[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 35 (Wednesday, March 25, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E465-E466]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           SALUTING AMBASSADOR TO IRELAND JEAN KENNEDY SMITH

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. PETER T. KING

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 25, 1998

  Mr. KING. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute our Ambassador to 
Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith. Ambassador Kennedy Smith has announced that 
she will be leaving Dublin this year, completing a remarkable 
diplomatic career in Ireland.
  Under her leadership, the U.S. asserted its moral leadership and 
began to take an active role in the Irish peace process. Ambassador 
Jean Kennedy Smith deserves much of the credit for helping to bring 
about the best opportunity for a just and lasting peace in Ireland in 
more than 75 years.
  Jean Kennedy Smith is beyond all doubt the most active, dynamic and 
effective U.S. Ambassador in our entire history of diplomatic relations 
with the Republic of Ireland. She will be missed and it will be 
extraordinarily difficult to fill her shoes. I am proud to have worked 
closely with Ambassador Kennedy Smith and even more to call her my 
friend.

[[Page E466]]

  Mr. Speaker, I submit an editorial analysis of Ambassador Kennedy 
Smith's remarkable legacy from the Irish Voice newspaper.

                [From the Irish Voice, Mar. 18-24, 1998]

                   Time to Rethink U.S. Embassy Role

       The announcement that U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean 
     Kennedy Smith will be leaving her post this summer brings to 
     an end the most extraordinary chapter yet in Irish and 
     American diplomatic relations.
       She will be greatly missed, not just for her contribution 
     to the peace process but for her overall energy and 
     commitment to improving understanding and links between 
     Ireland and America.
       There will likely never be another ambassador like Kennedy 
     Smith, who played such a crucial role in the Irish peace 
     process and redefined the American/Irish diplomatic 
     relationship in a way that has transformed that office 
     forever.
       Indeed, the major question following her departure should 
     be whether it is now time to institutionalize what she has 
     put in place--the acceptance that the U.S. ambassador in 
     Dublin plays as important a role in Northern Ireland affairs 
     as does the American envoy in London.
       It has always exclusively been the purview of the London 
     ambassador to report on and deliver assessments on Northern 
     Ireland to the Secretary of State and the President. Just how 
     flawed some of those assessments can be was highlighted by 
     the recent memoirs of former U.K. ambassador Raymond Seitz, 
     whose total involvement was to visit Northern Ireland once in 
     a British army helicopter before sending back his 
     ``insights.'' He refused to meet SDLP leader John Hume on 
     that trip, which surely endeared him to moderate Nationalist 
     supporters.
       At a time when the Irish government is likely to have a 
     larger say in the affairs of the North, it seems fitting that 
     the U.S. ambassador in Dublin should have significant input 
     into State Department decision making, and that it should not 
     again revert to being the sole concern of the U.S. ambassador 
     in Britain.
       There is also a need to keep a high caliber ambassador in 
     Dublin such as Kennedy Smith. Proximity to the President 
     matters most in such appointments, and there were few closer 
     than Senator Edward Kennedy and his sister to Bill Clinton.
       Before Kennedy Smith the occupants of the position tended 
     to be elderly, well-heeled gentlemen--appointed mainly in 
     return for financial contributions--who coasted for a few 
     years in Dublin before retirement. The notion of Dublin as a 
     sleepy backwater took hold, encouraged no doubt by those in 
     the State Department who viewed Northern Ireland as a problem 
     for the London embassy to deal with.
       The notoriously pro-British slant in the State Department 
     also extended to many in their Dublin embassy, a fact which 
     caused Kennedy Smith no amount of problems. It is time that 
     the embassy there reflected the importance of the Irish issue 
     to the U.S., and also that Northern Irish specialists be 
     appointed to Dublin.
       Kennedy Smith has certainly made a start on this. Despite 
     her lack of experience on Irish issues she entered the 
     minefield of Northern Ireland and emerged not only unscathed 
     but triumphant. At several critical moments in the peace 
     process--most notably when the visa issue for Gerry Adams was 
     being debated--she showed leadership and courage and 
     withstood the slings and arrows of her opponents, many of 
     whom worked through the British press to malign her.
       She had her share of critics in the State Department too, 
     who saw their long undisputed hegemony over Irish issues 
     crumble. Events and history will prove her right in that 
     debate.
       The greatest send-off she could now receive would be 
     another visit from the President to Ireland as part of a 
     successful conclusion to the peace process. It is the least 
     Jean Kennedy Smith deserves after such an impressive term of 
     office.

     

                          ____________________