[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 138 (Monday, September 30, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12033-S12034]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   U.S. CAPITOL HISTORICAL SOCIETY DINNER HONORING THE SENATE ARMED 
                           SERVICES COMMITTEE

  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, on September 17 the U.S. Capitol Historical 
Society hosted a wonderful dinner honoring the Senate Armed Services 
Committee as the Committee celebrates our 180th anniversary. For those 
who may not be familiar with the history of the Senate committees, the 
Senate established the Committee on Military Affairs and the Committee 
on Naval Affairs in 1816, and these two committees were replaced by the 
Armed Services Committee in 1946.
  Under the leadership of former Congressman Clarence Brown, the 
Capitol Historical Society does an outstanding job of preserving the 
history of the Congress and promoting and encouraging the public's 
interest in this great institution. I want to express my appreciation 
to Congressman Brown and the staff of the Capitol Historical Society 
for the delightful evening honoring the committee.
  Mr. President, the featured speaker at this dinner was Dr. James 
Schlesinger, a man who has made an enormous contribution to our 
national security.
  I have know and worked with Jim Schlesinger since I came to the 
Senate in 1973. Over the years he has testified numerous times before 
the Armed Services Committee--both as a cabinet official and as a 
private citizen whose advice and counsel the committee has repeatedly 
sought on most of the difficult national security issues we have faced 
over the years. All of the members of the Armed Services Committee--
both Democrats and Republicans --regard Jim Schlesinger as one of the 
pillars of this Nation's security.
  In my remarks at the dinner, Mr. President, I recalled a Senate 
resolution which the Armed Services Committee and the full Senate 
adopted in 1975 and which I coauthored with our late colleague Senator 
Scoop Jackson. It was Senate Resolution 303, and it read:

       Resolved, That the Senate of the United States commends 
     Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger for his excellence 
     in office, his intellectual honesty and personal integrity, 
     and for his courage and independence. The Senate believes 
     that our country and the free world owe a great debt of 
     gratitude to Secretary Schlesinger for his untiring efforts 
     to improve the efficiency of our armed forces, the 
     cohesiveness of our alliances, the wisdom of our strategic 
     policies and doctrine, and for his determination to convey to 
     the American people the truth as he saw it and the sense of 
     the future he so deeply believed they must understand.

  Mr. President, those comments about Jim Schlesinger are as true today 
as they were when the Senate passed this resolution in 1975. As I end 
my Senate career, I want to thank Jim Schlesinger for his tremendous 
contributions to U.S. national security and foreign policy and to me 
personnally.
  I ask unanimous consent that Dr. Schlesinger's remarks to the Capitol

[[Page S12034]]

Historical Society dinner honoring the 180th anniversary of the Armed 
Services Committee be included in the Record at the conclusion of my 
remarks.
  Mr. President, I also want to note for my colleagues that the Center 
for Legislative Archives of the National Archives will soon be 
publishing a history of the Armed Services Committee by historian 
Richard McCulley. All of us on the Armed Services Committee are very 
excited about this project and eagerly look forward to its completion.

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