[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 3 (Thursday, January 29, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, on January 25, 1998, this past Sunday, the 
President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, celebrated his 70th 
birthday. President Shevardnadze is one of the central international 
political figures of our age, and has been pivotal in the 
transformation of the communist Soviet empire into a group of nation 
states which have now embraced the goals of individual freedom, 
democratic processes, and free market economics. It is noteworthy that 
this transformation, the dismantling of an empire with large 
intelligence and military forces, and with a history of inbred 
hostility toward the West, occurred absent any violent confrontation 
with the United States, or our European allies.
  Much of the credit for this peaceful transformation, the ending of 
the Berlin Wall and the cooperation between the Soviet leadership and 
the United States on major arms control and reduction agreements, 
rightfully belongs to the enlightened and forceful personality of Mr. 
Shevardnadze. His role emphasizes the crucial part played by 
personalities in the shaping of the major events of human history. He 
serves as an example that history is shaped to a large extent by 
individual men, rather than by social movements or economic 
imperatives.
  For instance, Russian cooperation with the United States in working 
to condemn, and then oust, Saddam Hussein's forces from their 
occupation of Kuwait was to a large extent due to the courageous 
support of Mr. Shevardnadze in the face of opposition from forces in 
Russia which wanted to preserve a historic Russian-Iraqi alliance. His 
help in establishing a cooperative relationship with the United States 
regarding the invasion of Iraq actually forced Gorbachev's hand and 
trumped the Soviet security bureaucracies. It has been well documented 
that Shevardnadze quickly shed the negative approach to East-West 
relations that was the hallmark of former Russian Foreign Minister 
Andrei Gromyko when Shevardnadze took over the Foreign Ministry of the 
Soviet Union in 1985. Both former Secretaries of States George Shultz 
and James Baker have written extensively about Shevardnadze and praised 
his many contributions to the ending of the cold war. As a former U.S. 
Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock, has written in the 
September 25, 1997, issue of the ``New York Review of Books,'' ``If 
Gorbachev had been served by a less imaginative and courageous foreign 
minister it is doubtful that the cold war could have been ended as 
rapidly and definitively as it was.''
  Shevardnadze served as Soviet Foreign Minister from 1985-1991, and 
presided over the rapid transformation of East-West relations and the 
end of the cold war. It was, as I have said, an extraordinary era in 
which we have all been fortunate to participate in and to witness. In 
1991, Eduard Shevardnadze resigned as Soviet Foreign Minister in 
protest over what he perceived as the coming of a military dictatorship 
in Russia, and he returned to his native Georgia. Georgia was in an 
advanced state of shambles, with the economy devastated following the 
breakup of the Soviet Union. The country was in a state of ruinous 
civil war. Shevardnadze entered political life there, and was elected 
president of Georgia in November 1995, with over 70 percent of the 
vote. Currently, he also serves as the Commander in Chief of the armed 
forces of Georgia, and has brought new hope, stability, and economic 
development to that nation. A new constitution has been adopted, and 
Shevardnadze has secured the transportation of Caspian oil through 
Georgia and negotiated a number of agreements with both Russia and the 
neighboring Caucasus states. As the current ambassador of Georgia to 
the U.S., the Honorable Tedo Japaridze, has written to me regarding 
President Shevardnadze's goals, ``he is committed to build democracy in 
Georgia, brick by brick.''
  Eduard Shevardnadze is a man who has made a difference in our age, 
and he will continue to make a difference. He has many admirers in the 
United States, including myself, and I wish him well on the event of 
his 70th birthday.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ABRAHAM addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

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