[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 13 (Monday, February 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S807-S811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO SENATOR ABRAHAM RIBICOFF

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise to commemorate an extraordinary life. 
We in the U.S. Senate have lost a former colleague and a leading light 
of the U.S. Senate--Abraham Ribicoff.
  Abe Ribicoff, Mr. President, was born and raised in New Britain, CT. 
He was the son of poor Polish immigrants. Yet this humble son of 
Connecticut rose to become one of our State's and our country's most 
distinguished public servants. He served in this body for 18 years--
beginning in January of 1963 and retiring in 1981.
  One of the highest honors I have had in public life, Mr. President, 
was to succeed Abe Ribicoff in the U.S. Senate, and I take great pride 
in the fact that in 1981 Abe Ribicoff placed my name in nomination for 
this office.
  Abe Ribicoff believed fervently that the highest calling one can have 
in American life is public service. He obeyed that calling as few 
Americans ever have. He is the only person in our Nation's history to 
have served as a State legislator, a municipal judge, a U.S. 
Representative, a Governor, a Presidential Cabinet Secretary, and a 
U.S. Senator.
  But to appreciate Abe Ribicoff, it is important to understand that he 
did more than occupy an impressive collection of public offices. What 
distinguished Abe Ribicoff from his peers, from his predecessors, and 
from those who have come after him is not the number of offices he 
held, but the manner in which he held them. Abe Ribicoff brought to his 
life's work integrity, candor, high principle, an unshakeable faith in 
America's Government, and a deeply held belief in the goodness and 
decency of our people.

  Abe Ribicoff had the rarest and most important of all qualities we 
seek in public leaders--courage in the public arena. Time and again, in 
ways large and small, he demonstrated a commitment to principle even in 
the face of fierce opposition. He was willing to fight for what he 
believed to be right. And he fought hard, though always--always--in a 
decent and honorable manner.
  In Abe Ribicoff's politics, there was no place for meanness, no place 
for personal attacks. He understood the importance of public opinion, 
but he never relied on polls to shape his political decisions. He was 
guided not by emotion, not by numbers, but by judgment, by reason, and 
by principle.

[[Page S808]]

  One of the defining moments in his public life took place in 1968 at 
the Democratic National Convention. Here was a man, Mr. President, a 
first-term Senator, not unaware that he was confronting the entire 
national leadership of his party, willing to take a stand and make a 
very, very public display and call for civility in our society.
  In doing so on that day, he appealed, in my view, to what is best 
about our Nation and ourselves--our capacity for tolerance and 
understanding; our belief that in a truly civilized society we live by 
the rule of law, not by the rule of force; that in fact it is right 
that makes might.
  In this moment, the world learned what we in Connecticut had long 
known, that Abe Ribicoff was a national gift.
  His entire career stood above all for the belief that America is a 
land of limitless opportunity and equal justice.
  He abhorred discrimination in all its forms, and he knew it in his 
own life. During his campaign for Governor in 1954, an ugly whispering 
campaign questioned whether Connecticut was ready for a Jewish 
Governor. Abe Ribicoff answered from the heart. In a famous address in 
Connecticut, Abe Ribicoff said:

       In this great country of ours, anybody, even a poor kid 
     from immigrant parents in New Britain, could achieve any 
     office he sought, or any position in private or public life, 
     irrespective of race, color, creed, or religion.

  The voters of Connecticut, Mr. President, answered that they agreed 
with their Governor-elect.
  Even when he himself was not touched by the sting of discrimination, 
he acted to do what was right. In 1956, a young Senator from 
Massachusetts was mentioned as a possible Vice Presidential candidate. 
Ironically, many Catholics, mindful of the discrimination that still 
existed against them, questioned whether America was ready for an Irish 
Catholic in the White House after what had occurred to Alfred Smith in 
1928.
  Abe Ribicoff, speaking to the Irish Catholic leadership of the 
Democratic Party, took exception.

       I never thought [he said] I'd see the day when a man of the 
     Jewish faith had to plead before a group of Irish Catholics 
     about allowing another Irish Catholic to be nominated for the 
     position [of Vice President].

  In no small measure, Mr. President, it was Abe Ribicoff's faith--
faith in his country and faith in a candidate that propelled John 
Kennedy to the Presidency just a few years later.
  Once again, Mr. President, in 1976, questions were raised about 
whether a southern Governor and a born-again Baptist believer could 
serve as President of the United States. Without a moment's hesitation, 
this Connecticut Yankee said yes. Judge the man, judge his ideas, but 
do not judge his personal faith.
  Abe Ribicoff lived most of his professional life at the highest, most 
austere and auspicious levels. He knew his share of Governors, of 
Senators, of Presidents. But lest we forget, Mr. President, he also 
knew struggle. He knew hardship growing up among the shops and mills of 
New Britain, CT. And he knew discrimination and he knew defeat, having 
lost his first campaign in the Senate by a slim margin.
  But even as he rose to the very top of public life, he never forgot 
about those that he served. He knew that all principles are in the end 
empty letters and hollow rhetoric if they are not connected to people's 
lives. The instrument of Government, the laws of the land mean little 
if they do not help ordinary citizens surmount obstacles and obtain 
their noblest aspirations.
  At a time when Medicare was described as ``socialism,'' Abe Ribicoff 
knew that it embodied the obligation of a compassionate society to care 
for its elderly. When some called civil rights laws an affront to 
``States rights,'' he knew that they could make the promise of equal 
justice a reality for millions of Americans. When others said that a 
Governor and a Senator should not spend his time fussing about highway 
safety, he knew that a tough approach to speeding and drunk driving 
would save lives and spare families immeasurable grief and sorrow.
  We have spoken of Abraham Ribicoff as a public servant, but he was 
much more than that. He was also a husband and a father. To his wife 
Casey and to his family we convey our deepest sorrow.
  He was also a teacher. I consider myself extremely--extremely--
fortunate to have been able to call on him many, many, many times since 
he left office in 1981 for his advice and counsel and guidance and just 
good old political conversation. No one--no one--in this world of 
political life could have had a better mentor than I did in Abe 
Ribicoff.
  Mr. President, I want to close with a reading from Hebrew text. It 
captures, I believe, the essence of this man whose passing we all mourn 
today. Let me quote it:

     A good name is to be chosen above wealth, and character 
           rather than silver and gold.
     Blessed is the one who bequeaths a good name to his 
           descendants.
     There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of 
           priesthood, and the crown of royalty,
     But the crown of a good name excels them all.
     Even a long life ends too soon, but a good name endures 
           forever.
     Blessed is he whose noble deeds remain his memorial after his 
           life on Earth is ended.

  Mr. President, I yield to my good friend and colleague, Senator 
Lieberman.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and thank my friend and senior 
colleague from Connecticut. I thank him for his eloquent and moving 
tribute to Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff whose passing yesterday we mourn 
on the floor of the Senate today. I would like to just add a few words 
to my colleague's extraordinary statement.
  Mr. President, as Senator Dodd has referred to that critical moment 
in the 1954 campaign of Senator Ribicoff for Governor of Connecticut, 
when there were expressions of bigotry, of anti-Semitism, and Senator 
Ribicoff at a turning point in his own career rose to challenge those 
whispers directly in the eloquent words that Senator Dodd has spoken in 
what has become known in Connecticut political lore as Abe Ribicoff's 
``American Dream Speech.'' In the bottom line of it was Senator 
Ribicoff saying, ``Abe Ribicoff believes in the American dream.'' And 
indeed he did. The extraordinary life that he led that ended yesterday, 
after 87 years, is a testament to the vitality of the American dream.
  Mr. President, there are many other great civilizations and 
democracies in the world, but I must say the more that I have the 
opportunity to visit them the more I come back home appreciating how 
unique this great country of ours is, how we have created here an ethic 
of mutual respect, of a fairness of opportunity that has allowed people 
who are capable, who are willing to work hard to rise to the highest 
levels in our society, whether it is in the public sector, the private 
sector, in the arts, sports, whatever.
  In that moment of crisis, in a campaign that, if he had lost, 
probably his public career would have ended, Abe Ribicoff stood up and 
directly confronted and challenged those who did not believe in the 
American dream, who were prepared to stimulate an effort against him 
because of his religion, to say that he believed in the American dream 
and had confidence that the people of Connecticut did. Also, of course, 
they vindicated that confidence on election day.
  His father was an immigrant from Poland--Polish, Jewish--came to New 
Britain, CT, worked at first as a peddler, then as a factory worker, 
and raised a son and other distinguished members of the family who rose 
to extraordinary and proud heights.
  Abe Ribicoff worked for everything he achieved. He had--if I may 
borrow from a phrase that my colleague mentioned earlier--he had a 
regal quality to him. It is a remarkable thing to say, when you think 
of the humble origins from where he came, but it was within himself, 
his dignity, his intelligence, his civility, his honor and integrity 
that those qualities remarkably in the hurly-burly of the political 
life that we lead remained intact.
  He worked his way forward, ultimately graduating from the University 
of Chicago Law School. He came back to Connecticut and began to 
practice law. And very soon he went into public life.

[[Page S809]]

  As Senator Dodd said, he has a record that as far as we know is 
unequaled in America because of the extraordinary range of offices he 
held--State legislator, judge, member of the U.S. House of 
Representatives, Governor, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare 
in the Kennedy Cabinet, and then the capstone to his career, 18 
extraordinarily distinguished and productive years as a U.S. Senator.
  I want to comment on a few of those periods of his life and end with 
a personal word. When Abe Ribicoff became Governor of the State of 
Connecticut, he led an administration that constituted a turning point 
in the history of our State and, in many ways, pointed the direction 
for the future of the Democratic Party. As I have been thinking over 
the last 24 hours of some of the accomplishments that characterized Abe 
Ribicoff's career, it seems to me he was a ``new Democrat'' before 
anybody thought of the term.
  In Connecticut, where the party had most of its strength in the 
cities, Abe Ribicoff and others--including my colleague's distinguished 
and beloved father, Senator Tom Dodd--reached out from the cities to 
the suburbs, to the smaller towns, and broadened the reach of the 
Democratic Party in our State. In doing so, he not only achieved 
personal success and paved the way for partisan success in the future 
throughout the State but served with the public and the public interest 
in Connecticut mightily.
  Abe Ribicoff as Governor was a fiscal conservative. He believed in 
balancing the budget. He believed in governmental reform. He focused on 
public safety questions such as highway safety. He never hesitated to 
work across party lines. During his 6 years as Governor, there were 
times when the Republican Party controlled one or, I believe, both 
Houses of the State legislature. He had a guiding principle that he 
adopted and articulated that carried him very well, right through the 
Senate years. It is what he described as the integrity of compromise. 
He said, in this business of politics there is nothing dishonorable and 
certainly not dishonest about compromising your initial position to get 
something done. What is the value, he would say, of holding to that 
initial position as strongly as you originally felt if just moving a 
little bit--as long as it is not against your conscience and your 
principles--allowed you to do something for the people.
  He had a distinguished, very popular career as Governor, winning a 
very close victory in 1954, then going on to win an enormous landslide 
in 1958. As Senator Dodd has said, he played a pivotal role, along with 
our State Democratic chairman, John Bailey, in the election of JFK as 
President, there, again, as my senior colleague has said, giving 
another testament to Abe Ribicoff's belief in the American dream.
  President Kennedy asked Senator Ribicoff to become a member of the 
Cabinet, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. He served there 
with distinction. He did some of the early work that led to the 
Medicare Program, which today is so critical to so many millions of 
Americans to provide decent health and is itself one of the reasons the 
average lifespan of the American people is longer today than it was 
before Medicare started.
  The truth is, as he said to those of us who were privileged to know 
him and as he said after his retirement from public life, that the year 
and a half as a member of the Cabinet were not the happiest years of 
his career. In fact, they were probably the least satisfying. He was 
very honest about it. He said, ``I'm used to being my own man. I was 
Governor, I was a Member of Congress. I'm used to being my own man, 
instead of having to support positions that are someone else's that I 
really didn't support or having to oppose other positions that I really 
did support.''
  He served with distinction but not with pleasure and took the 
opportunity to run for the U.S. Senate in 1962. That, I think, was the 
most productive and the most satisfying time of his remarkable career. 
He was again ahead of his time here. He worked on subjects like 
environmental protection before the great burst of activity in that 
area occurred in the 1970s. He had a hearing and invited the mother of 
the environmental movement, Rachel Carson, after she published her book 
``Silent Spring,'' to testify before his committee. From that 
testimony, he worked on pesticides and other threats to the environment 
and public health. He continued the work that he started at HEW and 
played a leading role in the passage of the Medicare Program, serving 
as a member of the Finance Committee. He continued the work he had done 
in Connecticut on highway safety and did some very important 
legislative work to raise the standards for automotive safety of the 
American people. He was a great believer in free and fair trade and a 
strong supporter of the kind of governmental stimulus to the private 
sector that creates economic growth. He was very much in that sense a 
person of the Senate.

  He worked very easily and comfortably across party lines. Again, 
remembering the integrity of compromise in a body of 100 people with a 
lot of strong opinions, you need people who are bridge builders, and 
Senator Abe Ribicoff built some extraordinary bridges that have so 
dramatically improved the quality of American life.
  Mr. President, if I may end on a personal note, Senator Ribicoff was 
for me a hero, an inspiration, and a mentor. In 1954, when he first ran 
for Governor, I was a kid in Stanford, CT, beginning to develop an 
interest in politics. I was taken by his strength, by his independence, 
by the way he carried himself. Because he and I shared the same 
religion--both members of a minority religion--I wondered how he would 
fare. In some sense, he tested in a most public way the faith that my 
own dear parents gave me that this is a great country, this is a 
country of opportunity; people will judge you not by how you worship 
but by how you work, how you conduct yourself, what you propose to do.
  Of course, in that election in 1954, the people of Connecticut 
vindicated Abe Ribicoff's faith, my parents' faith and in that sense 
gave me that faith at a critical time in my own life.
  In the 1960s, as a college student, I had the great opportunity to 
work for Senator Ribicoff for two summers. This is sometimes what 
happens to Senate interns. We end up in the field of our dreams, as it 
were, here in the U.S. Senate, first in 1962 on his committee, his 
Campaign Finance Committee, working in the State, and then in the 
summer of 1963 as one of his first summer interns. We developed, I 
don't even want to at that stage call it a friendship, but he was a 
mentor, he was a teacher. I learned an enormous amount from him and 
will forever be grateful that when a few years later, in 1970, I 
decided to tackle public office as a State senator, he was gutsy enough 
and supportive enough to endorse me. It happened to be a Democratic 
primary against an incumbent, so it was quite a boost for a youngster, 
running without previous officeholding experience, to receive the 
support of the distinguished U.S. Senator whom I have talked about in 
terms of compromise and the integrity of compromise.
  While it was true he was a moderate man in many ways, and that helped 
him to build the coalitions that made things happen for his 
constituents and for the American people, Abe Ribicoff's moderation was 
not a mushy vacuum moderation. It was full of principle; it was full of 
substance. As those of us who knew and loved him also can tell you, he 
was capable of leaving that moderation to go to periods of white heat 
when he felt strongly about something and was prepared to step out on 
those occasions, regardless of what the political conventions would 
have told him to do. The most dramatic, well-known example is the 
remarkable, courageous speech at the 1968 Democratic National 
Convention that Senator Dodd referred to.
  Abe Ribicoff was a towering figure who served with honor and great 
result. It is a source of great personal pride and no small amount of 
humility that I have the opportunity to stand here as a U.S. Senator 
today to express my own sadness at his passing and my own pride at the 
great career that he had and, finally, to offer my condolences to his 
beloved wife Casey, to his children Peter and Jane, to his stepson 
Peter, and to his six grandchildren. Your father, your grandfather, 
served America with great distinction and served in a way that should 
give hope to the millions of others out there who may be, as he did 
long ago, forming their own American dream.

[[Page S810]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. I commend my colleague for his eloquent statement and his 
remembrances of Abe Ribicoff.
  On behalf of both of us, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to 
have printed some very fine comments from today's editions of the 
Hartford Courant and the New Britain Herald, his hometown newspaper. 
They did excellent jobs in capturing the career and the essence of Abe 
Ribicoff.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Hartford Courant, Feb. 23, 1998]

                      Abraham Ribicoff Dies at 87


was congressman, governor, cabinet member and u.s. senator in 4 decades 
                           of public service

  (By Charles F.J. Morse--Special to The Courant and David Lightman--
                        Washington Bureau Chief)

       Abraham A. Ribicoff, a storybook politician whose rare mix 
     of talent, timing and luck took him from a boyhood dream in 
     New Britain to a distinguished third term in the United 
     States Senate, died of heart failure Sunday at the Hebrew 
     Home in Riverdale, N.Y.
       He was 87.
       One of the state's most accomplished Democrats, Mr. 
     Ribicoff was Connecticut's first and only Jewish governor and 
     one of its longest-serving senators. And he became known 
     nationally as President Kennedy's first secretary of health, 
     education and welfare and later as the man who stood up to 
     Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley during the tumultuous 1968 
     Democratic National Convention.
       ``Abe Ribicoff served Connecticut and our nation with great 
     distinction, style and elegance. He is truly one of the great 
     leaders of the 20th century,'' U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, 
     D-Conn., said Sunday. ``He displayed courage and conviction 
     throughout his life, and he was a symbol for what public 
     service can and should be. He will be sorely missed.''
       Mr. Ribicoff left Washington in 1981, declining to run for 
     a fourth Senate term. He went to New York to practice law, 
     ``the generalist in a firm of 400 specialists,'' he would 
     jest.
       In a 1992 interview, he explained why he returned to his 
     Cornwall Bridge home and sometimes took on the two-hour 
     commute to midtown Manhattan instead of staying in Washington 
     to enjoy elder-statesman status.
       ``I always felt that once a person no longer has power, he 
     should get out,'' Mr. Ribicoff said from his Park Avenue 
     office, ``Nothing is as sad as seeing a person who used to 
     have power have none.''


                        strong-willed gentleman

       Mr. Ribicoff always had a keen sense of timing. He was a 
     craftsman of the political surprise.
       On the eve of his election as governor in 1954, feeling the 
     closeness of his challenge to incumbent Republican Gov. John 
     Davis Lodge, and hearing some anti-Semitic undercurrents, Mr. 
     Ribicoff went on television and winged it from the heart, 
     telling of his American dream:
       ``In this great country of ours, anybody, even a poor kid 
     from immigrant parents in New Britain, could achieve any 
     office he sought, or any position in private or public life, 
     irrespective of race, color, creed or religion.''
       No one can measure the impact of that 11th-hour emotional 
     candor, but he won the election by a slim 3,200 votes.
       ``He was a true leader and a leader in many ways that were 
     first,'' former Gov. William A. O'Neill said Sunday.
       O'Neill recalled Mr. Ribicoff as an old-fashioned gentleman 
     who nonetheless had strong will and fought for what he 
     believed in.
       ``He was a very strong man, a firm man, yet a very 
     compassionate person who looked out for those who could not 
     look out for themselves,'' O'Neill said. ``As far as 
     political courage, he had all you needed of that.''
       Mr. Ribicoff was born in New Britain on April 9, 1910, son 
     of Samuel and Rose Sable Ribicoff.
       He put himself through New York University and married Ruth 
     Siegel of Hartford before attending the University of Chicago 
     Law School. The couple had two children, Peter Ribicoff of 
     New York City and Jane Bishop of Del Mar, Calif.
       Ruth Ribicoff died on April 12, 1972. He married Lois 
     ``Casey'' Mathes of Florida the following August.


                            an early crusade

       Mr. Ribicoff's public career spanned 42 years. He lost an 
     election only once.
       His first elective office, won in 1938, was a seat from 
     Hartford in the state House of Representatives. From there he 
     moved on to a Hartford Police Court judgeship. He was elected 
     to Congress, from the 1st District, in 1948 and as governor 
     in 1954.
       After winning the state's highest office by a hair, Mr. 
     Ribicoff later issued an executive order mandating 30-day 
     license suspensions for drivers convicted of speeding. 
     Thousands lost their licenses.
       During 1956, the first year of its enforcement, 10,346 
     licenses were suspended for speeding, as compared to only 372 
     suspensions in the same period during 1955. In the same year, 
     traffic deaths were reduced by 38 from the 1955 total.
       The anti-speeding crusade could have cost the gutsy young 
     governor dearly. ``Unless public officials have the guts to 
     see it through, nothing will work,'' he responded to his 
     political critics. ``We need tough, hard measures if we are 
     to save lives.''
       Connecticut's highway deaths continued to drop, and Mr. 
     Ribicoff's stature soared. It rose even higher with his 
     handling of the catastrophic floods that hit the state in 
     August 1955. Four years later, he was re-elected by a 
     landslide.
       During that period, his timing served him well again. He 
     was one of the first to urge John F. Kennedy, a Roman 
     Catholic, to run for president. He always considered his 
     support of Kennedy one of the most important moments of his 
     political career.
       ``Kennedy said time and time again the first man who 
     thought he could be president was Abe Ribicoff,'' Mr. 
     Ribicoff recalled in a 1979 interview. ``In 1950, I said that 
     Kennedy would be the first Catholic president of the United 
     States. In Worcester, at the Massachusetts Democratic 
     Convention of 1956, I proposed Jack for vice president. I 
     nominated him in Chicago.''
       U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said Sunday, ``The 
     Kennedy family has lost a good and trusted friend.''
       The late Jack Zaiman, The Courant's political writer for 
     most of Mr. Ribicoff's career, recalled ``a charmed political 
     life. It seemed that whatever he did, and however he did it, 
     it turned out right.''
       The people knew him instantly. He became the best-known 
     political name in Connecticut, until Ella T. Grasso.
       In a 1985 remembrance piece, Zaiman wrote that Mr. Ribicoff 
     formed an ideal political relationship with John M. Bailey, 
     the late state and national Democratic chairman. The two had 
     met by chance, as young Hartford lawyers who happened to have 
     rented offices in the same building at 750 Main St.
       ``Ribicoff always made it appear as if he were above 
     politics,'' Zaiman wrote. ``He was, so he wanted the world to 
     know, a grand independent. No politician would run him or 
     tell him what to do. But, underneath, he worked with Bailey 
     and the professional Democratic politicians. He used them; 
     they used him. He got what he wanted. He gave them, in the 
     main, what they wanted. It was the best of all worlds for 
     Ribicoff.''
       Perhaps no other political figure in the state influenced 
     so many historical changes:
       The first and only Jewish governor of his state.
       The transformation of Connecticut from a Republican to a 
     Democratic state.
       The end of county government.
       The first successful state constitutional convention, which 
     changed the structure of the General Assembly in 1965.
       The joint Ribicoff-Bailey sponsorship of Kennedy, the first 
     Roman Catholic elected president.


                            his only regret

       The Kennedy victory was Mr. Ribicoff's springboard to 
     Washington. He was mentioned for U.S. attorney general but 
     was named secretary of health, education and welfare, 
     resigning as governor on Jan. 21, 1961.
       His resignation as governor was his only regret. He 
     acknowledged the excitement of the times; being asked to 
     become part of the new Kennedy administration was too hard to 
     resist, but in retrospect, he said, in 1992, ``I always felt 
     badly about it; felt I didn't fulfill my agreement with the 
     people . . . I still do.''
       In 1962, he was elected to the Senate, succeeding retired 
     U.S. Sen. Prescott Bush, father of President Bush. 
     Ironically, he succeeded the only man who ever beat him at 
     the polls. Mr. Ribicoff had vainly challenged Prescott Bush 
     in 1952 at the tail end of his second term as congressman.
       Mr. Ribicoff's best-remembered national moment came not in 
     the Senate, but in Chicago, live on national television, from 
     the podium of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He had 
     been expected to simply step up and nominate U.S. Sen. George 
     S. McGovern of South Dakota for president.
       That he did. Then he threw away the script and said, ``If 
     George McGovern were president, we wouldn't have to have 
     gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago tonight.''
       As he spoke, he looked directly down at the city's 
     legendary Mayor Richard J. Daley, whose police were gassing 
     and mauling young anti-war protesters in full view of the 
     network cameras.
       Daley shouted back from his seat on the floor. No 
     microphone picked up his words, but the cameras caught his 
     red faced anger and some of the more obvious profane insults 
     formed by his lips as he glowered at Mr. Ribicoff on the 
     rostrum.
       When the uproar died down, Mr. Ribicoff's gaze returned to 
     Daley and he added: ``How hard it is . . . how hard it is to 
     accept the truth.''


                            greatest moments

       Of all that he did or said during his career, Mr. Ribicoff 
     used to talk of that Chicago moment as the one with the 
     greatest impact. Film of it still is often included as part 
     of retrospectives of the '60s.
       ``I really didn't know what I was going to say. I was just 
     appalled at what we were seeing on television. I felt that 
     what was going on out there was the real issue facing the 
     party and the country,'' he recalled.
       McGovern later offered Mr. Ribicoff the vice presidential 
     spot on his ticket. Mr. Ribicoff declined.
       ``I didn't lust for that type of office, I didn't want to 
     run all over the country doing

[[Page S811]]

     the chicken circuit and making political speeches, and I 
     liked the Senate,'' he said.
       In 1976, Charles Kirbo of Atlanta, President Carter's 
     personal friend and adviser, felt out Mr. Ribicoff about 
     running for vice president. The answer was no, again.
       In the Senate, he listed his major accomplishments as 
     joining John Stennis, a conservative southern Democrat, to 
     insist on equal enforcement of new school desegregation 
     regulations in the North and South; the creation of a 
     Department of Education and the revision of foreign trade 
     regulations.
       Perhaps his greatest test came in 1978, when President 
     Carter proposed the sale of advanced American warplanes to 
     Egypt and Saudi Arabia, over strong objections by Israel, the 
     American Jewish lobby and American Jews.
       In an unusual secret Senate session Mr. Ribicoff supported 
     the sale, warning his colleagues that the Soviet Union was 
     threatening the entire Middle East and its oil supply, and 
     that America had to have friends there in addition to Israel.
       He saw lifelong friends turn on him as the pressure 
     mounted.
       But he led Carter's supporters to the controversial victory 
     and said he felt completely vindicated by subsequent events 
     in the area, including the Camp David accords.
       During a Democratic fund-raiser in Hartford on Oct. 28, 
     1978, Carter acknowledged it.
       ``Our commitment to Israel, our allegiance to Israel, is 
     unshakable,'' Carter said. ``Sometimes there are nuances or 
     complications or facts that can't be revealed at the time. 
     But over a period of weeks, I think you have always seen that 
     when Abe Ribicoff votes in Congress for a controversial 
     issue, like for instance, the sale of F-15s to Egypt, it 
     seems to some that he may have made a mistake or I have made 
     a mistake in advocating it.
       ``But we would never have induced President Sadat to come 
     to Camp David had it not been for that vote,'' Carter said.


                          Knowing When to Quit

       On May 3, 1979, Mr. Ribicoff summoned the press to his 
     Washington office for what was expected to be a routine 
     announcement that he was seeking re-election.
       ``As [former Senate Majority Leader] Mike Mansfield said,'' 
     Mr. Ribicoff told the gathering, `` `There is a time to stay 
     and a time to go.'
       ``I've watched them come and go and I have admiration for 
     the men who know how to go out at the top of their careers. A 
     person who's been in power a long time should know how to 
     step aside and open up the political process.''
       He had ended it--once again unexpectedly--at the top of his 
     form. His announcement stunned his party and his colleagues.
       ``Most people stay one term too long,'' he said later, 
     convinced his timing had been right.
       ``There is no such thing as a unreplaceable person. . . . 
     Everyone is replaceable,'' he said.
       When Mr. Ribicoff retired from the Senate in 1981, he 
     jointed the New York law firm of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays 
     & Handler. But he continued to advise presidents, governors 
     and Congress.
       In the 1990s, he would discuss how his brand of politics 
     seemed worn. Civility was no longer an important character 
     trait; nastiness was. When Democrats returned to Chicago for 
     their convention in 1996, Mr. Ribicoff wanted nothing to do 
     with it. Ironically, the man best remembered for engaging in 
     harsh intraparty warfare had found today's politics too 
     harsh.
       ``Everybody in politics today plays dirty,'' Mr. Ribicoff 
     said in a 1996 interview. ``Everybody wants to say bad things 
     about everything.''
       What he did in 1968 was spontaneous and heartfelt, not 
     calculated to win political points. Today's politicians use 
     their tempers as weapons to win poll points, and Mr. Ribicoff 
     wanted none of that.
       ``I'm not a politician anymore,'' he said.
       Mr. Ribicoff would continue working in New York, though he 
     contracted Alzheimer's disease in later years.
       When Mr. Ribicoff retired from the Senate, Sen. Edward M. 
     Kennedy, his longtime friend and ally, and former Senate 
     Minority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr., R-Tenn., led the Senate 
     tributes.
       Kennedy said Mr. Ribicoff would be remembered ``by all of 
     us as a colleague who was both loved and listened to as a 
     skillful leader on all the sensitive issues of foreign and 
     domestic policy we face together.''
       Baker said Mr. Ribicoff had been ``a giant of the U.S. 
     Senate.''
       His Connecticut colleagues at the time, Republican U.S. 
     Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., praised him as a ``great friend 
     and a valued mentor.
       ``A government already comprised of too few Ribicoffs 
     honestly can't stand the loss of Connecticut's senior 
     senator,'' Weicker said.
       Looking back over his life, during a 1986 interview, Mr. 
     Ribicoff said it was not a piece of legislation but people 
     who made the greatest impact on him--the people of 
     Connecticut during the floods of 1955.
       ``I saw the grandeur of the whole state in the faces of the 
     average citizen, their leaders and how they acted,'' he said, 
     ``Everyone pitched in, Connecticut came together. That's a 
     memory I will always treasure.''
       Besides his wife and two children, he leaves a stepson, 
     Peter Mathes, and six grandchildren.
       The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Temple Emanu-
     El, 1 E. 65th St., at Park Avenue, in New York City.
                                                                    ____


              [From the New Britain Herald, Feb. 23, 1998]

                  Abe Ribicoff, NB Native, Dead at 87

       New York (AP).--Abraham A. Ribicoff, a former U.S. Senator 
     and governor of Connecticut who served as secretary of 
     Health, Education and Welfare in the Kennedy administration, 
     died Sunday. He was 87.
       Ribicoff, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, died at a 
     nursing home in Riverdale, N.Y., said ABC's Barbara Walters, 
     a family friend.
       Ribicoff, a Democrat, had a public service career that 
     spanned more than four decades.
       ``Connecticut and the nation have lost a patriot,'' 
     Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland said in a statement Sunday. 
     ``Abraham Ribicoff was one of the greatest leaders in 
     Connecticut history. Beyond having served in all three 
     branches of government, he stood for what was right 
     regardless of the personal consequences.''
       Ribicoff began his career as a state legislator in the 
     Connecticut General Assembly and went on to serve as a 
     municipal judge, a congressman, governor of Connecticut, a 
     member of Kennedy's Cabinet, a member of the United States 
     delegation to the United Nations and, for the last 18 years 
     of his career, a U.S. senator.
       As a senator, Ribicoff gained national prominence at the 
     1968 Democratic National Convention, when he made a 
     blistering speech criticizing Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley 
     for the strong-arm tactics used to control protesters.
       ``I don't think anyone involved in politics will forget his 
     speech out in Chicago,'' Connecticut Democratic Party 
     Chairman Ed Marcus said Sunday. ``He certainly left his mark 
     on the political landscape of this country.''

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Former Connecticut Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a Republican 
     turned independent, who served with Ribicoff in the Senate, 
     lauded Ribicoff as a man of courage who was never afraid to 
     go out on a limb for what he believed.
       ``Abe Ribicoff did what he thought was right and the devil 
     take the consequences,'' Weicker said.
       Ribicoff was known as a perfectionist and as one who got 
     along with those in both parties.
       His years as governor were marked by reforms of the state's 
     judiciary system, the elimination of county governments and 
     education improvements. He helped win national acclaim for 
     Connecticut when he instituted a program to suspend the 
     driver's licenses of speeders. The program helped decrease 
     highway fatalities.
       Ribicoff retired from the Senate in 1981 to join the New 
     York law firm of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler, but 
     he didn't stay out of politics entirely and remained a 
     popular adviser to presidents, governors and congressional 
     committees. He chaired a Reagan administration commission on 
     military base closings and testified before a panel on 
     political campaign reform.
       Ribicoff clearly enjoyed his status as an elder statesman.
       ``I've been around the track a lot,'' he said in a May 1993 
     interview. ``I had the best of the years (in politics) and I 
     don't want a single year back.''

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to 
speak up to 12 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________