[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 4 (Thursday, January 27, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H23-H28]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, tonight, as I sit in the 
Chamber with our colleagues, it will be my 14th opportunity and honor 
to sit in this room as the President of the United States delivers the 
State of the Union address for this Nation for the year 2000, the 
beginning of the new millennium.
  I have had the pleasure of sitting through speeches by Ronald Reagan, 
by George Bush and, most recently, by President Clinton. We are going 
to hear a lot tonight, and I want to talk tonight about some of the 
things that we will likely hear and will not hear, and I want to talk 
about some foreign policy issues relative to a trip that I had the 
pleasure of leading with a bipartisan delegation of Members in November 
of last year to Russia.
  Madam Speaker, what we know we are going to hear tonight, because of 
the huge surplus that is being generated with our economic upturn and 
the balanced budget that we are now in the midst of securing, we are 
going to hear the President basically recreate Christmas all over 
again. The American people will hear litany after litany of new 
programs, new ideas, new ways to spend money that has been generated 
because of our surplus.
  And, believe me, Madam Speaker, there is going to be something for 
everyone. There will be a new program for everyone in the country. And 
Madam Speaker, it kind of amazes me because the American people have to 
understand, they can send us any amount of money they want, and we will 
find a way to spend it in Washington. But is that really what we are 
here for? Is our goal here to find new ways to create new programs with 
fancy sounding titles, with new bureaucracies, that are for the most 
part run by political appointees that are going to better tell the 
people locally how to run their lives or better solve the problems 
locally than if we gave the money back to the American people and then 
let them make those basic and fundamental decisions?
  Believe me, tonight, if there is one thing we know we will hear it 
will be a Christmas tree list of goodies that the President wants to 
give out all across this Nation. And he will try to hit every group in 
America there is. Every group.
  Madam Speaker, we have done some good things over the past 6 years. 
And, yes, many of them have been with the bipartisan effort in this 
body and the other body. But, yes, some of the times we have had to 
fight the administration every step of the way.
  I can recall when the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), our 
distinguished Committee on the Budget chairman, first proposed 
balancing the budget 6 years ago. The President got caught and he did 
not know what to say. In fact, I remember the famous commercials where 
he would say we are going to balance the budget in 8 years, 7, 6, 5, 4. 
He really did not know because he had no plan. The gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Kasich) stuck his neck out and said we will submit a plan for a 
balanced budget, when no one else believed him, including some on the 
Republican side. The gentleman from Ohio persevered and eventually we 
accomplished what many thought was impossible.
  Now, the President will take credit for the balanced budget. But in 
fact if we look back over the past 7 years, I can recall a couple of 
years where the President's budget he submitted to us got no votes in 
the House. Not one vote. Because no Member from either side would 
support the President's budget plan. Yet tonight President Clinton will 
take credit for the balanced budget that we are now enjoying which has 
helped to promoted our economic success.
  Our Congress, our leadership here, with the support of some 
Democrats, has tried to give back as much money from the surplus as 
possible to the American people. But here the President has fought us 
every step of the way. He has rather desired to keep the money in 
Washington where the bureaucracy can better decide how to spend funds 
than allowing the American people to get that money back for 
themselves. There are some in this city who think that the money we 
collect from the taxpayers of America really is our money as opposed to 
their money.
  Here tonight we will hear the President talk about welfare reform. 
What we will not hear about tonight, Madam Speaker, is the President 
saying that he made a mistake twice and vetoed the welfare reform bill. 
Because two times over the past 7 years the Congress, bipartisan, 
Democrats and Republicans, passed welfare reform in both bodies. Two 
times. And in both of those cases the President vetoed welfare reform.

[[Page H24]]

  It was not until he read the polls and he saw that the American 
people wanted welfare reform that he finally signed the welfare reform 
bill the third time, and then announced after he signed it he was going 
to make substantive changes to the bill that we had passed that he 
signed in the following fiscal year. And then good things happened with 
welfare reform, as we said they would, for the past 5 years, 6 years, 
and the President now will take credit for that tonight. He will say 
look at how many people are working as opposed to being on welfare. 
Where were those President's comments when he vetoed both welfare 
reform bills that the Congress passed with bipartisan votes over the 
past 5 years?

  We will hear the President talk about protecting Social Security 
tonight. But, Madam Speaker, we will not hear about the President last 
year wanting to use 60 percent of the Social Security surplus for other 
programs. We will not hear him talk about that. We will not hear him 
talk about the fact that Congress resisted and said, oh, no, Mr. 
President, we are not going to spend any of the Social Security Trust 
Fund money. We are going to protect all of that for our senior 
citizens. So the President will talk about protecting Social Security, 
but he will not talk about the fact that he originally wanted to use a 
significant portion of those dollars.
  Now, we are going to hear the President talk a lot about education 
tonight, Madam Speaker. And being a teacher by profession, and one of 
the 25 Members of Congress who used to be a classroom teacher, 
education is very important to me. The President is going to come out 
with a lot of grandiose plans to spend a lot of money that is 
controlled by Washington, to keep those strings attached so that the 
bureaucrats in this city control how local school boards and how local 
superintendents decide how to best meet the needs of their people.
  One of the things that this Congress has done for the past 5 years 
has been to allocate more resources to local schools, attempting every 
step of the way to remove the bureaucracy in Washington and allow local 
school boards and local parents to make decisions about where local 
education money could best be spent. Now the President will talk a good 
game there, but again it has been the Congress who has led the way, 
many times with the President finally signing our legislation into law 
to give local school boards and local taxpayers more control in terms 
of education. And that is where the focus should be.
  As a classroom teacher for 7 years, I understand the importance of 
allowing local teachers to decide how to best motivate kids. As someone 
who worked in a chapter 1 and Title I program for 3 years, I understand 
the importance of allowing local school districts to set the policy 
priorities and objectives for local students to meet.
  Now, we are going to hear the President make a few comments about 
defense tonight, Madam Speaker, but in last year's State of the Union I 
brought a stopwatch with me because I wanted to see if my hunch was 
correct regarding the President's focus on national security. My hunch 
was correct. The President spoke for 1 hour and 17 minutes last 
January. The amount of time he focused on security issues was 90 
seconds. Ninety seconds out of an hour and 17 minutes. And part of that 
90 seconds was when he looked up in the audience and thanked a B-52 
pilot who was flying those bombing missions over in Iraq.
  What he did not tell the American people, which was even more 
important, was that that B-52 pilot was flying an airplane that will be 
75 years old because we do not have the money to replace it. And what 
he did not talk to the American people about, and I will guarantee he 
will not mention it tonight, is the fact that we have 20,000 young 
Americans who are on food stamps today, who are serving their country 
and yet who have to use food stamps to take care of their families' 
needs.
  And what the President will not talk about tonight, Madam Speaker, is 
the fact that he has deployed our troops in more instances than any 
administration in the last century. In fact, Madam Speaker, if we take 
all the presidents who served from the end of World War II until 1991, 
all of those Presidents combined deployed our troops 10 times. This 
President has now deployed our troops for the 34th time. And none of 
those deployments were paid for. He has put the troops in harm's way 
and allowed the Congress to come up with a way to pay for those costs 
by cutting other parts of our already decreasing defense budget.
  No, the President is not going to talk about the fact that our Navy 
is now going down to about 200 ships. He will not talk about the fact 
that a couple of our Army divisions have been declared not fit to 
handle the kinds of missions that they are being asked to perform. He 
is not going to talk about the fact that General Schwarzkopf and other 
generals have said we could not complete another Desert Storm if it 
occurred. He will not talk about the fact that morale in the military 
is as low today as it has been since the end of World War II; that our 
reenlistment rate for pilots is down below 15 percent; that none of the 
services, except for the Marine Corps, can get young people to join.
  The President will not talk about any of that tonight, Madam Speaker, 
because in his mind that is not the State of the Union. In fact, Madam 
Speaker, his State of the Union is a Disney-like State of the Union, 
where we only talk about positive things, where there is room for both 
parties to share, but not focus on the negative things that have come 
about in some cases by the Congress but in my opinion largely by the 
failure of leadership in the White House.
  Madam Speaker, this President will not talk about security with any 
definitive plan in tonight's speech, we can rest assured on that. 
Because he took James Carville's advice very well when he was elected 7 
years ago, when James Carville told him, ``It's the economy, stupid. 
Focus on the economy and don't worry about anything else.'' So by not 
talking about threats around the world, by not talking about the 
realities of what is occurring in Russia and China and the Middle East, 
between India and Pakistan, by not talking about those areas where 
trouble is brewing on a regular basis, the American people do not think 
we have to spend any more money on supporting our military.
  In fact, Madam Speaker, I would be surprised tonight if the President 
told the real story about our relations with Russia and China. Things 
were going well 7 years ago. In fact, we had a new era, with Russia 
becoming a free democracy. Both our government and the Russian 
government declared the two countries to be strategic partners.
  Where are we today, Madam Speaker? Russia's new strategic partner, as 
defined by the new President of Russia, Mr. Putin, is China, not the 
U.S. In fact, Madam Speaker, our relationship with Russia has never 
been worse than it is today. And in fact we have now seen over the past 
12 months meeting after meeting between senior Russian leaders and 
senior Chinese leaders where they are now exchanging technology and 
both of whom are looking to the U.S. as their enemy. Why is that 
happening, Madam Speaker? It is happening because of our failed foreign 
policy.
  Now, the President has had some successes. He deserves to take credit 
for his work in helping settle the situation in involving Ireland and 
Great Britain, and I will give him the credit for that. But I must say 
that, while taking the credit for those successes, he also needs to 
accept the blame for the failures of our policy in regard to China and 
Russia.
  Madam Speaker, the delegation that I led to Moscow, in fact to 
Ukraine, Moldova, and Moscow this past November, saw firsthand the 
failures of this administration. Our delegation consisted of 10 Members 
of Congress, 7 Republicans and 3 Democrats. The purpose of our trip was 
threefold, Madam Speaker: It was to travel to Ukraine at the invitation 
of the Ukrainian Rada and President Kuchma, and to set up a formal 
relationship between the Rada, the parliament of Ukraine, and the U.S. 
Congress. This new relationship is to be modeled after the relationship 
that I started with Russia 6 years ago.
  Because of late votes in November, we had to cancel the formal part 
of the trip to Ukraine. However, three members of our delegation broke 
away and went to Ukraine and did have the meetings to begin the process 
of this

[[Page H25]]

new relationship. And I am pleased and happy that the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and my good friend, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Schaffer), have agreed to co-chair this new inter-parliamentary 
relationship between the Ukrainian Rada and the U.S. Congress, and our 
trip solidified that relationship as we started the process off in 
November of last year.
  And by the way we will have another trip of Ukrainian Rada members to 
the U.S. sometime in the first quarter of this year. We moved on from 
Ukraine to Moldova, a country that is strategically important to 
America's interest and to the future of Russia and to the people in 
that part of the world. We were there at the request and invitation of 
the President of Moldova as well as the Parliament.
  It was heartwarming, Madam Speaker, that the Speaker of the Moldovan 
Parliament, because we could not arrive there during a weekday but had 
to postpone our visit until Saturday, convened a special session of the 
Parliament on Saturday morning. It was heartwarming to see every member 
of the Moldovan Parliament sitting in the chamber as our delegation 
walked in. And I had the high honor and privilege of addressing the 
session of the Parliament to talk about the relationship between the 
Moldovan people and the people of the United States.
  While in Moldova, in meetings with the President, meetings with the 
leadership of the Moldovan government and the majority and opposition 
leadership of the Parliament, we also challenged them to establish an 
interparliamentary relationship with the Congress, which they have 
accepted. And I am pleased to announce, Madam Speaker, that the two 
cochairs of the Moldovan Parliament-U.S. Congress interchange are in 
fact the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) and the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

                              {time}  1445

  So again the Congress, in a bipartisan way, made significant 
contributions to improve relations with both of those nations.
  Then finally, Madam Speaker, we traveled on to Moscow. Our trip to 
Moscow was a special trip because we were traveling to Moscow at the 
invitation of the Duma, the parliament in Russia. The Duma, back in 
September of last year, formally invited our interparliamentary 
exchange program, co-chaired by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) 
and myself, to establish a bilateral relationship of elected 
parliamentarians to help the Russians uncover the scandal involving the 
finances of the Russian Government. We accepted the request of the 
Russians to bring a bipartisan delegation to Moscow to begin formal 
talks of how we could work with the Russian side to uncover the reasons 
and the causes of billions of dollars being stolen by Russian 
Government officials, by people surrounding the Yeltsin government and 
by Russian banking institutions, in some cases with the cooperation of 
American institutions. So our trip was to solidify that relationship 
that they had asked us to get involved with.
  Madam Speaker, our meetings in Moscow were extensive. We met with 
everyone, from the mayor of Moscow, Mayor Luzhkov, who is himself a new 
party official in the fatherland party, which did very well in the Duma 
elections in December, to leadership of the Duma, the vice-speaker of 
the Duma, the number two person in the state Duma, all the faction 
leaders, as well as leadership of Russia involving housing, helping 
them with their mortgage programs, which is just starting out, meetings 
with former Russian officials who were responsible for programs like 
biological weapons, so that we can learn more about the instability 
that exists within Russia today.
  But, Madam Speaker, I want to talk about one meeting that was 
especially important because I think this meeting and what happened 
around this meeting is symbolic of this administration's policies which 
I think have caused many of the problems that Russia is experiencing 
today and has caused the freezing of the relationship between the U.S. 
and Russia unlike at any time since the days of the Cold War.
  Madam Speaker, knowing that our bipartisan delegation was going to 
Moscow at the request of the Russian Duma, the 26 members of the Duma 
anti-corruption task force, I thought in advance that besides meeting 
with the Duma our bipartisan delegation should also meet with a man by 
the name of Skuratov. Mr. Skuratov is roughly the equivalent to Janet 
Reno in our government, the top law enforcement official in Russia.
  Mr. Skuratov is to weed out corruption, to investigate instances of 
abuse of power, and to find out if and where money is being used for 
illegal purposes that should have been going to the Russian people.
  So, Madam Speaker, as I have done in the past on previous trips to 
Moscow, I officially asked our State Department to set up three 
meetings for us in Moscow with the rest of the meetings being set up 
through our own contacts.
  The three meetings were with the defense minister of Russia, Mr. 
Sergeyev, whom I have met before, with the new at that time the prime 
minister, and the new president of Russia, President Putin, who was out 
of the country when we arrived and we, understandably, could not meet 
with him. But the third and perhaps most important meeting was the 
request that we made to meet with Mr. Skuratov.
  Now, Mr. Skuratov is somewhat of a controversial figure. Besides 
being the chief prosecutor in Russia, he was found to have been 
involved in and, at least, filmed in what appeared to be on the Russian 
TV an escapade with a prostitute, or a woman, in a Moscow hotel. After 
that little bit of film footage was played by the Russian Government on 
national TV, Boris Yeltsin fired Skuratov.
  Now, it just so happens, Madam Speaker, that he was fired the day 
before he was about to indict senior Russian elected officials who he 
had found were involved in ripping off hundreds of millions and 
billions of dollars that were supposed to go to the Russian people.
  In fact, Madam Speaker, when Boris Yeltsin fired Skuratov the first 
time, the elected parliament in Russia, the upper council equivalent to 
our Senate, the Federation Counsel, overrode Mr. Yeltsin by a wide 
margin and said, you will not fire Skuratov; we, in fact, endorse him.
  So then President Yeltsin fired Skuratov a second time, and the 
Federation Counsel reinstated Skuratov a second time. So Yeltsin fired 
him a third time, and the Federation Counsel reinstated him a third 
time.
  Now, Yeltsin says all along the time period here that he kept firing 
Skuratov because he was an immoral person. Now, I do not know whether 
Mr. Skuratov is an immoral person or not, Madam Speaker, but I can tell 
my colleagues this, not only was he fired by President Yeltsin three 
times even though the Senate in Russia supported him, but over 25 
deputy prosecutors that were working with Skuratov on the corruption in 
Russia were fired along with him.
  Now, the hotel film footage only showed one man, it did not show 25 
other prosecutors, involved in immoral acts. Yet all 25 of these 
prosecutors working for and with Skuratov were relieved at the same 
time.
  Now, why would they be relieved? What was so significant that Yeltsin 
found it important to fire them? Well, that is why I felt it was 
important for us to meet with Skuratov and to hear what he had to say. 
So, Madam Speaker, we requested through our State Department the 
opportunity to meet with Skuratov.
  Some strange things occurred, Madam Speaker, that I want our 
colleagues to hear, which is the reason why I have taken the floor 
tonight, which I am sure President Clinton will not talk about tonight 
in the State of the Union speech because it has been a part of our 
policy toward Russia for the past 7 years. We do not like to see or 
hear bad things coming from nations where our relationship is based on 
personalities, like President Clinton to President Yeltsin.
  When we arrived in Moscow, my staff asked the State Department if the 
meeting had been set up with Mr. Skuratov. The State Department said, 
no, we could not arrange the meeting with Mr. Skuratov. We were very 
disappointed, to say the least.

  The Monday morning we arrived at the Duma headquarters, equivalent to 
our Capitol building, we were brought into the committee room where the 
chairman of the security committee

[[Page H26]]

for the Duma was about to host us, Mr. Ilyukhin, and that was to be 
followed in a large hearing room for a public hearing hosted by the 
chairman of the anti-corruption task force involving over 20 members of 
the Russian Duma.
  During our meeting with all the Members of Congress, both parties, 
and Mr. Ilyukhin, a couple of deputies said to him, do you think it 
would be possible for us to have a meeting with Mr. Skuratov? Upon 
which Mr. Ilyukhin said, sure, that is easy. We can set that up for you 
whenever you like.
  I looked over at the State Department official in the room with us 
and I said, well, that is interesting because our State Department said 
they could not reach Mr. Skuratov. The members of the Duma said, no 
problem, we will arrange the meeting for you.
  The irony of the request and the fact that the Duma members would set 
up the meeting was, Madam Speaker, that the State Department then 
requested of me if they could attend the meeting with Mr. Skuratov 
which they had failed to set up.
  On Tuesday evening, after our meetings with the Russian leadership, 
with Mayor Luzhkov, with the leaders of the Duma, the Federal Counsel, 
and with agencies of the Russian Government, at 6 o'clock in the 
evening in a secret room in our hotel Mr. Skuratov was seated waiting 
for Members of Congress to arrive.
  I was surprised when we arrived in the meeting room that there was a 
State Department employee at the end of the table. I asked him to 
identify himself, which he did; and he said he was there at the 
suggestion of our Ambassador Jim Collins.
  So I began the meeting. It was ironic, Madam Speaker, that the State 
Department that could not set up the meeting for Members of Congress 
with Mr. Skuratov would want to have an official present at the table 
to monitor what was going to take place.
  So I thought I would ask Mr. Skuratov how he found out about the 
meeting. I said, Mr. Skuratov how did you know to be here today? He 
said, some of my friends that you met with asked me to come over and 
meet with you, and I told them I was more than happy to meet with 
Members of the U.S. Congress.
  I said, Mr. Skuratov, when did our State Department contact you to 
tell you that Members of Congress wanted to meet with you? He said, Oh, 
Congressman, your State Department never contacted me. In fact, I did 
not know you wanted to meet with me until Monday night late there was a 
message on my phone machine at my home asking me to call the embassy 
back in Moscow.
  That was the evening after we had gotten a commitment from the Duma 
members that we would get a meeting with Mr. Skuratov.
  Madam Speaker, it is obvious what was going on here. Our State 
Department did not want the 10 Members of Congress on the trip to meet 
face to face with Mr. Skuratov.
  Well, at that I was very upset, along with our colleagues who were 
with me. We asked the State Department official to leave because we 
felt he did not have a purpose in being at the meeting with us except 
to take notes and perhaps report back to the Yeltsin government.
  Then something strange happened, Madam Speaker, almost like it was 
out of a James Bond movie. Here we are in Moscow, in the National Hotel 
on the third floor in a private room, and the Members of Congress, 
including myself, have just kicked out our State Department official 
who was in this meeting; and a woman knocks on the door and she has got 
a fur coat on and a fur hat and a purse. And she comes in; and I say, 
excuse me, this is a private meeting. Would you mind leaving, stepping 
out of the room? She said, oh, I was sent here by the U.S. State 
Department, by our American Embassy in Moscow. I said, well, this is a 
private meeting. Would you please leave?
  Upon which, Madam Speaker, she took off her fur coat, took off her 
fur hat and placed her hat, coat, and pocketbook on the table we were 
meeting at and walked out of the room.
  Now, Madam Speaker, I have met a lot of women in my life and I do not 
know of any women that go around leaving their pocketbooks in a room 
full of strangers. And I just wonder, Madam Speaker, if that pocketbook 
had something inside it that will allow someone else to listen or 
monitor what Skuratov was telling the Members of Congress that were in 
that meeting.
  Sounds like a James Bond thriller. Well, sometimes I think this 
administration gets involved in James Bond types of activities, 
especially when someone is about to say something that might embarrass 
this administration in terms of our policy toward Russia.
  Well, Madam Speaker, with the consent of the Members of Congress with 
me, I told the staff to remove the purse, remove the coat, remove the 
hat so that we could continue our meeting. And we did.
  Madam Speaker, for 2\1/2\ hours Members of Congress and senior 
committee staff from the Committee on Banking and Financial Affairs, 
the Joint Economic Committee, and the Committee on Armed Services sat 
and listened to Skuratov tell an unbelievable story.
  Now, Madam Speaker, I have the notes from both the trip and the 
meeting, which are available to any Member of Congress who wants them, 
which we have already given to our FBI about what Skuratov said. Let me 
just give my colleagues a few highlights, Madam Speaker, because I 
think the American people would have liked to have heard this tonight 
as a part of the State of the Union, why our relationship with Russia 
has turned so sour.
  It is because, while we were reinforcing Yeltsin, the Russian people 
knew that Yeltsin and his cronies were ripping off hundreds of millions 
and billions of dollars of money that was supposed to go to help the 
Russian economy. This is what Skuratov said. He said that he had 
evidence not just to indict Yeltsin's daughter, Tatianna, but to even 
lead to Yeltsin himself that Skuratov was about to indict the senior 
members of Yeltsin's family and the senior leaders of the Russian 
Government when he was brought down and when the prosecutors with him 
were fired.
  He said he also had evidence that up to 700 senior Russian officials, 
700, were involved in insider GKO bond trading, meaning they were 
making money off of Russia's economic problems. While the U.S. and the 
West were bailing out Russia's economy with money from the IMF and the 
World Bank, 700 Russian officials were reaping the financial benefits 
of insider trading of GKO bonds.

                              {time}  1500

  He gave us one example. He said the foreign minister in Russia during 
his investigation he found was making an annual salary of between 4 to 
5,000 rubles a month. That is not much money when we convert it to U.S. 
dollars. The foreign minister was making 4 to 5,000 rubles a month. Yet 
Skuratov had evidence that he was involved in insider bond trading in 
the millions of U.S. dollars. We have to ask the question, how could a 
person making 4 to 5,000 rubles a month get access to millions of U.S. 
dollars? He said that was the norm in the Russian government of Boris 
Yeltsin. He also told us that in the most recent IMF tranche of money 
that this country guaranteed to go into Russia, it was over $4 billion, 
that he could only account for about $300 million that went through the 
normal banking process in Russia, that over $4 billion of that IMF 
money did not go through the normal banking process that IMF funds 
would go through.
  Madam Speaker, Mr. Skuratov went through a whole litany of the 
details of the investigation that he was in the midst of when he was 
fired. He told us that there is evidence in Russia and evidence 
available to document the ties to Russian criminal elements and in some 
cases U.S. institutions. We asked him, ``Well, what kind of cooperation 
did you get from our government?'' He said he had had one brief meeting 
with FBI Director Louis Freeh but no further subsequent meetings with 
the FBI. We have since met with the FBI, we have given them the 
information, and because I have the highest confidence in Director 
Freeh and his agency, we are convinced that he will use that 
information and pursue further information that Mr. Skuratov has 
identified for us. But, Madam Speaker, my point is a simple one. We 
will not hear that story tonight in the State of the Union. We will not 
hear the story about the instability in Russia. We will not hear the 
story, Madam

[[Page H27]]

Speaker, about the billions of dollars of U.S. money that has been 
ripped off while we sat back and reinforced Yeltsin every step of the 
way with the Russian people losing confidence in its relationship 
between Russia and the U.S. We also will not hear this story, Madam 
Speaker, that I would like to see the President tell, the story of 
Lieutenant Jack Daley, a 15-year naval intelligence officer who was 
lasered 3 years ago by a Russian spy trawler called the Kapitan Man. 
Jack Daley was flying a surveillance mission monitoring Russian spy 
ships that were spying on our submarine fleet out in Puget Sound. 
During the mission where he was flying in a helicopter with a Canadian 
pilot, they both had a sensation in their eyes as they were taking 
photographs of this spy vessel. When they landed, they were taken to 
the base infirmary and were told that they had been lasered by a high-
powered laser generator.
  Madam Speaker, what we will not hear the President talk about tonight 
is the fact that our State Department interfered with our Defense 
Department and would not allow our DOD personnel to go on board that 
Russian ship until we had notified the embassy in Moscow that they had 
done something wrong. In fact, Bill Gertz in his book ``Betrayal'' 
revealed for the first time the classified cables that were sent 
between our embassy and the Moscow embassy, our State Department and 
our Department of Defense. So instead of protecting our own naval 
intelligence officer who had been lasered by a Russian spy ship, we 
were trying to make sure again, like we were with the money laundering, 
that Boris Yeltsin was not embarrassed. Then something terrible 
happened with Jack Daley's career. For 15 years he had been an 
outstanding sailor, given the highest awards that one can get in the 
Navy. But because he questioned why his government was not supporting 
him but instead protecting Russia and Boris Yeltsin's leadership, Jack 
Daley's career was almost brought to a grinding halt. In fact, Madam 
Speaker, he was bypassed for a promotion until bipartisan Members of 
Congress, people like the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) and 
people like myself and others got involved, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Hunter), in Jack Daley's case and we said to this 
administration, ``You can't get away with ignoring harm done to an 
American soldier because you don't want to embarrass Boris Yeltsin and 
his relationship with Bill Clinton.''
  When Jack Daley was bypassed this past summer a second time for his 
promotion, those of us in the Congress on both sides of the aisle 
following the case were livid and we demanded that our Defense 
Department protect our own military officer. In September of this year, 
finally, John Hamre, our Deputy Secretary of Defense, called me and he 
said, ``Congressman, I think you'll be happy. We had a special Navy 
panel review the Jack Daley case and he is being given his promotion.''
  Madam Speaker, the point is that what we will not hear the President 
talk about tonight are the multitude of times that we have pretended 
reality was not what it is in Russia or in China, when we ignored arms 
control violations, 17 by the Russians, 20 by the Chinese over the past 
7 years, when we had the hard evidence of deliberate arms control 
violations by both countries we pretended it did not happen because we 
did not want to upset the relationship between Bill Clinton and Boris 
Yeltsin or Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin. We will not hear that story 
tonight, Madam Speaker, because the President will only talk about the 
glitz, he will only talk about the economy going well, he will pretend 
the world is safe, there are no problems.
  He will not talk about the fact that he reversed himself on missile 
defense because the bipartisan Congress for 6 years every year passed 
overwhelmingly bipartisan measures demanding that this administration 
move to protect our troops and our people. He will not talk about the 
fact tonight that the day after last year's State of the Union speech 
when he did not talk about missile defense at all, he had Secretary of 
Defense Bill Cohen give a major foreign policy speech when he announced 
that we were in fact changing our position and now supportive of 
missile defense as a Nation. He probably will not talk about the fact 
that in last year's State of the Union speech he did not talk to any 
great length about the increasing threats from weapons of mass 
destruction or cyberterrorism but in fact the week after the State of 
the Union speech, he gave two speeches, one was on cyber-terrorism and 
he said he would request billions of new dollars, and the second was on 
weapons of mass destruction and he again said he would request billions 
of dollars.

  My point, Madam Speaker, is we are going to hear a good speech 
tonight. It is going to give the President a good bump in the polls. It 
is going to make the American people feel good because there is going 
to be something in it for everybody. We are going to praise people in 
the audience, we are going to applaud our troops as the best that have 
ever existed in the history of the country, we are going to talk about 
the economy and we are going to say everything is rosy, but we are not 
going to hear the kinds of things that I have outlined in my 1-hour 
special order today, Madam Speaker.
  Again, there are things this President can take credit for and can 
share jointly with the success this Congress has had. But it is not 
just accepting success. He also has to be honest with the American 
people about problems we have not yet solved, about the failed 
relationships our country now has with China and Russia, about the fact 
that we are not properly funding the men and women serving our country 
and still have up to 20,000 young military men and women who have to 
receive food stamps because we do not pay them enough to take care of 
their families. These are the kinds of stories, as well as some of the 
others that I have talked about, that I would have hoped to hear from 
the State of the Union.
  Madam Speaker, in going over these highlights tonight, I have focused 
every step of the way on the fact that our successes have been 
bipartisan in this body and the other body. None of our successes that 
I have outlined today, welfare reform, balanced budget, protecting 
Social Security, pushing education funds to local schools, trying to 
increase funds for our military, dignity in the way we enforce arms 
control agreements, none of those successes were Republican successes 
alone. Sure, the Republican majority allowed those bills to come to the 
floor, but in most cases, if not all, it was support from the Democrat 
side that helped those bills become reality and become the law of the 
land. We will not hear those stories tonight.
  We are going to hear a one-word standup session about how great Bill 
Clinton has been for America for the past 7 years. And there are going 
to be those around the country who are going to say, if we just had 
control of the Congress, these are the Democrats now, we could do so 
much more.
  Madam Speaker, in closing, I want to remind the American people of a 
simple basic fact that is irrefutable. For the past 50 years, since 
1952, the party of President Clinton, the Democrat Party, has had a 
chance to govern America time and time again. Let us look at the 
history of this country. Under JFK, we had a Democrat President and a 
Democrat Congress. Under LBJ, we had a Democrat President and a 
Democrat Congress. Under Jimmy Carter, we had a Democrat President and 
a Democrat Congress. Under Bill Clinton, for the first 2 years, we had 
a Democrat President and a Democrat Congress. Madam Speaker, every 
American and every colleague needs to ask themselves, how many times in 
the last 50 years has the Republican Party had the President and the 
Congress? The answer, Madam Speaker, is zero. The Republican Party has 
not controlled the White House and the Congress since 1952.
  Our message, Madam Speaker, is we have done good things over the past 
5 years. Yes, the President will take credit for many of them tonight, 
from the balanced budget to welfare reform, to saving Social Security, 
to helping boost up our defense. He will take credit for all of them. 
But, Madam Speaker, imagine if the Republican Party for once in the 
next election cycle, after 50 years of not having a chance, had a 
chance to control the House, the Senate and the White House, something 
the Democrats have had time and again. Remember, Madam Speaker, when 
the Democrats controlled the

[[Page H28]]

Congress and the White House, they did not protect Social Security. 
They did not reform welfare. They created bigger programs, out-of-
control programs. They had the opportunity time and time again, and 
they drove this country into a massive deficit because they always 
controlled the Congress until 6 years ago.
  So I would only hope tonight as we listen to the President's last 
State of the Union, and I know my colleagues will give him the respect 
that he is due as our Commander in Chief and as our President, while I 
may disagree with his policies and may disagree with some of his 
decisions, I respect the fact that he is our leader and he is our 
President and so I would hope, and I know that our colleagues will give 
him that respect tonight, but I only wanted to share, Madam Speaker, 
some thoughts of things that maybe could have been said, should have 
been said but will not be said tonight in this State of the Union 
speech for America for the new millennium.
  Madam Speaker, I will include one further item. During our trip to 
Moscow, the leader of the Kurchatov Institute and a good friend of 
mine, Yevgeny Velikhov, gave a speech in our honor at a luncheon he 
hosted. It is important to understand who Yevgeny Velikhov is. He is 
the director of one of the largest institutes in Russia called 
Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. It is the institute that developed all 
of Russia's nuclear programs, their nuclear technology. Yevgeny gave a 
speech about relations between the U.S. and Russia that is absolutely 
unbelievable. My point in placing this speech in the Congressional 
Record at the end of my comments today, Madam Speaker, is that Yevgeny 
Velikhov represents mainstream Russia. Russian people want to be our 
friends. Russian leaders want to work with us. But we cannot have a 
policy as we have had over the past 7 years of being so enamored with 
Boris Yeltsin, or a personality, that we ignore the reality of what is 
occurring in that country, because if we do that again, the Russian 
people will have the same feeling toward us then as they have toward us 
now.
  They have seen us ignore the corruption, they have seen us ignore the 
involvement of Yeltsin's own family and his friends in stealing money 
from the Russian people. They have seen America turn its back when we 
had evidence of the selling off of technology from Russian criminal 
elements to foreign nations. We have got to change that policy. People 
like Yevgeny Velikhov understand that. The future of our relationship 
with Russia I think can be bright as I think our relationship with 
China can be bright. There, as this past weekend I had a chance to 
speak to the Mid-Atlantic Monte Gade Society of Chinese Scientists, I 
said it is an absolute tragedy that this administration is blaming the 
whole fiasco over the Chinese technology transfer on one man who they 
claim stole technology. Instead of focusing on a Chinese or Asian 
American, this administration should look to itself and to its failed 
policies of allowing proliferation to occur and technology to be 
transferred legally to anyone who would pay the price.

                              {time}  1515

  Madam Speaker, I would hope that as I close this special order today 
our colleagues will think beyond the rhetoric of what we are going to 
hear tonight and put our minds together to work, as we did in the last 
year of this session of the Congress, on some good initiatives, the 
kinds of things that we have passed, the kinds of foreign policy 
actions that we have taken, and drag the President along for the good 
of America into the new millennium and the 21st Century.
  Madam Speaker, at this point I would enter into the Record another 
speech of Yevgeny Velikhov.

    E.P. Velikhov's Speech at the Meeting of Kurchatov Institute's 
           Scientific Society With a Group of USA Congressmen

       Ladies and Gentlemen, we gathered in a memorable time when 
     the ages are changing. This calendar event is being 
     reinforced by one of the also important circumstance for the 
     whole mankind: 2000 years of Christ's birthday.
       His teaching changed our world. When the mankind was 
     keeping to his commandments it progressed, but as soon as 
     they were forgotten the mankind became sunken into deep 
     crisis. And we, having achieved this century border, have got 
     into this no way state.
       Practically all the XX century beginning from 1917 and 
     ending by 1990 year, we were living behind the ``iron 
     curtain'' in the state of ideological confrontation. And all 
     these years the idea to conquer the world has dominated as in 
     the Soviet Union as well in the United States of America. But 
     reasonable people from both sides (and their number was not 
     small) understood that there are on the both sides of the 
     ``iron curtain'' the real alive people, who were ready for 
     cooperation. And overwhelming ideological barriers we were 
     going toward each other creating step by step a bridge of 
     confidence and understanding.
       When almost 10 years ago the ``iron curtain'' has broken we 
     hoped for a strengthening of this bridge, for the sound 
     forces going through it in both direction. Unfortunately this 
     has not happened. The ideology has broken, but in the result 
     of this powerful ideological burst a foam appeared, which has 
     flowed from us to the USA and from the USA to us.
       Americans have felt on themselves what is the Russian 
     crime, corruption, they saw ``new Russians'', our bankers, 
     oligarchs, who have ``green cards'', huge amounts of money 
     for villa construction, wealthy holidays. Exactly they became 
     to represent the Russian face in the West. And the West has 
     shuddered.
       But we also have shuddered. Flow of the people, 
     representing wrong side of American life, started into 
     Russia. We have seen here your expert--economists, whose 
     ideas have not been accepted in the USA as they were not 
     perspective and harmful, but they have found a fertile soil 
     in the Russia. We have seen in our space also American 
     businessmen, who tried to involve us into adventure projects. 
     I personally confronted one of such so called businessman, 
     who proposed to cooperate in a major project on unlawful 
     ground.
       Certainly, the roots of many vices such as corruption, 
     stealing, unlawful privatization, drags, pornography, 
     prostitution, are situated also in our ground, but in many 
     respect the people's awareness connect them to America and 
     the USA is not accepted in Russia now as a prospering and 
     educated society.
       It seems that we have forgotten 10 Christian commandments. 
     It appears on the border of centuries that a huge charge of 
     mutual good will, which we have had at the end of 80-ty 
     years, has been almost used up. And instead of the ``iron 
     curtain'' we begin to construct a ``stinking trench'' behind 
     the rusted barbed wire. Lets look at today's time: as earlier 
     we threaten each other by nuclear restriction and think up 
     limitations, sanctions. We appeared to be in a situation 
     dangerous for the world at the end of XX century.
       Meantime the USA and the Russia are playing today a huge 
     role in the establishment of a stable and secure peace, 
     democratic order. It is clear, that being in confrontation we 
     can only negatively influence as on our countries as well on 
     the world as a whole.
       I would not like to be a pessimist. We have way out and we 
     can see it if we return with open face to our youth. It is a 
     new growing force of Russia, it is that base on which we can 
     build the world and the order.
       ``Junior Achievements of Russia'' is gaining power by us. 
     One million of young men and girls from 80 regions of Russia, 
     who study economics, business and management are today in its 
     ranks. After 5 years they will be 5 millions. And this is a 
     great power, which is ready for democratic transformation in 
     the country.
       Altruism is laying in the base of their activity--one of 
     the best features of Americans which the Russian youth has 
     accepted and absorbed. As many Americans members of ``Junior 
     Achievements'' see the highest sense to serve to the society.
       Finally, we can learn in our new construction against our 
     businessmen, who are heading this movement. They are those 
     people who a faithful to the principles of ``pure business'' 
     and they are true to their duty. They are ready to invest 
     into creation of new society.
       The resume from my speech suggests itself: experience which 
     has come from ``the top'' appears to be not quite 
     satisfactory. It came to us with the people who have 
     forgotten the Christ's commandments. But we have sound 
     forces, who not only accept them but they are leaving in 
     accordance with them. We connect the Russia's future with 
     them and the future of Russian-American relations.
       I call upon to support the people who have the life 
     principle to serve to the society.

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