[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 5 (Wednesday, January 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S628-S630]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WILLIAM COHEN

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could just briefly make some comments 
here about our good friend, the Senator from Maine, Bill Cohen, I know 
the Presiding Officer feels this way very, very strongly, and I know 
she is very proud of his confirmation.
  I must say that over the course of my tenure in the Congress I have 
often

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been very honored to know Secretaries of Defense. We have had some 
great ones. Still today I consider many of them personal friends but I 
have never known one that I have been more proud of than I am today of 
William Cohen in this new position.
  Bill Cohen and I came to Congress together at the same time in 1973. 
We served in the House together. We served in the Senate together. We 
didn't always agree. In fact, we fought or disagreed pretty strongly 
the first couple of years we were in Congress, and it took years to get 
over that disagreement. But over that period of time in the House and 
Senate we became close friends, and I grew to admire him and sought out 
his advice and counsel which I found always very good even when he 
didn't agree sometimes with what I was trying to do. He gave me advice 
and help that was invaluable. I will also be thankful for that.
  We have much in common. We both represent small coastal States which 
face similar challenges and interests. He has truly become a great 
friend to me and to our people in my own home State. He has my respect 
and my unqualified support as the next Secretary of Defense.

  I think also we should take note of the fact that this was a grand 
gesture by the President. The President indicated that he wanted to 
have a look at some Republicans for his Cabinet. I was not sure he 
would do it. I know he considered several. But certainly he made a wise 
pick here, and it did not go unnoticed by the Republicans that he made 
this decision. I hope he will take the advice of his new Secretary of 
Defense. I think he will find it interesting and on occasion 
challenging and sometimes advice that he will not find easy to accept. 
But it will be invariably good advice.
  Bill Cohen will have his hands full as the new Secretary of Defense. 
Perhaps the largest challenge of his illustrious career I think now 
looms before him. I think it is to his credit that he was willing to 
step aside from his goal of moving into the private sector to come back 
and to go into this very important, very difficult position.
  I have become, in the last few months, increasingly concerned--
actually, it has been moving in this direction for a number of years, 
but I am really to the point of being alarmed about what I see 
happening with our military, our military leadership in the Pentagon, 
and what we have been doing to the defense budget of our country. And 
so we are now reaching the point where we are, I think, developing 
serious problems in O&M and procurement, and so Senator Cohen is going 
to have a tremendous job in righting this military monolith that has 
now reached the point where it has problems and will have growing 
problems in the future.
  I know Bill Cohen has expressed those concerns as a member, a very 
distinguished senior member, of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 
Now he will be in a position to help really do something about that.
  Over the last 2\1/2\ years, I must say that I think Bill Perry has 
performed admirably in a very difficult environment. He has often been 
dealt a weak hand both by insufficient funds to do the job and multiple 
demands that had to be fulfilled with those limited funds. But he has 
performed always masterfully, with intellect and integrity, and I think 
he has artfully managed the Pentagon at a very difficult time. So as he 
departs, Secretary Perry should be recognized for the fine job he did, 
and he truly has the gratitude of the Senate and I believe all 
Americans for his service to the Department of Defense.
  As majority leader and as a long-time supporter of a strong national 
defense, I look forward to working with Bill Cohen as our new 
Secretary. Many people have voiced surprise that the President would 
make this decision, but I was not surprised. I knew that once he talked 
to Bill Cohen, he would have to be impressed, and in fact he was. He 
recognized him as an expert in defense and security policy. He is 
bright and capable. He will make an exceptional Secretary of Defense, 
and I am very proud of his confirmation today.
  I yield the floor, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, the Senate rules allow me to just 
observe that the Presiding Officer, most fittingly, is the junior 
Senator from Maine at this time we in the Senate are speaking to the 
nomination of the former distinguished senior Senator from Maine--most 
appropriate.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I, too, join in sending my 
congratulations to our new Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, someone 
with whom I have had the privilege of serving on the Senate Armed 
Services Committee now for the past 8 years.
  Bill has been a most articulate and most thoughtful member of that 
committee--obviously, someone whom we have all come to respect, someone 
of great intellect and experience, arriving at the House in 1973 and 
spending a significant part of his lifetime serving the people of Maine 
and serving the people of this country.
  He is known as a writer. I think he has published eight books, and so 
it was always interesting to listen to his statements in the Chamber. 
They were always well-reasoned. They were always well-researched. They 
were always thoughtful. They were challenging and provocative. Bill had 
an independent streak which was a great asset. It allowed him to escape 
the orthodoxy of the political mantra we sometimes find ourselves 
repeating without a great deal of forethought. Yet Bill's challenge, I 
think, raised issues that we needed to discuss and needed to consider. 
While I did not always come to the same conclusion he did, I always 
respected his thoughtfulness and respect for the conclusions he 
reached.
  He now assumes a very difficult assignment. These are not easy times 
at the Department of Defense, not because we find ourselves engaged in 
any major conflict but because, for a period of more than a decade, we 
have been undertaking a very significant reorganization following the 
demise of the cold war and following our success in the gulf. This is 
not without consequence, and we are now approaching, I believe, our 
12th or 13th consecutive year of reductions in defense spending.
  That has taken its toll. It has placed us in a very difficult 
position. Secretary-designate Cohen this morning in testimony before 
the Armed Services Committee talked about the world as it is today, the 
challenges that exist in that world, the threats that we still face, 
albeit in a different form, and the need to be militarily prepared and 
to have a strong national security.
  We are undertaking a quadrennial review process which is going to 
force us, as Secretary Cohen said, to make and face some very difficult 
choices. The declining budget has not allowed us to maintain the kind 
of capability that many of us feel is necessary if we are going to 
pursue a two-regional-response strategy. We face some serious questions 
regarding modernization, balancing that with the need for readiness and 
the need for adequate compensation for our personnel and adequate 
benefits for our personnel, as well as the research and development 
needed to take us into the next century.
  All of these difficult choices will now fall to our new Secretary of 
Defense. He is clearly someone with whom both Republicans and Democrats 
can work. In fact, we have worked together probably in a more 
bipartisan way on the Armed Services Committee than any other committee 
in the Senate. And so we stand ready to work with him in attempting to 
address some of these fundamental questions that are going to determine 
the course of our defense in future years.
  I asked Bill Cohen this morning what experiences in his life and 
particularly during his tenure in Congress helped shape his views in 
terms of the role of the military and the role of defense. He shared 
with us a response which I had hoped he would give and was pleased that 
he did give in outlining some of the experiences he has had in 
traveling to and visiting with and being with our troops as they serve 
around the world.
  We are often criticized here for some of the travel that we take. I 
note the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Glenn], is in the Chamber. I will never 
forget--and

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it has been a basis of some of the critical decisions I have had to 
make regarding defense expenditures and defense policy--the trip we 
took to Kuwait right after the war and watching Senator Glenn interact 
with marines and naval personnel and military personnel and they react 
with him. Senator McCain was with us. There is no substitute for 
leaving the charts and leaving the Vu-Graphs and leaving the cold facts 
on a piece of paper and getting out in the field and talking to 
soldiers, whether it is generals or captains or privates or sergeants.
  There is no substitute for learning some of the difficulties that 
take place, in terms of putting together an adequate defense, some of 
the challenges that face our country and face those personnel. There is 
no substitute for dealing with that on a personal basis. Senator Cohen 
shared that view and shared the view that, when you do that, when you 
personalize our decisions, when you realize that someone's son or 
daughter is going to be put at risk in defense of this country, it 
gives you a different perspective in terms of the kind of equipment, 
the kind of quality of life, the kind of support for their family, the 
kind of training and, frankly, the kind of decisions we make in terms 
of their deployment. I think it is important for every Member to have 
that perspective.
  I have taken advantage of the opportunity as a member of the Armed 
Services Committee to travel as much as the schedule will allow and 
spend as much time with our troops in the field as time allows. It has 
been just an invaluable experience. I know Senator Cohen will place 
those experiences at the forefront of his thinking, in terms of the 
decisions he has to make in the Department of Defense.
  I also congratulate Secretary Perry for just an outstanding tenure as 
Secretary of Defense. I was one of the people who raised the question 
early on as to whether Secretary Perry, while I acknowledged his 
masterful technological skills and management skills, whether he could 
be an effective Secretary of Defense in a political world, trying to 
deal with all of us and the give and take that takes place, because he 
is a mild, soft-spoken man. But he is a man of steel. It does not take 
shouting and it does not take fist pounding to be effective. Secretary 
Perry proved that.
  I watched him in negotiations with the Soviets and with the Russians. 
I watched him in serious policy debates with some of our allies. I 
watched him interact with us on very important questions relative to 
defense, in testimony before our committee. He was a model of civility, 
a model of decency, a great intellect, a thoughtful, articulate 
spokesman for the Department of Defense. He served this country well 
and deserves our accolades.
  Finally, let me say when Bill Cohen and I were in the House of 
Representatives we would participate in the annual Democrat and 
Republican baseball game. Bill Cohen was known for the best fastball on 
the team. He struck some fear in the hearts and minds of some of our 
Democrat opponents. It made me glad I was a Republican. I used to warm 
up Bill Cohen and that ball was not always down the middle of the 
plate. I never saw anybody really dig in against him.
  There probably are Members of the House today who owe their health to 
the fact that every time Bill and I would try to run over from the 
Senate to play in that game, which Bill was then senior Senator, 
Senator Mitchell would not adjourn the Senate for us so we could 
participate. We had to carry our beepers. Inevitably, Senator Mitchell 
or someone else would call a vote and, before Bill made it to the mound 
to strike fear in the Democrats, the beeper would go off. I always 
suspected Senator Mitchell had some kind of communication system with 
his Democrat colleagues in the House and they would say, ``Cohen is 
warming up in the bullpen, call a vote and get him out of here. Our 
very lives are at risk.''
  The ability to throw those high hard ones and sometimes keep his 
adversaries a little bit looser at the plate than maybe they would 
otherwise be, will serve him well as Secretary of Defense in the tough 
negotiations that he has coming before him. I wish him nothing but 
success and I look forward to working with him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. GLENN. Madam President, I associate myself with the remarks all 
the people made regarding our new Secretary of Defense, now made 
official in that capacity this afternoon.
  I have known Bill for many years. I worked with him. I think he will 
be a great Secretary of Defense. He will try to fill some very big 
shoes over there that Bill Perry leaves, who I think turned into one of 
the greatest Secretaries of Defense since there has been that position 
in Government.
  But I have talked to Bill personally. He knows my admiration for him 
and my support for him in that office. So I just want to associate 
myself with all the other fine congratulations that are being offered 
here on the floor today.
  Madam President, I also rise today to introduce the Human Research 
Subject Protection Act of 1997.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.
  Mr. GLENN. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Glenn pertaining to the introduction of S. 193 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')

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