[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 11 (Thursday, February 12, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S783-S785]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                JOHN HAMRE'S SPEECH ON NATO ENLARGEMENT

 Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, few have had as distinguished a 
career in the Senate as Howell Heflin, our former colleague from the 
great state of Alabama. One of the ways through which I

[[Page S784]]

came to know and appreciate the indomitable optimism and warmth of 
Senator Heflin was through our work together as chairmen of the Senate 
Delegation to the North Atlantic Assembly.
  The NAA brings together on a regular basis parliamentary and 
legislative leaders of NATO's 16 nations to discuss matters of 
transatlantic concern, generate initiatives addressing key challenges, 
and reinforce this strategic partnership.
  Senator Heflin was not only an outstanding representative of the 
Senate to the Assembly and an ardent supporter of the NATO Alliance, 
but he was also an energetic and persuasive leader on an important 
initiative before us today, NATO enlargement.
  I recently corresponded with Senator Heflin. He brought to my 
attention a speech on NATO enlargement by Deputy Secretary of Defense 
John Hamre delivered on Veteran's day before an audience in Birmingham.
  Senator Heflin suggested that I submit this speech for the Record, 
and I gladly do so. It's a strong articulation of the moral and 
strategic underpinnings of NATO enlargement. It decisively addresses 
the key concerns voiced by those who still harbor reservations about 
this policy.
  I urge my colleagues to take Senator Heflin's advice and read this 
speech.
  The speech follows:

 Remarks by Deputy Secretary Hamre at Birmingham World Peace Luncheon, 
                            11 November 1997

       Senator Jeff Sessions, Senator Howell Heflin, Congressman 
     Spencer Bachus, and Mayor Richard Arrington. It is great to 
     be in Birmingham on Veterans' Day. The sons and daughters of 
     Birmingham have served our nation both on the battlefront and 
     on the homefront. So many served in World War II that this 
     area was known as the ``great arsenal of the South.''
       November 11th is set aside to honor all veterans of 
     American wars. But I would like to single out two individual 
     veterans today because their feats in uniform are a tribute 
     to all veterans. In fact, their names are inscribed in the 
     Hall of Heroes at the Pentagon, which honors America's Medal 
     of Honor winners. We are fortunate to have these two heroes 
     seated with us today: Bill Lawley and Lee Mize. Bill received 
     his Medal of Honor after World War II for flying his damaged 
     B-17 and his crew to safety in spite of his terrible wounds 
     and continued enemy attacks. Lee received his Medal of Honor 
     after the Korean War for almost single-handedly defending a 
     strategic outpost from brutal and continuous enemy assaults, 
     and then leading the counterattack that drove the enemy off. 
     Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of all veterans here and 
     everywhere, let's show our appreciation to these two American 
     heroes.
       Colonels Lawley and Mize--and all their comrades-in-arms--
     did a great deal to make America safe, both at home and 
     abroad.
       Let me share with you a story--a true story. It now seems 
     so long ago, but let me remind you of events back in 1989 
     before the Warsaw Pact collapsed and before the Berlin Wall 
     came down. At that time there was an announcement by Hungary 
     that they would not block East German citizens living in 
     Hungary from emigrating to West Germany. Within days of that 
     announcement East German citizens started showing up in 
     Budapest. Some 800 individuals, as I recall, were ``camping'' 
     in the yard at the West German embassy in Budapest. It became 
     a crisis--what to do with them all.
       After a day or so the West German government rented an 
     entire train and transported these East German refugees to 
     Frankfurt. I recall how CNN was on the scene, showing the 
     train as it slowly moved west.
       The night it arrived in Frankfurt a CNN news crew was on 
     the scene and interviewing the refugees. I recall they 
     cornered a young German couple--probably in the mid-20s. The 
     wife was holding an infant. After asking a series of inane 
     questions, the reporter asked the Germans, ``Is there 
     anything you would like to say?'' The man said, ``Yes, there 
     is something I would like to say. I would like to thank 
     America for keeping a place in the world that is free.''
       For me, it was a stunning moment. The United States decided 
     after painful deliberation to retain troops in Europe. We had 
     spent hundreds of billions of dollars during the Cold War 
     maintaining a tense peace. And just when many Americans were 
     getting tired and forgetting what it was all about, this 
     young German said in such simple words what it all amounted 
     to--``keeping a place in the world that is free.''
       Right now, America is at relative peace. But it is an 
     uneasy peace because we face new dangers of regional 
     aggression, terrorism, and the spread of weapons of mass 
     destruction. Just look at the headlines--Iraq rattling its 
     saber, North Korea threatening and unstable, conflict brewing 
     just below the surface in Bosnia. The challenge before our 
     nation today was posed recently by a scholar named Donald 
     Kagan in his book, On the Origins of War. He writes that: ``A 
     persistent and repeated error through the ages has been the 
     failure to understand that the preservation of peace requires 
     active effort, planning, the expenditure of resources, and 
     sacrifice, just as war does.''
       President Clinton and Secretary Cohen are determined that 
     the United States will not fail to seize the opportunity to 
     preserve peace. Today, I want to talk about how we are going 
     to preserve peace in Europe. The United States has devoted 
     too much blood and treasure in two World Wars and a Cold War. 
     The key to preventing war in Europe in the 21st Century is to 
     spread the democracy, stability, and prosperity of Western 
     Europe into Eastern and Central Europe, all the way to 
     Russia. And the key to that is by enlarging NATO--inviting 
     new members into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
       Last summer, President Clinton and his 15 NATO counterparts 
     took the historic step of inviting three former communist 
     countries--Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic--to join 
     NATO in 1999. But before this can happen, it must be approved 
     by the citizens of all 16 NATO nations through their elected 
     legislatures, including the United States Senate. This is a 
     very serious decision for American and our Senate to make.
       Fifty years ago, when George Marshall proposed the Marshall 
     Plan to help rebuild Europe after World War II, he went 
     around the country explaining the importance of rebuilding 
     Europe. As a result, the Marshall Plan--in Harry Truman's 
     words--was ``more than the creation of statesmen. It comes 
     from the minds and hearts of the people.'' NATO enlargement 
     must also come from the minds and hearts of the people. As 
     President Clinton said, ``Because [NATO enlargement] is not 
     without cost and risk, it is appropriate to have an open, 
     full, national discussion.''
       As the Senate prepares to consider NATO enlargement, it is 
     crucial that all Americans join in this debate. We especially 
     need to hear from our veterans. It is your voice--the voice 
     of the American veteran--that must be heard in support of 
     NATO enlargement.
       We must remind America how the fiery hatreds of Europe drew 
     us into World War I. Too many failed to make it to the 11th 
     hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the anniversary we 
     honor today. We all must remind Americans how this ``lost 
     generation'' served and sacrificed to give America a chance 
     to build a safer Europe for the next generation. We must warn 
     them how, when the guns of November fell silent, American 
     ignored the embers of hatred that still smoldered in Europe, 
     and we missed the opportunity to prevent another war.
       To those who would turn our backs on Europe today, tell 
     them the price our veterans paid in World War II as Hitler 
     stoked the embers of hate into the deadliest war in human 
     history. Tell them how sons returned to the very same terrain 
     that their fathers had died to set free, as they plunged into 
     the crashing surf at Normandy. A reporter for Star and 
     Stripes was there, and filed this searing dispatch: ``There 
     have been only a handful of days since the beginning of time 
     in which the direction the world was taking has been changed 
     for the better in one 24-hour period by an act of man. June 
     6, 1944 was one of them. What the Americans, the British, and 
     the Canadians were trying to do was to get back an entire 
     continent that had been taken from its rightful owners, whose 
     citizens had been taken captive. It was one of the most 
     monumentally unselfish things that one group of people ever 
     did for another.'' That D-Day observer was today's Andy 
     Rooney of ``60 Minutes'' fame.
       We cannot turn our backs on Europe today. The generation 
     that won the second World War gave us a second chance to 
     build a safer world. The Marshall Plan offered an American 
     hand of help and hope, to lift Europe out of the slough of 
     despair and snuff the embers of war forever. Western Europe 
     embraced the Marshall Plan and built strong democracies, 
     strong economies, and a strong alliance called NATO. But the 
     other half of Europe was denied the Marshall Plan when Joseph 
     Stalin slammed down the Iron Curtain on America's helping 
     hand. But still, America did not turn its back.
       Through the long winter of the Cold War, we stood again 
     with the free people of Europe. And today, having emerged 
     victorious from that long, twilight struggle, we have an 
     historic opportunity and a very sober challenge. We must 
     complete George Marshall's vision for a Europe healed, whole, 
     and free to ensure that Americans never again have to fight 
     and die on European battlefields. The key is for NATO to 
     reach out across the old Cold War divides, to nurture the new 
     democracies in Eastern and Central Europe that have emerged 
     from the iron grip of Soviet domination, and, when these 
     countries are ready, willing, and able to join the Western 
     Alliance, to invite them to join NATO.
       That is what NATO has done. And today, when you visit the 
     old capitals of the former Warsaw Pact nations, you can see a 
     new spring in the air--of liberty, prosperity, and national 
     security. The lines of commerce and communications are criss-
     crossing the old Cold War fault lines, knitting the continent 
     closer together. Former NATO enemies are seizing every 
     opportunity to meet, engage, and exercise their militaries 
     with NATO--and three of these nations are now ready to join 
     the Alliance.
       This is a major step and we must have a full national 
     debate. Some will argue that making NATO larger is going to 
     make NATO weaker and therefore weaken America. I believe the 
     reverse is true; a larger NATO reflects a wider allegiance to 
     our values. Veterans of our European wars know the power of 
     military alliances in deterring and defeating a common enemy. 
     It was the creation of NATO in 1949 that halted Soviet 
     designs on

[[Page S785]]

     Western Europe. It was the enlargement of NATO with Greece, 
     Turkey, West Germany, and Spain that helped to strengthen the 
     wall of democracy. And thanks to NATO, no American blood has 
     been shed fighting another war in Europe for more than 50 
     years. So enlarging NATO with Poland and Hungary and the 
     Czech Republic is going to carry that promise into the next 
     century.
       Some argue that these countries aren't ready to bear the 
     burdens of membership. But in the past few months, our 
     national security leaders have visited these nations and they 
     came away convinced that the Poles, the Hungarians, and the 
     Czechs fully intend to carry their responsibilities to 
     contribute to the Alliance, not just benefit from it.
       Some argue that by enlarging NATO we are going to be 
     creating new lines of division in Europe. But in fact, NATO 
     is at the center of a new dynamic in Europe that is rapidly 
     erasing these old lines and bridging over old divisions. The 
     mere prospect of jointing NATO has unleashed a powerful 
     impetus for peace on that continent. Old rivals have settled 
     their historic disputes and they have struck new accords and 
     arrangements. Poland and Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, 
     Hungary and Romania, Italy and Slovenia, Germany and the 
     Czech Republic--all have healed border disputes and other 
     kinds of controversies that in the past have erupted into 
     war. More than that, these old rivals are sealing these new 
     ties by working together in the conference rooms and the 
     training fields under NATO auspices.
       Some argue that enlarging NATO is going to create new 
     tensions and divisions in Russia and jeopardize Russia's move 
     to democracy and its cooperation with the West. But in 
     numerous actions, large and small, NATO and Russia are 
     forging new links to overcome these old divisions. NATO and 
     Russian air forces are now making authorized observation 
     flights over each other's territory. Last spring, NATO and 
     Russia signed a Founding Act that gives Russia a voice in--
     but not a vote or a veto over--NATO deliberations. And for 
     the past two years, Russian and American troops have been 
     serving together in Bosnia, going out on joint patrols to 
     settle disputes before they ignite into conflict.
       Finally, there are those who claim that NATO enlargement 
     will cost too much. But alliances actually save money because 
     they promote cooperation, interoperability, and they reduce 
     redundancy. Simply put, it costs America less to defend our 
     interests in Europe if Poland, Hungary, and the Czech 
     Republic are in alliance with us, just as it costs them less 
     to defend their interests by joining hands in the alliance 
     itself. And we estimate that the cost to the United States 
     each year over the next decade will be less than one-tenth of 
     one percent of our defense budget. The costs of enlarging 
     NATO are meager when weighed against the cost of potential 
     instability and aggression in Europe if we fail to enlarge.
       George Marshall knew the cost of war in Europe. He said it 
     is ``spread before us, written neatly in the ledger, whose 
     volumes are grave stones.'' Well, today, there are more than 
     70,000 such volumes written across Europe, the grave stones 
     of Americans who rest where they fell, liberating a 
     continent. And so their sacrifice echoes down to us through 
     the decades from the hillsides in Florence, from the sloping 
     green in Luxembourg, from the dignified rows on a cliff 
     overlooking the Normandy shore. They did not serve, they did 
     not sacrifice, they did not die for us so that we could walk 
     away from the lands that they freed. It's their voices that 
     we have to heed and the voices of every veteran of every 
     conflict that we have ever fought. You know it is better to 
     pay the price for peace than suffer the cost of war.
       John F. Kennedy once said, ``A nation reveals itself not 
     only by the individuals it produces, but also by those it 
     honors, those it remembers.'' Here, today, on behalf of every 
     man and woman who serves in the Department of Defense, let me 
     say thank you to Birmingham. Thank you for remembering. Too 
     many Americans observe Veterans Day in shopping malls. Too 
     many school kids think of Veterans Day as a holiday. Too few 
     cities pause to honor their native sons and daughters--the 
     quiet heroes of freedom. But not Birmingham. It is because of 
     Birmingham that America still keeps places in the world that 
     are free. Every Veterans Day, America reveals its commitment 
     to our armed forces by honoring and remembering the 
     sacrifices of America's veterans. So I want to thank all the 
     citizens of Birmingham for hosting this special event for 50 
     years and for making veterans everywhere feel like the heroes 
     they are. And I want to thank all our veterans for keeping 
     our nation safe and our citizens secure. God bless our 
     veterans . . . God bless Birmingham . . . and God bless the 
     United States of America.

                          ____________________