[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.
____________________