned to use.
But the particulars of my personal life are not nearly as
important to me as the principles involved. After I signed
the ROTC letter of intent, I began to wonder whether the
compromise I had made with myself was not more objectionable
than the draft would have been, because I had no interest in
the ROTC program in itself and all I seemed to have done was
protect myself from physical harm. Also, I began to think I
had deceived you, not by lies--there were none--but by
failing to tell you all the things I'm writing now. I doubt
that I had the mental coherence to articulate then.
At that time, after we had made our agreement and you had
sent my ID deferment to my draft board, the anguish and loss
of my self-regard really set in. I hardly slept for weeks and
kept going by eating compulsively and reading until
exhaustion brought sleep. Finally on Sept. 12, I stayed up
all night writing a letter to the chairman of my draft board,
saying basically what is in the preceding paragraph, thanking
him for trying to help in a case where he really couldn't,
and stating that I couldn't do the ROTC after all and would
he please draft me as soon as possible.
I never mailed the letter, but I did carry it on me every
day until I got on the plane to return to England. I didn't
mail the letter because I didn't see, in the end, how my
going in the Army and maybe going to Vietnam would achieve
anything except a feeling that I had punished myself and
gotten what I deserved. So I came back to England to try to
make something of this second year of my Rhodes scholarship.
And that is where I am now, writing to you because you have
been good to me and have a right to know what I think and
feel. I am writing too in the hope that my telling this one
story will help you to understand more clearly how so many
fine people have come to find themselves still loving their
country but loathing the military to which you and other good
men have devoted years, lifetimes of the best service you
could give. To many of us, it is no longer clear what is
service and what is disservice or if it is clear the
conclusion is likely to be illegal.
Forgive the length of this letter. There was so much to
say. There is still a lot to be said, but it can wait. Please
say hello to Col. Jones for me.
Merry Christmas.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton.
Then Clinton writes, I have no interest in the ROTC program in
itself, and all I seem to have done was to protect myself from physical
harm.
Yeah, amen, that is right. He called it right there.
Also, I began to think I have deceived you, not by lies; there were
none. Wrong. But by failing to tell you all the things I am writing
now. I doubt that I had the mental coherence to articulate them then.
When he was facing the draft, when he had suppressed his induction day
of July 28, 1969.
At that time, after we made our agreement, and you had sent my ID
deferment to the draft board, the anguish and loss of my self-regard
really set in. I began eating compulsively and reading until exhaustion
brought sleep.
While the third high school guy, Mr. Speaker, was in uniform, maybe
in Vietnam; only God knows then, maybe dying, maybe wounded, maybe a
young
[[Page H12186]]
married man who lost his wife to someone else while he was gone, given
the mixed up country, the culture that we had then and still do 30
years later from those middle sixties.
But he ate compulsively, and he says, I stayed up all night writing a
letter to the chairman of my draft board. I have spoken to him on the
phone, saying basically what is in the preceding paragraph, all the
demonstrations that he led.
Let me back up. Two of my friends at Oxford are conscientious
objectors. I wrote a letter of recommendation for one of them to his
Mississippi draft board, a letter which I am more proud of than
anything else I wrote at Oxford last year.
He did not write anything at Oxford. He was one of three people in
his class of 32, never got his degree. And, by the way, that person
from Mississippi is now a homosexual and a waiter in San Francisco, did
not want to be interviewed by anybody in 1992.
One of my roommates is a draft resister who is possibly under
indictment and may never be able to go home again. That is Frank Aller.
He was not his roommate; they were sleeping on the floor at Strobe
Talbot's apartment at 43 Lekner Road near Oxford.
And Frank Aller came home. The FBI said, ``We do not want you any
more; President Nixon is downgrading the war.'' And Aller committed
suicide, and Clinton says Aller's picture is on his wall of his bedroom
upstairs on the second floor of the White House. He says Aller is one
of the bravest best men I know. His country needs men like him more
than they know. That he is considered a criminal is an obscenity.
Well, is not it too bad that he killed himself like another of
Clinton's friends named Vince Foster? Not a hero in my book to throw
yourself back in God's face, committing the eighth deadly sin of
despair unless you have serious mental problems. That is a tough call
when you are riding high.
And Aller was an Oxford--although he ditched classes, like Clinton, I
repeat, sleeping on the floor of the number two man in the State
Department, Strobe Talbot, he was smarter. He could not have gotten
into Oxford, so he had his whole life in front of him. And Vince Foster
was a Catholic father of three children, a beautiful wife, at the top
of his game. There better have been serious mental problems here, or he
had a lot of explaining to do to Saint Peter, or the mystery deepens
there.
So here it is. Clinton signs off. To many of us, it is no longer
clear what is service and what is disservice, or, if it is clear, the
conclusion is likely to be illegal. He was thinking he was illegal.
And this is the infamous letter where he says I wanted to keep my
political options open. Forgive the length of this letter, there was so
much to say, there was still a lot to be said, but I can wait. Please
say hello to Colonel Jones for me.
Jones is the one who took the letter out of the ROTE file and kept it
for two-and-a-half decades. Colonel Holmes did not release this letter
to the press. Colonel Jones did for his own reasons.
Merry Christmas. Sincerely, Bill Clinton.
So 23 years later, a colonel sets the record straight, Bataan Death
March survivor, and only the Washington Times in this city, about the
seventh circulation paper in America, and a solid paper that really
seeks the truth, they printed it.
But ABC, of course, after giving Clinton on Lincoln's birthday his
own personal ``Nightline'' show, at Stephanopoulos' behest from the War
Room, in the folded newspaper down a block and a half away from the
Excelsior Hotel, the Paula Corbin Jones hotel, Stephanopoulos and
Carville called ABC and said, ``Spike it.''
For people who are not familiar with print journalism, spiking a
story is when you stick a well written story by one of your reporters
on one of those spindles in a newsroom; you spike it. Today they just
erase it off the word processor. It was spiked by ABC, of course.
I am going to slow down here now. And it was spiked by CBS. Would not
that have made Fred Friendly sick? And Edward R. Murrow?
It was spiked by NBC; it was spiked by PBS. Of course, they get
Federal money. And he was running ahead of Bush in the polls. It was
spiked by even the--well, the Wall Street Journal did not spike it. It
never got to them in time. No; sorry. Jeff Bierbaum spiked it because
he lost his exclusive with the Holmes family. So he punished them
because they went to ABC with this letter, and ABC spiked it, and so
did he because he did not get it first, and he could have had it
exclusively. And the New York Times spiked it, and of course, my L.A.
Times.
I am running against the L.A. Times for the next 36 days. In my 9
races, you had 10 because, remember, I had that break in service, Mr.
Walker, so I got to finish out my 20 and see if I end up as honorably
as you did; as Herny Hyde always said, leaving this place with a little
dignity instead of changing the world. You changed the world more than
a little.
But when I think about the L.A. Times, my nine races with
lightweight, flaky opponents, I have got another one. They build them
up into opponents. That draws money to them. Then I have to raise
money.
And several times I found myself in the fight for my life, 51
percent, 50.2, but a couple of 57's, 57 and one-half last year, and a
59. Always in the 50's though, because I represent a Democrat district,
50 percent Democrat; I think it has dropped to about 49 now; 39 percent
Republican, and 54 percent Hispanic.
And most Hispanics, like most people of African-American heritage,
have not learned yet that you have got to play with both teams.
Hispanics know it better than African-Americans, but with two great
African-Americans serving on the Republican side in the House and J.C.
Watts with his eloquent oratory, we are making inroads. But people know
that a district that is 54 percent Hispanic is generally a slam dunk
Democrat district.
So the L.A. Times, no friend of conservatives or me, faced spiked.
The Washington Post, of course, did not want to hear this letter, and
they are inside the beltway here. They did not print this letter.
So as I read it to America, Mr. Speaker, think of all these papers
spiking this letter, and at the same time I implore you to think, if
they had a letter like this against Ronald Reagan in 1980 or 1984 or a
Navy attack carrier pilot with 58 combat missions named George Bush in
1988 and 1992, if they had it on him in 1992, they would have front
paged it across the country. And whatever the New York Times, the L.A.
Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal do, all the
rest of America's newspapers do starting with number four, the Chicago
Tribune, a colonel sets the record straight September 7, 1992.
{time} 1515
Memorandum for Record: Subject: Bill Clinton and the University of
Arkansas ROTC Program. ``There have been many unanswered questions as
to the circumstances surrounding Bill Clinton's involvement with the
ROTC department at the University of Arkansas.''
I will not stop again, Mr. Speaker, but I want America to know they
are hearing the words of a Bataan Death March survivor. I spent 4\1/2\
hours with him on February 24 last year, where the son of the gentleman
from Arkansas, Jay Dickey, is going through law school there at
Fayetteville, at the University of Arkansas law school. Colonel Holmes
was born in Utah with his brother, Bob. I visited Bob's grave on the
last day of last month, at the Cambridge Cemetery in England, bled to
death on his B-17 coming back from a raid over Hitler's fortress
Europe.
This is a man who had the son of the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr.
Dickey] and myself with tears running down our faces. He told us, about
a lieutenant, with his beautiful wife of 60 years sitting there, a
young lieutenant in nothing but a tattered pair of underpants, smaller
than an athletic supporter, skinny, coming back working in the fields
all day long, they had moved him down to a camp in Mindanao, or one of
the other Philippine Islands, or South Luzon, and he had a cigarette
stuck in the side of this little shriveled dirty bikini strap, and they
found the cigarette. And an extremely tall Japanese officer, over 6
feet, very unusual, says, raise your
[[Page H12187]]
hands, lieutenant. And he says, when your hands come down, you die. One
hour goes by, 2 hours go by, 3 hours go by, and his hands slowly start
to come down from exhaustion. And the Japanese officer takes out his
namboo pistol and shoots this West Pointer between the eyes. That is
what Colonel Holmes witnessed.
Then he hold me about his two friends, Larry and Spike. ``Do not get
on the prison ship. I have got a bad feeling.'' They said, we have got
to get out of here, we will die here. They got on the prison ship. No
Red Cross markings. They were bombed by American aircraft; swimming to
the beach, our aircraft strafed them. Those that made it to the beach,
the Japanese took them off in the jungle and executed them. That is the
end of Larry and Spike, real names.
But I remember Colonel Holmes telling those stories. We spent 3 hours
on his Bataan Death March and his captivity. Anybody who fell to the
side of the road to get a drink of water, bayonetted in the back, run
over deliberately by trucks and tanks. One man's body, you could not
tell it was a human being after all these Japanese trucks had
deliberately run over him.
He saw all of this. That is whose words I am reading to my country
that I love. I will see if I can go through this without interrupting
myself again, Mr. Speaker. Words of Colonel Holmes, Distinguished
Service Cross, Silver Star, Purple Hearts:
``Prior to this time, 1992, I have not felt the necessity for
discussing the details of Clinton. The reason I have not done so before
is that my poor physical health, a consequence of participation in the
Bataan Death March, and the subsequent 3\1/2\ years of internment in
Japanese prison camps, has precluded me from getting into what I felt
was unnecessary involvement.'' He told me he felt intense guilt at all
of the Governor's race. He said, ``I have never been so relieved in my
life as when Clinton lost the governorship in 1980. I thought, `I will
never have to come forward.' ''.
Then, with each subsequent Governor's race, he said, I never dreamed
he would survive a primary system in this country. Then when the letter
came out, he could not believe he was surviving it. And Col. Clint
Jones, his number two, released the letter, not Col. Holmes.
However, present polls, 1992, they show there is an imminent danger
to our country of a draft dodger becoming Commander in Chief of the
Armed Forces of the United States. While it is true, as Mr. Clinton has
stated, that there were many others who avoided serving their country
in the Vietnam war, they are not aspiring to be the President of the
United States. The tremendous implications of the possibility of his
becoming Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces compels me now to
comment on the facts concerning Mr. Clinton's evasion of the draft.
Mr. Speaker, I must pause to remind people that Clinton was living at
the home of a war criminal named Robert McNamara.
announcement by the speaker pro tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Walker). The Chair must ask the
gentleman from California to suspend for a moment at this point.
The Chair would remind all Members that it is not in order to engage
in personalities toward the President. Although remarks in debate may
include criticism of the President's official actions, it is a breach
of the order of the House to question the personal conduct of the
President, whether by actual accusation or by mere insinuation.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, this letter I have put in the Congressional
Record maybe 12 times over the years. I have discussed with the
parliamentarians whether the term ``draft dodger'' is a pejorative term
or whether it is a historical statement of fact, like drunk driving, or
any combination of words in crime.
I will change this Distinguished Service Cross recipient and Bataan
Death Marcher's words whenever I see the word ``dodger,'' and I do not
think it appears in the letter again, I will change it to ``evasion,''
or ``avoidance,'' which is less harsh on the ears, I guess.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind the gentleman from
California that any allegations of evasion of the draft or such things
do involve personality, regardless of the origin of the allegation.
Mr. DORNAN. Would the term ``student deferment,'' thousands of
people, including leaders in both Chambers, have taken student
deferments honorably when it looked like the war was winding down.
I understand in the Second World War, people would spit out the term
``draft dodger,'' but student deferment or some other euphemism, for me
to get through this Bataan Death March survivor, I will accommodate the
parliamentarians that far. But I will push it beyond that, and ask for
a ruling of the Chair and appeal the ruling of the Chair, if I cannot
do honor to this man who is suffering down in Arkansas right now.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair simply wishes to remind the
gentleman that the rule of the House involves the use of personalities
in debate, that the gentleman is entitled to criticize the President's
official actions or his policies. But the Chair reminds the gentleman
that the breach of order is to question the personal conduct of the
President, whether it is an actual accusation or whether it is an
insinuation, engaging in personalities on the House floor with regard
to the President or any Member of this body, is not within the rules.
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, no one has been more of an expert on the
rules of the House than the gentleman in the Chair. Out of my respect
for him on one of his 2 last days, I am going to accede to that.
However, I am entitled to tell every Member of Congress and every
American watching that this letter is in the Record 12 times, and some
few other Members have put it in, over the last 4 years, maybe more. I
think a lot more. I think I have put it in 15 myself. They can write to
their Congressman, and I am saying this, and please, Mr. Speaker,
please do not write to my poor office, I do not have any more staffers
than anybody else, write to your own Congressman and write for today's
Congressional Record, and ask your Congressman to call my office and
find out other dates this was in the Record, and then they can see it
in its fulsome detail.
I will do what the CIA and the DIA has done to our POW and missing-
in-action families, and that is drive them to mental pain with what is
called redacted documents; you know, where they black out whole
sections, so you are left with a page, to whom and from whom, and it is
about your son or your husband, lost in Laos, Cambodia, or Vietnam.
Then you have to beg for years for documents that are already being
given to the Russians in Moscow and their intelligence people to be
debunked and destroyed, not debunked, detruthed, or given to Hanoi. We
have been given secret documents to Hanoi for a decade now that we
would not even give to the parents.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DORNAN. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my good friend the
gentleman from California, Bob Dornan, I just have great respect for
the gentleman.
Many, many years ago after this Congress had passed a resolution
saying that there was nothing else that could be done to bring back
even not only live missing-in-action, but the remains, you and I, I
recall back in 1983 or 1984, I was the chairman, if the gentleman
remembers, on POW missing-in-action, and you and I and a number of
others went to a place called Hanoi and a place called Vietnam.
I recall you and I sitting across the table from these Communists and
begging, almost on our hands and knees, it was so embarrassing to sit
there and beg, to try to get somebody by the name of Hon Vick Son,
remember him, he was a foreign minister, to release the remains that
were being warehoused right there in Hanoi.
Mr. DORNAN. Blocks away.
Mr. SOLOMON. It was such a humiliating experience for me. But
everyone should know that that was the very beginning of getting back
some of those remains, and over a period of time, more than 200 have
come back. It is through nobody's effort but yours that we were able to
get them back here. I want to take off my hat to you, sir.
[[Page H12188]]
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, let me recall two things from this trip, to
give the audience a flavor of how this is coming from deep in my heart.
I do not want to come out as a blubbering baby, when I already admitted
that Colonel Holmes made me cry at his dinner table with myself and
with the young law student, the son of the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr.
Dickey].
But you recall, when we went to Hawaii, to the central investigative
laboratory, where all the remains were identified, that we went into
this room that was almost like the nave of a church, it was so quiet.
And here on all these white sheets set on tables like cots were the
pieced-together remains, like jigsaw puzzles, of our heroes, Marines,
Army-Navy pilots, Air Force officers.
Mr. SOLOMON. I will never forget it.
Mr. DORNAN. Then they had a table of ID cards, and you will recall, I
picked up one. My air officer number changed later, they changed the
letters in the front. It was 3038271. This is before they went to
Social Security numbers.
I picked up this card and I look at the Social Security number, I
mean his Air Force number, and it says, regular Air Force, 3038260, 11
numbers off mine. I look at the name and it is David Allison, F-105
pilot, good shoot, on the ground, gave a radio call. His remains had
never come home. But there is his ID card. His military green
serviceman's card was there, the only other redhead in my pilot
training class, lined up with me, getting his wings, Allison ahead of
Dornan.
You remember, the tears went down my face, I said, Jerry, look at
this. This is one of my pals from 15 months of pilot training. Is this
all his family is going to get now is an ID card, if, in fact, they
ever sent it to him? They had him a prisoner. We do not have his
remains back, let alone any word of what happened to him, and we know
they took him prisoner.
Then I asked, can we all say a prayer here? And it wa like we were in
a church, praying for all these men. And some of them, all they had was
one tooth, trying to match it up with good military dental records.
This has been a tough, tough end to this Vietnam conflict.
Let me see if I can get through Colonel Holmes' letter, redacted. He
says, The account would not have been imperative, had Bill Clinton been
completely, redacted, with the American public concerning this matter.
But as Mr. Clinton replied on a news conference this evening, September
5, 1992, after being asked another particular about his, blank, the
draft, almost everyone concerned with these incidents are dead, Clinton
said. I have no more comments to make. They were not all dead. I talked
to some of them.
``Since I may be the only person living,'' he is not, ``who can give
a first-hand account of what actually transpired, I am obligated by my
love for my country and my sense of duty to divulge what actually
happened and make it a matter of record. Bill Clinton came to see me in
my home in 1969 to discuss his desire to enroll in the ROTC program at
the University of Arkansas.''
I must stop again, Mr. Speaker. I asked Colonel Holmes February 24
last year at his home, at his dinner table, let me tell you what I
would ask you as a hard-bitten newsman. How would you remember this one
student? He says, a fair question, Congressman. In 10 or 12 years of
working with ROTC programs in my final year of active duty, never in
all those 12 years, in California, in San Francisco, at USF, or at
Arkansas for 10 years, did any student ever come to my home except Bill
Clinton, 23-year-old Bill Clinton.
Then he called me at my Holiday Inn room later that night, at 1:30
that morning. I said, oh, my God, Colonel, I apologize for keeping you
up. He said, well, you know, Irene, I said Alice earlier but his wife's
name was Irene, Irene told me we might have confused you with
something. I want you to know, I never let him in my house. Is that not
interesting? He followed me from the backyard to the front yard for 2
hours while I did my gardening, imploring me to help him.
Interesting historical footnote. Most people in America are hearing
that for the first time. Because I have never told anybody that. I may
have said it on the House floor once.
{time} 1530
Clinton came to see me in my home in July 1969, just a few weeks
before his introduction show-up date, July 28, 1969, to discuss his
desire to enroll in the ROTC at the University of Arkansas. We engaged
in an extensive, approximately 2-hour interview. At no time during this
long conversation about his desire to join the program did he inform me
of his involvement, participation and actually organizing protests
against the United States's involvement with our allies in Southeast
Asia. He was shrewd enough to realize that had I been aware of his
activities, he would not have been accepted into the ROTC program as a
potential officer in the U.S. Army.
The next day I began receiving phone calls regarding Bill Clinton's
draft status. I was informed by the draft board that it was of interest
to Senator Fullbright's office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes scholar, not
going to class, should be admitted to the ROTC program. I received many
such calls.
He told me he received one from the Governor's office, Winthrop
Rockefeller, liberal Republican.
The general message conveyed by the draft board to me was that
Senator Fullbright's office was putting pressure on them and that they
needed my help.
The draft board needed this Bataan death march survivor's help.
I then made the necessary arrangements to enroll Mr. Clinton into the
ROTC program. I was not saving him from serving his country, as he
erroneously thanked me for in the opening of his letter from England
dated December 3, 1969. I was making it possible for what I thought was
a Rhodes scholar to serve in the U.S. military as an officer.
In retrospect I see that Mr. Clinton had no intention of following
through with his agreement to join the Army ROTC program at the
University of Arkansas, or even to attend the University of Arkansas
law school. I had explained to him the necessity of enrolling at the
University of Arkansas as a student in order to be eligible to take the
ROTC program with the undergraduates. He never enrolled at the
University of Arkansas, but instead enrolled at Yale University after
going back to Oxford.
I believe that he purposely--redacted--me, using the possibility--and
the Colonel does not use obscene language, obviously, this is a
redaction because it is a tough verb involving honor--he purposely--
blanked--me, used the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ply to work
with the draft board to delay his induction--actually destroyed his
induction--and get a new draft classification which he got, 1-D.
The December 3 letter written to me by Mr. Clinton, and subsequently
taken from the files by Lt. Col. Clint Jones, my executive officer, was
placed by me into those files so that a record would be available in
case the applicant should ever again petition to enter into an ROTC
program. The information in that letter alone would have restricted
Bill Clinton from ever qualifying to be an officer in any branch of the
U.S. military.
The words of Jimmy Durante come to mind now: What a revolting
development this is.
Even more significant was his lack of--redacted--in purposely--
redacted--the military by--redacting--me, both in concealing his
antimilitary activities overseas and his counterfeit intentions for
later military service. These actions cause me to question both his
patriotism and his integrity.
When I consider the caliber, the bravery and the patriotism of the
fine young soldiers whose death I have witnessed and whose funerals I
have attended--many in Arkansas he described to Tim Dickey and myself--
when I reflected on not only the willingness but the eagerness that so
many displayed in their earnest desire to defend and serve their
country, it is untenable and incomprehensible to me that a man who was
not merely unwilling to serve his country but actually protested
against its military overseas should every be in the position of
Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces.
I write this declaration not only for the living but for future
generations, and for all those who fought and died for our country. If
space and time permitted, I would include the names of the ones I knew
personally and fought
[[Page H12189]]
with--Bataan, the kids he sent to Vietnam, those young second
lieutenants--and along with them I would mention my brother Bob.
I repeat, I stood at Bob's grave at Cambridge. My wife and I thought
about Bob's grave as Clinton walked right past it with Hillary on the
50th anniversary, beginning the ceremonies over there on D-Day. On
Victory in Europe Day, a few months later, Clinton was in Moscow. Al
Gore went to the Cambridge cemetery for our air crews.
My brother Bob, who was killed during World War II and is buried in
Cambridge, England. Bob was 23, the age Bill Clinton was when he was
over in England protesting against his country.
I have agonized over whether or not to submit this statement to the
American people, but I realize that even though I served my country by
being in the military for over 32 years, and have just gone through the
ordeal of months of combat under the worst conditions followed by years
of imprisonment by the Japanese, it is not enough.
That is not enough service, Colonel Holmes says.
I am writing these comments to let everyone know that I love my
country more than I love my own personal security and well-being.
Is he frightened, living in Arkansas? Given all the stories we have
read over the last 4 or 5 years, the Mena Airport stories?
I am writing these comments to let--I read that--to let everyone know
I really love my country. My personal security and well-being are not
important. I will go to my grave loving these United States of America
and the liberty for which so many men have fought and died.
Because of my poor physical condition--he is tall and handsome, he
looks like John Wayne, as a matter of fact, but he has had a very
slight stroke, and he is a handsome officer, he does not want to go
before the press with this slight tiny little stroke problem--this will
be my final statement. Except for his 4 hours with me. I will make no
further comments to any of the media regardinng this issue.
So he made his beautiful daughter, who came over that night February
24, 1995, and I met her, Colonel Holmes turned this matter over to his
daughter and his wife Irene to represent him with the press. I repeat,
there are pictures of him in his den where he looks handsomer than John
Wayne, so I can understand his reticence to go before the press and be
torn up
You know what the Wall Street Journal did? And ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS,
everybody, Washington Post? They said the daughter wrote the letter.
After sitting there with that man for 4 hours, I can tell you Colonel
Holmes wrote that letter, not his beautiful, educated daughter in her
forties or later thirties. No, he wrote the letter.
But the daughter wrote the letter. There is something wrong, he will
not meet with us, so they rejected it. If they had really had a
reporter going for a Pulitzer prize and begged to go see him, that
would have been something.
Now I think it is fitting that in these last 2 days that this be in
the Congressional Record, for the record, as we say.
And I want to point out that after I left Bob Holmes' grave, the
American Cemetery at Cambridge, which is not too far from Oxford, both
kind of the same angle of distance away from London, Cambridge is
northeast, Oxford northwest. I went up to the wall and looked at Joe
Kennedy's name on the wall of the missing, thousands of men missing
whose planes buried themselves vertically into a forest somewhere in
Germany or France coming home, we still find them, lost in the Zuider
Zee or out in the deep North Sea or anywhere in the English Channel,
body washed out to the Atlantic.
I looked at Joe Kennedy's name, the oldest son of the father, Joe
Kennedy, of President John F. Kennedy. Two boys were born third and
fourth, two girls ahead of them: Kathleen, who died in a plane crash,
Rosemary who is still alive in a home today. But Joe Kennedy was the
one they picked out to be President in that family of politically
motivated people, and Joe thought that to be President, he had to do
something dangerous, something different.
His brother had already had his back broken and suffered with it has
whole life, when on his very first mission at night, without even
knowing what hit him, a Japanese destroyer cut him in two. And he said
to his friend, Lilly, Lillian Thall, I will never run for anything. I
guess it is up to my brother Joe, because I lost my ship on my first
mission.
But he got the Navy Cross. Two of his 13 men were killed, but he
rescued one, keeping him in his teeth, Kennedys are all good swimmers,
dragging one of his young enlisted men who was unconscious to
Kilimbangara Island, off Rendova in the west side of the Solomons.
And Joe Kennedy said, well, Jack has been wounded, has a Navy Cross.
I have got to do something for my country. So he takes off, in what the
Air Force called the Liberator and what the Navy called the Privateer,
because it had one big single tail instead of two, in a PB-2Y
Privateer, loaded with explosives, and they were going to radio control
direct it right into submarine pens and bail out over the English
Channel and be picked up.
And it disappeared off the rudimentary radar that they had. Senator
Ted Kennedy's oldest brother Joe disappeared over the English Channel
into a mist as the explosives were triggered by some electrical fault,
they assume, in midair. Maybe it was shot down by an enterprising
Messerschmitt pilot that was still coming that far. They did not come
out over the channel much in 1944, and he disappeared into the English
Channel.
I looked at that name and thought, like me, like Hunter, like
Johnson, like Duke Cunningham, when I was a kid, I thought, if I am
ever going to run for President, I have got to put my life on the line
for my country. I do not send three high school kids in my place. I
have got to do whatever is the most dangerous thing to do.
And I ended up doing it in peacetime and ejecting from jet aircraft
twice, one time ended up 6 miles off the Pacific Coast, off Point Magu,
no raft, no Mae West, and God has a helicopter come out, serendipity,
looking at thousands of square miles of Pacific Ocean, and sees that
precise 2-inch white strip down my helmet and says--two man crew--says
to this guy let out of the service 2 weeks later for being overweight--
at least he had good eyes, but he would not jump in--he says, keep your
eye on that whitecap, now it is going away. And bingo, I am plucked out
of the water, February 23, 15th anniversary of flag raising, Iwo Jimo.
God says in 1960, no, Dornan, you are at least going to have 36 more
years.
That was what I thought I had to do in peacetime to be worthy of ever
thinking about being commander in chief, and ordering 19 great men to
die in the alleys of Mogadishu and have their bodies chopped apart and
dragged through the streets, and all we get back are torsos, burned at
that.
Mr. Speaker, where was Clinton when he sent the Delta Force and those
heroes and Rangers and the 160th Special Forces Aviation Regiment, the
best helicopter pilots in the world. The training they go through, and
interviews and interviews and flight checks, is more arduous than
getting through West Point, to join that 160th special ops, nighttime
Delta Force helicopters up there at Fort Campbell.
He sent those people in to die in the alleys of Mogadishu from a war
criminal's home on Martha's Vineyard. Clinton was staying at Robert
Strange McNamara's home, and on a pay phone at a golf course, he said
send in that Delta Force, whatever it is, and in they went, Operation
Ranger, and a few weeks later the fathers of the two Medal of Honor
winners refused to shake his hand.
Mr. Speaker, same subject, different field. Infanticide. I know 15
Republicans voted for this, two of them are not coming back, and I will
always have this in the back of my mind when I deal with these 13
fellow Republicans that probably will all be reelected. They all have
safe races as far as I can see.
But this issue of infanticide, how could 15 Republicans, 4 of them
claiming to be Roman Catholics in their biographies, vote for a baby
being delivered, 80 percent out of the womb, deliberately breech block,
which is stressful to the mother. The mother is not in any danger, or
they would not be holding the baby's head in the birth canal.
[[Page H12190]]
And with the baby's little arms and legs grasping at life, stab the
baby in the back of the head and remove the brains with a suction
device, crushing the cranium.
Any doctor who does that is a killer, a murderer and if he does it
over and over, he is a serial murderer. A serial murderer. Seven or
eight Catholic Senators voted for it, six of them Irish Americans, I am
sick to tell you. And over here 33 Catholics on that side of the row,
four over here, but a great number of Democrats and a big vote, more
than two-thirds over here to stop it; fell nine votes short in the
Senate but it was still a big majority, 57 to 40-something.
And here is my pal that I first had on my television show as a
young--we both had full heads of red hair then--Dr. James Dobson,
founder of Focus on the Family, moved away from this Beltway and from
California to be out at Colorado Springs, God's country, here is what
he says about the failure to override the Clinton veto of partial birth
infanticide.
{time} 1545
He dated it from his office here in Washington. In reaction to
today's failure, and I have to redact little of this, because we cannot
comment, well, I can comment on policy, failure by the U.S. Senate to
override Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban, Dr. James
Dobson, President of Focus on the Family, released the following
statement, and every word of this speaks for me, and I will bet for
you, Jerry Solomon, and the Speaker.
This was a dark day in the entire history of this Nation. Forty
Senators joined Clinton in turning their backs on the most vulnerable
members of the human family, baby boys and girls, who are literally
inches from being completely born. Because the Senate abandoned its
moral duty to stop such an evil practice, these children will now
continue to be murdered in the most despicable way, a procedure
Congressman Henry Hyde so aptly called revolting, even to the most
hardened heart.
Dr. Dobson continues: The pro-abortion disinformation campaign, lying
campaign actually by the billion dollar killing industry, murdering
industry that was launched against this legislation, showed
the extremism of the abortion industry in supporting abortion on demand
throughout all my months of pregnancy for any reason or no reason.
Defenders of this procedure claimed it was rare, that it was only for
the health of the mother, and that the baby did not feel the pain of
the scissors; that the anesthesia would kill the baby, terrifying, by
the way all the mothers across this country, like my oldest daughter
has had three C-sections, cesareans, and had to have anesthesia. The
bells went off. A red light spun. When I am waiting as the dad right
there by the delivery room, what is it, the baby's cord is prolapsed,
we are into surgery here, we have to take the baby C-section from your
daughter, and she had to be anesthetized.
Now women are calling in, does the baby have a chance of dying if it
is anesthetized? Because they do not want to admit the baby is alive
when it is held in the birth canal.
Back to Dr. Dobson. They claim the baby doesn't feel the pain of the
scissors entering the back of its head. But in the last 2 weeks, the
media finally acknowledged none of that is true, even the Washington
Post. The successful effort to kill the partial birth, partial
infanticide abortion ban, shows that there is no abortion that Clinton
and his allies will not try to protect.
The Senators who joined Clinton in actually defending the partial
birth abortion have the blood of innocent children on their hands. I,
as Thomas Jefferson said, tremble for my country when I reflect that
God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Here are the words of Cardinal, and I am going to mispronounce his
name, a beautiful Spanish name, Bevilacqua, I believe he is from
Senator Rick Santorum's State, Pennsylvania, his words speak as
eloquently as Dr. Dobson's. He says, if late term abortions are legal,
Cardinal Bevilacqua, he speaks, a prince of the church, I truly fear
that infanticide, legal infanticide, will not be far behind, said the
Archbishop of Philadelphia. No nation, no civilization, that loses its
moral life, that murders its children, can possibly survive.
That day from the gallery, after he left the gallery, Dr. James
Dobson, a child psychiatrist, who I guested regularly when he was at
the University of Southern California on my Emmy award winning show
in 1968 and 1969, in between a lot of flights to Vietnam, to see how
the conflict against communism was going, he said judgment will come
upon this Nation.
We have a morality test and an IQ test on November 5, Mr. Speaker. I
hope the Nation passes it.
Mr. Speaker, I include the following for the Record.
Dr. James Dobson Denounces Senate Failure To Override Clinton Veto of
Partial Birth Abortion Ban
WASHINGTON--In reaction to today's failure by the U.S.
Senate to override President Clinton's veto of the Partial
Birth Abortion Ban, Dr. James Dobson, president of Focus on
the Family, released the following statement:
``This was a dark day in the entire history of the Senate
and of this nation. 40 Senators joined President Clinton in
turning their backs on the most vulnerable members of the
human family--baby boys and girls who are literally inches
from being completely born.
``Because the Senate abandoned its moral duty to stop such
an evil practice, these children will now continue to be
murdered in a most despicable way--by a procedure Congressman
Henry Hyde so aptly called `revolting, even to the most
hardened heart.'
``The pro-abortion disinformation campaign that was
launched against this legislation showed the extremism of the
abortion industry in supporting abortion-on-demand throughout
all nine months of pregnancy, Defenders of this procedure
claimed it was rare, that it was for the health of women, and
that the baby didn't feel the pain of the scissors. But in
the last two weeks, the media finally acknowledged that none
of this is true. The successful effort to kill the partial
birth abortion ban showed that there is no abortion the
President and his allies in the Senate would try to stop.
``The Senators who joined President Clinton in actually
defending partial birth abortion have the blood of innocent
children on their hands. I, as Thomas Jefferson did, `tremble
for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His
justice cannot sleep forever.' ''
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A Colonel Sets the Record Straight
Sept. 7, 1992.
Memorandum for Record:
Subject: Bill Clinton and the University of Arkansas ROTC
Program:
There have been many unanswered questions as to the
circumstances surrounding Bill Clinton's involvement with the
ROTC department at the University of Arkansas. Prior to this
time I have not felt the necessity for discussing the
details. The reason I have not done so before is that my poor
physical health (a consequence of participation in the Bataan
Death March and the subsequent 3\1/2\ years internment in
Japanese POW camps) has precluded me from getting into what I
felt was unnecessary involvement. However, present polls show
that there is the imminent danger to our country of a draft
dodger becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of
the United States. While it is true, as Mr. Clinton has
stated, that there are many others who avoided serving their
country in the Vietnam War, they are not aspiring to be the
President of the United States.
The tremendous implications of the possibility of his
becoming Commander-in-Chief of the United States' Armed
Forces compels me now to comment on the facts concerning Mr.
Clinton's evasion of the draft.
This account would not have been imperative had Bill
Clinton been completely honest with the American public
concerning this matter. But as Mr. Clinton replied on a news
conference this evening (Sept. 5, 1992) after being asked
another particular about his dodging the draft, ``Almost
everyone concerned with these incidents are dead. I have no
more comments to make.'' Since I may be the only person
living who can give a first-hand account of what actually
transpired, I am obligated by my love for my country and my
sense of duty to divulge what actually happened and make it a
matter of record. Bill Clinton came to see me in my home in
1969 to discuss his desire to enroll in the ROTC program at
the University of Arkansas. We engaged in an extensive,
approximately two (2) hour interview. At no time during this
long conversation about his desire to join the program did he
inform me of his involvement, participation, and actually
organizing protests against the United States involvement in
Southeast Asia. He was shrewd enough to realize that had I
been aware of his activities, he would not have been accepted
into the ROTC program as a potential officer in the United
States Army.
The next day I began to receive phone calls regarding Bill
Clinton's draft status. I was informed by the draft board
that it was of interest to Senator Fullbright's office that
Bill Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, should be admitted to the
ROTC program. I received several such calls. The general
message conveyed by the draft board to me was that Senator
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Fullbright's office was putting pressure on them and that
they needed my help. I then made the necessary arrangements
to enroll Mr. Clinton into the ROTC program at the University
of Arkansas.
I was not ``saving'' him from serving his country, as he
erroneously thanked me for in his letter from England (dated
Dec. 3, 1969). I was making it possible for a Rhodes Scholar
to serve in the military as an officer.
In retrospect I see that Mr. Clinton had no intention of
following through with his agreement to join the ROTC program
at University of Arkansas or to attend the University of
Arkansas Law School. I had explained to him the necessity of
enrolling at the University of Arkansas as a student in order
to be eligible to take the ROTC program at the university. He
never enrolled at the University of Arkansas, but instead
enrolled at Yale University after attending Oxford. I believe
that he purposely deceived me, using the possibility of
joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to
delay his induction and get a new draft classification.
The Dec. 3 letter written to me by Mr. Clinton, and
subsequently taken from the files by Lt. Col. Clint Jones, my
executive officer, was placed into the ROTC files so that a
record would be available in case the applicant should again
petition to enter into the ROTC program. The information in
that letter alone would have restricted Bill Clinton from
ever qualifying to be an officer in the United States
military. Even more significant was his lack of veracity in
purposely defrauding the military by deceiving me, both in
concealing his anti-military activities overseas and his
counterfeit intentions for later military service. These
actions cause me to question both his patriotism and his
integrity.
When I consider the caliber, the bravery, and the
patriotism of the fine young soldiers whose deaths I have
witnessed, and others whose funerals I have attended. . . .
When I reflected on not only the willingness, but eagerness
that so many of them displayed in their earnest desire to
defend and serve their country, it is untenable and
incomprehensible to me that a man who was not merely
unwilling to serve his country, but actually protested
against its military, should ever be in the position of
Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces.
I write this declaration not only for the living and future
generations, but for those who fought and died for our
country. If space and time permitted I would include the
names of the ones I knew and fought with, and along with them
I would mention my brother Bob, who was killed, during World
War II and is buried in Cambridge, England (at the age of 23,
the age Bill Clinton was when he was over in England
protesting the war).
I have agonized over whether or not to submit this
statement to the American people. But, I realize that even
though I served my country by being in the military for over
32 years, and having gone through the ordeal of months of
combat under the worst conditions followed by years of
imprisonment by the Japanese, it is not enough. I'm writing
these comments to let everyone know that I love my country
more than I do my own personal security and well-being. I
will go to my grave loving these United States of America and
the liberty for which so many men have fought and died.
Because of my poor physical condition, this will be my
final statement. I will make no further comments to any of
the media regarding this issue.
Eugene J. Holmes,
Colonel, U.S.A., Ret.
____________________