[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 142 (Wednesday, November 1, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H11761-H11768]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           TRANSFER OF RUSSIAN TECHNOLOGY TO ISRAEL'S ENEMIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). 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. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to share with 
our colleagues some very startling information and some information 
that should concern every citizen in America but also every citizen in 
Israel because Vice President Al Gore has caused increased danger to 
the security and safety of every man, woman, and child living in Israel 
today.
  That is a pretty bold statement. Why do I make that? Is it because 
the election is on Tuesday? No. It is because of what this Congress has 
just learned. The greatest threat to Israel's security is the transfer 
of technology from Russia to Israel's enemies, Iran and Iraq 
especially, and Syria and Libya.
  For the last 10 years, this Congress, with bipartisan votes, has 
worked diligently to stop the transfer of technology to Iran because 
Iran's goal is to annihilate Israel and to do it with weapons of mass 
destruction, missiles, weapons of mass destruction involving chemical 
biological or nuclear agents. But Iran or Iraq do not possess that 
capability. They have got to buy it. They have got to acquire it.
  Mr. Speaker, over the past 8 years, we have worked with this 
administration in what we thought was a good-faith effort to stop 
proliferation. I have been down in the White House twice in personal 
meetings with the Vice President along with colleagues from the House 
and the Senate where we talked specifically about stopping technology 
from flowing to Iran because Iran will use this technology not only 
against Israel but to destabilize the Middle East and eventually to 
harm America and its allies.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, we now have found an unbelievable revelation. In 
1995, unbeknownst to anyone in this Congress despite our Constitution 
that says that no one, including the President, can negotiate a treaty 
without the advice and consent of the Congress, Vice President Al Gore 
arranged for a secret memorandum with the Prime Minister of Russia, 
Viktor Chernomyrdin.
  Mr. Speaker, I will include for the Record articles and direct quotes 
from this memorandum which I am holding up in front of me.

                 Moscow Joint Statement of May 10, 1995

       (4) Russia will terminate all arms-related transfers to 
     Iran not later than 31 December 1999. The United States will 
     continue not to engage in any arms-related transfers to Iran.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       (6) In light of the undertakings contained in the Joint 
     Statement and this Aide Memoire, the United States is 
     prepared to take appropriate steps to avoid any penalties to 
     Russia that might otherwise arise under domestic law with 
     respect to the completion of the transfers disclosed in the 
     Annex . . .

  Mr. Speaker, what does this memorandum, signed by Al Gore, our Vice 
President, and Viktor Chernomyrdin say that was not given to anybody in 
this Congress? It is a joint statement called the Moscow Joint 
Statement of May 10, 1995. It talks about Russia's obligations to stop 
proliferation of technology to Iran specifically. Let me read section 
4.
  ``Russia will terminate all arms-related transfers to Iran not later 
than 31 December 1999. The United States will continue not to engage in 
any arms-related transfers to Iran.''
  Number 6: ``In light of the undertakings contained in the Joint 
Statement and this aid memoir, the United States is prepared to take 
appropriate steps to avoid any penalties to Russia that might otherwise 
arise out of domestic laws with respect to the completion of the 
transfers discussed and disclosed in the annex.''
  The Vice President on his own, without informing anyone in this body 
or the other body, arranged for a secret deal with Viktor Chernomyrdin 
that said to Russia they could continue to sell technology to Iran 
which directly has increased the threat to every man, woman, and child 
living in Israel and every one of our allies that are within the range 
of Iran's weapons of mass destruction.
  And to add insult to injury, Mr. Speaker, there was a classified memo 
that our Secretary of State sent to the Russian foreign minister in 
January of this year. I want to quote from this memo. I am quoting the 
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. This is to the Russian 
foreign minister.
  ``We have also upheld our commitment not to impose sanctions for 
those transfers disclosed in the Annex of the Aide Memoire. The annex 
is very precise in its terms and we have followed it strictly. It does 
not include missile and nuclear-related cooperation with Iran,'' in 
other words allowing it, ``nor does it include conventional arms 
transfers to other state sponsors of terrorism.''

                              {time}  1745

  Listen to what Secretary Albright went on to say. ``Without the Aide 
Memoire,'' without this document that Gore negotiated privately, 
Russia's conventional arms sales to Iran would have been subject to 
sanctions based on various provisions of our laws.''
  Following is the excerpt from the memo:

       We have also upheld our commitment not to impose sanctions 
     for those transfers disclosed in the Annex to the Aide 
     Memoire. The Annex is very precise in its terms and we have 
     followed its strictly. It does not include missile and 
     nuclear-related cooperation with Iran, nor does it include 
     conventional arms transfers to other State Sponsors of 
     terrorism.
       Without the Aide Memoire, Russia's conventional arms sales 
     to Iran would have been subject to sanctions based on various 
     provisions of our laws.

  So now we have the Secretary of State acknowledging publicly in a 
letter that we got declassified, thank goodness we have a media that is 
willing to stand up and expose this kind of action, while the Congress 
was working in good faith to stop proliferation of technology to Iran, 
Vice President Al Gore was allowing that technology to flow to Iran and 
never told the Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, this is outrageous. This is unconstitutional. This is 
immoral. Because we through one person, and he is not the President and 
he is not the Congress, through one person, our country allowed Iran to 
receive technology from Russia that is covered under our arms control 
agreements with Russia which no individual has the right to overtake or 
to supersede. Yet Vice President Gore did it. Every Member of Congress, 
Democrat and Republican, needs to ask the question of the Vice 
President, who do you think you are? The President could not even do 
this without the advice and consent of the Congress, to arrange a 
secret deal with his friend Viktor Chernomyrdin that allowed for 5 
years Russia to continue to transfer technology to one of Israel's 
boldest and most aggressive enemies.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight we are going to expose this in detail. We are 
going to talk about the policies of this administration. Before I yield 
to my good friend and colleague, I want to say one final point. 1992 
was the start. When Boris Yeltsin stood atop that tank outside the 
Russian White House in Moscow, with tens of thousands of Russians 
around him announcing he was throwing off Communism, that the Soviet 
Union was disbanding, he waved a Russian flag and an American flag and 
he declared that Communism was dead and a new strategic partnership. 
That

[[Page H11762]]

 was in 1992. Russia and America together.
  This was the scene last fall in downtown Moscow, Mr. Speaker, as tens 
of thousands of Russians stood outside of our embassy throwing paint at 
our embassy, firing weapons at our embassy and burning the American 
flag. The first speech given by President Putin when he took office in 
January of this year was to announce a new strategic relationship for 
Russia, Russia and China against America. The policies of this 
administration and this Vice President have now put us at odds unlike 
any other time since the height of the Cold War against the Russian 
people.
  Tonight we are going to discuss those issues. I now yield to our 
distinguished leader, our whip, the honorable gentleman from Texas (Tom 
DeLay).
  Mr. DeLAY. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I want to 
congratulate the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), who really 
understands these issues on bringing this special order to the floor. 
The gentleman speaks Russian as many in the House know and has been to 
Russia many, many times, so he knows what he is speaking about. The 
gentleman has met with many members of the Duma, many members in the 
Russian Government, and has been a great liaison with Russia and this 
House of Representatives.
  I wanted to say that because he has the most credibility of any 
Member in this House on issues dealing with Russia. And he understands 
how the failed Clinton-Gore administration's foreign policy has 
affected Russia.
  Mr. Speaker, the recent revelations that Vice President Gore and 
former Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin entered into a secret 
agreement to allow the Russian Government to sell dangerous weapons 
systems to Iran, contrary to a nonproliferation law that the Vice 
President himself authored with Senator John McCain, shed more light on 
the Clinton-Gore administration's inability to effectively provide for 
our national security. Allowing these systems to be delivered to Iran, 
a nation that is at the top of the list of terrorist states, again 
reveals this administration's failed, rudderless foreign policy based 
on appeasement rather than strength. Perhaps nowhere has this failed 
foreign policy borne more bitter tasting fruit than in those missed 
opportunities in Russia.
  Mr. Speaker, when this administration first took office in 1993, 
Russia was an emerging democracy that for the first time looked to 
America with open eyes and open arms. But, sadly, after years of 
misplaced policies, Russia's optimism has been replaced by skepticism.
  The Vice President headed up the administration's Russia policy, a 
policy which can now only be judged as a total failure. Unfortunately, 
the Vice President was in over his head and the results were 
disastrous. Anti-American sentiment, as the gentleman says, and look at 
that chart that shows the anti-American sentiment among the Russian 
people. It is at its highest point since the fall of the Soviet Union. 
Russia continues to be a major proliferator of weapons of mass 
destruction and, most troubling, to me at least, it has entered into a 
strategic military partnership with Communist China, one of our most 
serious potential adversaries. The administration has done nothing to 
discourage this emerging military relationship and incredibly insists 
that the Russian Government selling dangerous sunburn missiles to 
China, missiles specifically designed to destroy American warships, 
poses no serious threat to U.S. security.
  Instead of leading Russian policy with a very firm hand, Vice 
President Gore led with closed eyes and an open pocketbook. The 
collapse of Russia was fueled by the administration's insistence on 
pouring good money after bad. Billions of dollars were wasted propping 
up failing, inefficient, and corrupt institutions. The administration 
was committed to Boris Yeltsin at all costs while he and his cronies 
used the government to fuel their own appetites for wealth and power.
  According to the Speaker's Advisory Group and the document, the 
document that was produced just a few weeks ago by that group, by the 
way, I would tell the Speaker that the American people can get this 
document on the Web site at policy.house.gov and receive a very 
complete analysis of the failed Clinton administration policy when it 
comes to Russia.

  According to this group, and I am quoting here from this study, ``The 
Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission contributed to a deliberately uninformed 
U.S. policy toward Russia. It refused to acknowledge failure and, even 
worse, celebrated failure as if it were success. The Clinton 
administration's dependence on the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, 
coupled with the commission's refusal to listen to independent 
information, meant that the administration's Russia policy was both 
procedurally and substantively unsound.''
  This administration had an opportunity to help Russia enter into the 
21st century as an emerging and thriving democracy. Unfortunately, the 
Vice President's misguided policies helped fuel Russia's economic 
collapse and led to our relations being worse than any time since the 
end of the Cold War.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time we stopped feeding failure. Russia needs to 
take responsibility for its future and be held accountable for its 
mistakes. The Russian Government should know that we are committed to 
building a very strong friendship, but the foundation of that 
relationship must be a mutual commitment to freedom, democracy, and 
individual liberty. We should not restructure or forgive the billions 
of dollars Russia owes us until they show progress towards building 
democratic institutions committed to the rule of law, that they stop 
selling weapons to the Chinese, Iranians and other potentially 
dangerous states and dismantle their spy facility in Lourdes, Cuba.
  Contrary to the view of this administration, the Russian Government 
does not have veto authority over our national security policy. We 
should not be held back from building a national missile defense system 
by an invalid and outdated ABM treaty predicated on an absurd Cold War 
notion that the only way our people can be totally secure is to be 
totally vulnerable.
  The Russian Government should know that the American people are 
committed to building a comprehensive missile defense to protect our 
people and our allies, and we will not be deterred in doing so.
  Mr. Speaker, there is still great potential in Russia, and with real 
leadership we can build our relationship. But we must acknowledge that 
real reform does not lie in any single man or leader, but in the 
institutions that build the foundations for democracy. Without those 
foundations, without the rule of law, democracy cannot take hold. 
Russia is blessed with a rich heritage and tremendous resources. I hope 
the next page in their long history will show a commitment to 
democracy, the rule of law and individual liberty. If it does, the 
United States will be ready to stand with them as true allies.
  But our relationship with Russia must be based on respect and trust, 
not personal friendships and wishful thinking. Serious problems require 
serious leadership. The Russian Government should know that the United 
States will hold out a helping hand when that hand will be welcomed as 
a symbol of democratic partnership, not some sweetheart deal.
  I just challenge the national media. As the gentleman knows, I think 
the national media has shirked its responsibility, particularly in this 
campaign, by not looking at the actual actions that Vice President Gore 
took in carrying out the Clinton-Gore foreign policy. If they would 
look at what part Vice President Gore played in foreign policy, they 
would find a situation where there was no leadership, where there was 
appeasement rather than strength, where there was a complete disaster 
in most cases.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our 
distinguished whip for appearing tonight. He is very busy. I want to 
also thank him and point out to our colleagues, the whip is very much 
interested in working together to build a solid foundation with the 
Russian people. In fact, he led a delegation to Russia in the last 
session of Congress to try to foster that one-on-one positive 
relationship between the people of Russia and the people of the U.S.
  We do not have a problem with the people of Russia. We want to be 
their friends. We want to be their strong trading partners. What we do 
not want

[[Page H11763]]

to have is the reinforcement of a government that is not acting in the 
best interests of Russia. That is why the Russian people no longer 
trust America. In fact, as I pointed out the other night, one of my 
Duma friends was visiting here 2 years ago; and he made the statement 
that for 70 years, the Soviet Communist Party spent billions of dollars 
to convince the Russian people that Americans were evil and they 
failed. He went on to say in just a matter of a few short years, your 
government has managed to do what the Soviet Communist Party could not 
do, and that is to convince the Russian people that Americans are evil.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a real problem right now. You cannot blame the 
Russians. If they saw billions of dollars of IMF money that was 
supposed to go to help them build roads and bridges and schools and 
communities end up in Swiss bank accounts and U.S. real estate 
investments and if they saw our President and our Vice President going 
like this and like this pretending they did not see it because they did 
not want to embarrass their personal friends, Boris Yeltsin or Viktor 
Chernomyrdin, no wonder the Russian people do not trust Americans. No 
wonder they do not trust what our intentions were. That is why 8 years 
after Russia became a free democracy, the people of Russia question 
what America's real intentions are.
  With that, I would like to yield to one of our most eloquent and 
outspoken rising stars in the Congress from the great West from the 
State of Arizona, our good friend J.D. Hayworth.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I think my friend from Pennsylvania for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight we gather here because still we must do the 
people's business. Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the fact that there 
are those who look at the calendar and the pending national elections 
and seem to think that everything must inevitably be colored with the 
hue of partisan politics.
  Mr. Speaker, it should be our goal, no matter our partisan labels, 
whether Republicans or Democrats or Independents, to put people before 
politics. It is in that spirit that I rise this evening with my 
colleagues, because what has been discovered is so disturbing that it 
transcends traditional party politics. We are not talking about typical 
disagreements or differences in philosophy. To amplify the words of our 
majority whip, the gentleman from Texas, in his remarks, Vice President 
Gore, while a member of the United States Senate, worked closely with 
my Senator from Arizona, John McCain, and a bill was passed, written by 
those two gentlemen, that became law that dealt with weapons sales by 
the Russian republic to the nation of Iran.

                              {time}  1800

  It was an effort on the part of our government to issue sanctions to 
try and prevent the sale of those weapons of mass destruction, because 
of their destabilizing, in effect, Mr. Speaker, because they represent 
a clear and present danger to allies of the United States and indeed 
the United States itself. My friend from Pennsylvania mentioned the 
State of Israel, still in the news, still involved in conflict and 
uncertainty, and the tragedy of the situation, as revealed in the 
documents now entered into the Record, and I thank my friend from 
Pennsylvania because the State Department has been reticent in even 
allowing copies of those documents to be in the possession of the 
proper committees of this House, even though that has happened.
  What the documents reveal should shock every American. The Vice 
President of the United States, one of the architects along with 
Senator McCain, of a policy that would impose sanctions on Russia if 
weapons of mass destruction continue to be sold, worked out an 
agreement in private with the Russian leader, Viktor Chernomyrdin, 
excusing the Russians from continued sale of those weapons to Iran; in 
fact, inviting those sales to continue.
  Mr. Speaker, stop and imagine the implication of what is part of the 
Record. Understand these were not six disabled tow missiles. We are 
talking about an arsenal that included three Kilo Class submarines, the 
best technology heretofore developed for conventionally powered 
submarines for silence and stealth and secrecy as those submarines 
patrol the oceans and seas of the world; an incredible advantage for a 
nation which sadly remains on the outside looking in, in essence an 
outlaw nation.
  Indeed, Mr. Speaker, we will remember at the outset of this Congress, 
and I violate no confidences, I violate no classified documents, a 
bipartisan committee, including a former Member of this House who later 
became Secretary of Defense, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Rumsfeld 
chairing the Commission, along with the first director of the CIA under 
President Clinton, Mr. Woolsey, came to this House and talked about the 
growing proliferation of weapons of mass technology by outlaw nations, 
including Iran, Iraq, North Korea, where trouble continues; and our 
Secretary of State just returned from a visit.
  We are talking about a situation that goes directly to the heart of 
our future, perhaps to the survival of our friends, and ultimately to 
the type of national security we can provide from those who would 
aspire to become Commander in Chief. The whip was quite right, Mr. 
Speaker. Our colleagues in the fourth estate, the journalists, aside 
from a front page article 3 weeks ago in The New York Times, followed 
up with work in The Washington Times and other periodical publications 
such as Insight on the News, aside from those publications, Mr. 
Speaker, the silence of the television networks in this Nation has been 
deafening.
  Madam Speaker, who will tell the people? Who will tell the people of 
this breach of faith? It falls to this House, to this people's house, 
and the grand design of our founders in this constitutional republic 
with separate and coequal branches of government.
  Madam Speaker, to stand and tell the people something is seriously 
wrong, the State Department should turn over every document related to 
this; and the Vice President of the United States, Madam Speaker, 
should stand before the people he hopes to lead not with excuses, not 
with fables, not with stories, but with the truth. At last, Madam 
Speaker, at long last, is not the truth what the American people 
deserve?
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I thank my distinguished 
friend and colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), for 
his eloquent statement.
  Let me say to our colleagues who are watching us back in their 
offices, everybody may be saying, well, there go those Republicans 1 
week or a few days before the election trashing Al Gore. Why were not 
they bringing this forward last year?
  Let me remind my colleagues, this story broke October 13 of this year 
in The New York Times. Prior to October 13, none of us knew that Vice 
President Gore had worked out a secret deal in 1995 that Madeleine 
Albright referred to in a January 2000 memo this year. Prior to October 
13, none of us knew this. Well, that is only 2 weeks ago, 2 weeks ago. 
Thank goodness we have a free press. Two weeks ago The New York Times 
ran a copy of this document that I have now put in the Congressional 
Record that our Members of Congress were not aware of, that no member 
of the Intelligence Committee, no member of the leadership was asked to 
see by the Vice President when he cut the deal in 1995.
  We were not made aware of this until we read the story in The New 
York Times, along with the rest of America on October 13, and then The 
Washington Times reported the story after that, and other media. It has 
not been picked up by the TV media, and that is a legitimate question. 
Why has it not been?

  Now, why is this so outrageous, Madam Speaker? Why? Because this 
technology that has been transferred is used to improve the accuracy of 
systems against America and our allies. Is this isolated? Let me give 
you two examples. Madam Speaker, I was in Moscow in January of 1996. 
The Washington Post had just run a front page story with the headline, 
America Has Caught the Russians Illegally Transferring Guidance Systems 
to Iraq. I was in Moscow. I went to our embassy, and I asked for a 
meeting with our ambassador, who, at that time, was Tom Pickering. He 
is now the number three person in the State Department. I said, Mr. 
Ambassador, what was the response of the Russians when you asked them 
about the transfer of the accelerometers and gyroscopes to Iraq?
  He said, Congressman Weldon, I have not asked the Russians yet.

[[Page H11764]]

  I said, Mr. Ambassador, you are our representatives here. Why would 
you not ask the Russians? It was a front page story back home. It is a 
violation of an arms control treaty, the missile technology control 
regime.
  He said, that has to come from the White House.
  So I came back to Washington, and I wrote the President a letter in 
the end of January, 1996. Dear Mr. President, you must have read the 
story in The Washington Post. What are you going to do about it? If 
this occurred, it is a serious violation because it gives Iraq a 
capability that they cannot build on their own.
  The President wrote me a response in March of that year.

       Dear Congressman Weldon, you are correct. If this transfer 
     took place, it would be a serious violation of the missile 
     technology control regime and there are required sanctions in 
     that treaty; and I assure you if we can prove it, we will 
     impose the sanctions. But, Congressman Weldon, we have no 
     proof that this transfer took place.

  Well, as I have done in speeches around the country, I bring the 
proof for the American people to see. This is a Soviet-made gyroscope 
and a Soviet-made accelerometer. I cannot tell you where I got these 
devices, but I can say they were clipped off of an SSN-19 Soviet 
missile that used to be aimed at an American city. We caught the 
Russians transferring these devices not once, not twice, but at least 
three times. The American government has over 100 sets of these devices 
today. We never imposed the sanctions required by the treaty; yet we 
have the proof. We have the evidence.
  Now, what would Iraq use these devices for? They would use them to 
improve the accuracy of the same missile that killed those 28 young 
Americans in 1991 who came home from Desert Storm in body bags because 
their country let them down, because we could not defend against a low 
complexity SCUD missile. These devices Iraq cannot build. They have to 
buy them, and the only place to get them is from Russia.
  We caught them. It is a violation of an arms control treaty. The 
President told me, if we could prove it he would take action. We have 
the evidence, and we never took any action.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, the logical question is, why would we not take 
action against Russia if we know they were deliberately violating a 
treaty? And the answer is rather simple. Our policy for the past 8 
years toward Russia has been based on personal friendships; the 
personal friendship of President Clinton with the leader of Russia, 
Boris Yeltsin, and the personal friendship between Al Gore and Viktor 
Chernomyrdin.
  In 1996, when we caught the Russians transferring these devices to 
Iraq, it was the reelection year for President Yeltsin. Unbeknownst to 
us but now available to our colleagues as an appendix to a book written 
by Bill Gertz called ``Betrayal,'' is a classified cable that President 
Clinton sent to Boris Yeltsin in that election year, the same year this 
transfer took place. What did that cable say? Dear Boris, we wish you 
well in your election, and I will make sure that nothing happens in 
America that jeopardizes your reelection.
  That must have included holding Russia accountable for illegally 
transferring technology to the enemies of America and our allies.
  The second example, a year later, Madam Speaker, the President of 
Israel, President Netanyahu, goes to the great length of announcing to 
the world that Israel has evidence that Russia's space agency has 
signed contracts with the agency in Iran building their missile 
systems, which is again, a violation of treaties and U.S. laws that 
Russia has agreed to abide by.
  The Congress was incensed. Democrats and Republicans said, what is 
going on here? What is wrong with Russia? We are helping them with 
their space station. We are working with them on technology, on helping 
their economy. Why are we not stopping this technology transfer?
  So the Congress introduced legislation, bipartisan, the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Gilman) and Jane Harmon, immediately got over 200 
cosponsors to force the imposition of sanctions on Iran for violating 
arms control agreements.

  The Congress called over the CIA. The director of the 
Nonproliferation Center for the CIA at that time was Dr. Gordon Ehlers; 
and Dr. Ehlers did something you cannot do very often in this 
administration. He told the Congress the truth. He said, yes, the CIA 
has evidence, and we agree with Israel, that the Russian space agency 
has contractual relations with Iran to help them build their missile 
systems. Gordon Ehlers was forcibly removed from his job because he 
simply told the truth.
  The Congress was incensed. The bill was scheduled to come to the 
House Floor for a vote. Three days before or 4 days before the bill was 
to come up on the House floor for a vote, my office got a call from the 
Vice President's office. Would you tell your boss, the staffer said to 
my staff, that Vice President Gore would like to meet with Congressman 
Weldon in the Old Executive Office Building. My staff told me. I said, 
sure, I will be happy to go down and meet with him. I said, what is the 
topic? They said the Iran missile sanctions bill.
  I drove down to the White House, went into the Old Executive Office 
Building where the Vice President's office is, and there in the meeting 
room, along with myself, were some of the following people: Senator 
Carl Levin, Senator Bob Kerry, Senator John McCain, Senator Jon Kyl, 
Congressman Lee Hamilton, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), 
Congresswoman Jane Harmon, Democrats and Republicans from the House and 
the Senate who were assembled while the Vice President and Leon Firth, 
the security adviser, pleaded with us for 1 hour not to bring up the 
Iran missile sanction bill. He pleaded with us that this would harm the 
personal relationship that Bill Clinton had with Boris Yeltsin and that 
Al Gore had with Viktor Chernomyrdin.
  When the Vice President finished lobbying us, all of us, Democrats 
and Republicans together, said, Mr. Vice President, it is too late. The 
technology is flowing. It is continuing to flow into Iran, and it is 
not being stopped.
  Later that week, that bill passed the House with 396 votes. That was 
not a partisan bill. Almost every Republican and most all of the 
Democrats supported the bill to slap the administration across the face 
because they were not enforcing an arms control agreement that we had 
entered into with Russia to stop technology from going to Iran.

                              {time}  1815

  Two months later, after we came back from Christmas break, the Senate 
was going to take up the same bill. My office got another call from the 
Vice President's office. Again, they asked me to go down to the White 
House to meet with the Vice President, and again I drove down to the 
Old Executive Office Building. Again, while I was there, along with the 
same core group of people, in fact, I think Senator Lieberman may have 
been in the meeting, the Vice Presidential candidate, I think he was in 
the meeting with us; and for 1 hour and 30 minutes with Jack Caravelli 
from the NSC, the National Security Council, and with Leon Firth, the 
Vice President lobbied us not to have the Senate pass the Iran missile 
sanctions bill. When he finished we said the same thing: it is too 
late, Mr. Vice President.
  The following week, the Senate voted that bill; 96 Senators voted for 
the bill, which meant it had a veto-proof margin in the House and in 
the Senate. But let me tell my colleagues what is so disgusting, Madam 
Speaker. In neither of those two meetings, which were private meetings 
with the Vice President and Members of Congress, did the Vice President 
tell us that he had worked out a secret deal with the Russians to stop 
proliferation. In neither of those two meetings, with Carl Levin, with 
Bob Kerrey, with John McCain, with Lee Hamilton, and with the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Gilman) in neither of those meetings did the Vice 
President hold this document up and say, well, do not worry, fellows, I 
have a secret deal with the Russians. He never told us. Yet, that deal 
had been concluded 2 years earlier.
  Now, why am I so incensed? Because, Madam Speaker, for the past 8 
years, this administration has called upon me time and again to get 
Republicans to support their objectives in regard to Russia. Every time 
a vote would come

[[Page H11765]]

up for cooperative threat reduction funding for the Nunn-Lugar program, 
I would get a call from the White House to help out, and I would help 
out. Every time the administration wanted something done on our side, I 
would be glad to help out. When they wanted to convince the Russians 
that we were taking the right action in Bosnia, I traveled to Moscow 
with information from the State Department to convince the Russians of 
the merits of the President's position. Yet, the Vice President did not 
have the decency to tell not only me, but Members of Congress, that he 
had cut a secret deal with the Russians to continue to allow technology 
to flow to Iran.
  Madam Speaker, that is not allowed under our Constitution.
  Now, the President can set foreign policy; he can enter into 
treaties, although they have to be ratified by the Senate, but he can 
do that. The Vice President has no ability to negotiate secret 
agreements with any Nation, especially when he does not come back and 
tell the Congress. In fact, the most outrageous part of this whole 
thing, Madam Speaker, is there is another document I have not gotten 
ahold of; I will have it and it will be in the Congressional Record 
eventually. That other document is a letter that Viktor Chernomyrdin 
wrote to Vice President Gore after this deal was cut. I know how the 
letter started. It said, Dear Al. Dear Al. This was in late 1995. I am 
going to quote from the letter. I do not have the letter yet, I am 
getting it. Quote: ``It is not to be conveyed to third parties, 
including the U.S. Congress.'' So the Prime Minister of Russia sends a 
letter to our Vice President where he confirms the fact that Russia 
will continue to send technology to Iran, even though it violates our 
laws and treaties, and furthermore, Chernomyrdin says, and you cannot 
tell your Congress that we have entered into this agreement.
  Madam Speaker, that is not just outrageous, that is sickening. That 
is absolutely sickening, that the leader of Russia, Victor 
Chernomyrdin, could have an agreement with our Vice President that the 
Congress should not be informed. And there it is, Madam Speaker. It is 
a quote directly from that letter. I will have that letter in the 
Record.
  So a secret deal is cut by Al Gore with Viktor Chernomyrdin that 
allows technology to flow to Iran, even though those of us in the 
Congress in both parties are saying it has to stop, it is getting out 
of hand, it is threatening Israel, APEC is going crazy because they 
know what happened to the Israeli people in the midst of Desert Storm 
when they were killed by those Scud missiles, and we are seeing some of 
that today over in the Middle East. And our Vice President agrees to a 
letter from Viktor Chernomyrdin that the U.S. Congress should not be 
informed, and this man supposedly wants to be our President.
  I now yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), who has 
traveled to Russia. He has been a leader in working with their 
corruption problems. As a member of the Committee on Banking and 
Financial Services, he has reached out to help them put into place 
their financial house. He has offered to assist them in bringing 
stability to the Duma, using some of the techniques we use in our 
Congress in a bipartisan manner to help oversee the financial 
transactions that have occurred in Russia. I am happy that he is here 
tonight, and I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).

  Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I just want to mention that the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is one of our foremost experts in the 
House on advanced weapons technology, and also he has led some 21 trips 
now to Russia. He speaks Russian, and he has been perplexed, as I have, 
by this report in The New York Times that without reporting to Members 
of the House and the Senate, the Vice President had concluded his 
secret agreement with then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, 
a secret agreement not to enforce U.S. laws requiring sanctions on any 
country that supplies advanced conventional weapons to Iran.
  As we look at the list of those particular weapons, we see that it 
includes the advanced submarines, the ultra-quiet, ultra-silent kilo-
class submarines that are so difficult to detect, that it includes 
torpedoes and antiship mines and hundreds of tanks and armored 
personnel carriers. I think these submarines are but one example of 
exactly the type identified by Congress when it passed the law as 
posing a risk to U.S. forces operating in the Middle East.
  Madam Speaker, the report of the Speaker's Advisory Group, and I 
would just mention to the Members, this can be found on 
policy.house.gov, if Members would like to get a copy of Russia's Road 
to Corruption. That report notes the unjustified confidence in 
unreliable officials like Chernomyrdin; it notes the refusal by the 
administration to acknowledge mistakes and revised policies 
accordingly; and it notes the excessive secrecy designed to screen 
controversial policies from both Congress and the public.
  This secret agreement, I think, exemplifies every one of these flaws 
and, tragically, as the Times reported, the decision to flout U.S. law 
gained us nothing from the Russians. In spite of evidence that both 
Russian government agencies and private entities were directly involved 
in proliferation to such states as Iran and Iraq, the Clinton 
administration continued to rely on personal assurances from a very 
small cadre of contacts in the Russian Government. Our administration 
officials, including Vice President Gore and Deputy Secretary of State 
Talbot, accepted these assurances, despite clear evidence of continued 
proliferation, rather than believe or admit that proliferation could 
continue, despite the stated opposition of their partners.
  Now, I wanted just to bring to light a second secret Gore-
Chernomyrdin deal that was described in the Washington Times on October 
17 in a classified ``Dear Al'' letter to Al Gore in late 1995. 
Chernomyrdin described Russian aid to Iran's nuclear program, and the 
letter states: ``This information is not to be conveyed to third 
parties, including to the United States Congress.'' Not to be conveyed 
to the United States Congress.
  As with the first Chernomyrdin deal, this agreement too has been kept 
secret from us. This letter from Chernomyrdin to Gore indicates that 
Gore acquiesced to the shipment of not only conventional shipments to 
Iran in violation of the act, but also of nuclear technology to Iran. 
According to Vice President Gore, when we listen to his rationale, he 
says, well, the purpose of this secret deal was to constrain Russian 
nuclear aid to Iran in the construction of two nuclear reactors. If 
that is so, Vice President Gore plainly did not succeed, because in 
August of this year, the CIA reported that Russia continues to provide 
Iran with nuclear technology that could be applied to Iran's weapons 
programs. That is what our Central Intelligence Agency is telling us.
  The chairman of the House Committee on International Relations, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), asked the administration on 
October 18 if it had pointed out to Gore's Russian partner that it is 
not the American way for the President to keep secrets from Congress 
when it comes to such serious national security concerns as the 
proliferation of nuclear technology. The chairman has yet to receive an 
answer. The law requires, and I am going to quote it here, that ``The 
text of any international agreement to which the United States is a 
party be transmitted to Congress as soon as practical, but in no event 
later than 60 days after it is reached.'' The law does not contemplate, 
as the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), the House Policy chairman, 
pointed out, does not contemplate that Congress will discover such 
agreements 5 years after the fact by reading about them through leaks 
to a newspaper. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee requested the 
first secret Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement on Friday, October 13, the day 
that The New York Times revealed it; and now, weeks later, the 
administration has yet to produce this agreement, or the second Gore-
Chernomyrdin letter dealing with nuclear transfers to Iran.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back to the chairman.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for 
his eloquent statement and for his tireless work, and I want to 
acknowledge his leadership in trying to build a stable relationship 
with Russia. I know

[[Page H11766]]

the Russians appreciate that, I know the respect the gentleman has, and 
as a member of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, they 
look to him for guidance as they did last year when he was there to 
help establish a sound financial system.
  Now, someone listening to this in their office or one of our 
constituents might say, well, wait a minute. The President does have a 
right to negotiate secret agreements, and we are not saying that that 
is not the case. The President does have a right to act in our best 
interests and sometimes he may have to make an agreement. But there is 
a process in place for a few Members of the House and the Senate to be 
told about those kinds of arrangements. We have a House Select 
Committee on Intelligence and a Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence. They are a very small number of Members from both 
parties, they are bipartisan, most of their meetings are held in 
private on the fourth floor of this building, and they are briefed by 
the administration or the CIA on sensitive issues that cannot be 
disclosed in public.
  Madam Speaker, that is not what we are talking about. Because number 
one, this was not the President acting; this was an agreement between 
the Vice President and the prime minister of Russia. Number two, the 
Vice President cannot make treaties. There is no place in the 
Constitution for the Vice President to represent America, unless the 
President for some reason is incapacitated. Number three, any agreement 
has to be shared with the leadership in the Congress so that Congress 
is aware of what is transpiring.

                              {time}  1830

  None of those things happened, Madam Speaker. We only found out about 
it 5 years later because a New York Times writer got a copy of this 
memo and spread the story out on the front page of the New York Times.
  Madam Speaker, how could it come that our Vice President could have 
this kind of a relationship with Viktor Chernomyrdin? It goes back to 
what I said at the outset, our policy with Russia has been flawed. It 
was based on personal friendships as opposed to support for 
institutions.
  I wanted Boris Yeltsin to succeed as much as President Clinton did 
when he took office. I was a big supporter of his. But instead of 
supporting a person, as Republicans did with the Shah of Iran, for 
instance, we should have been supporting the institution of the 
presidency. We should have been supporting the institution of the 
parliament, which in Russia is the Duma and the Federation Council. We 
should have been supporting the institution of a court system, of a 
free market system.
  But instead, our policy was based on personal friendships between two 
sets of people, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, Al Gore and Viktor 
Chernomyrdin.
  In fact, Madam Speaker, there is another document that needs to be 
brought forward so the American people can see it. That relates to the 
special relationship that Vice President Gore had with Viktor 
Chernomyrdin.
  During the days that Viktor Chernomyrdin was the Prime Minister of 
Russia, there was a process started called the Gore-Chernomyrdin 
Commission to work in a very positive way, much of which I supported, 
on helping build stable relations. But the Vice President became too 
enamored with the man, as opposed to the process.
  Our intelligence community got some evidence that Viktor Chernomyrdin 
was involved in corrupt activities in Russia with the oil and gas 
industry. So as they do frequently, our CIA wrote a memo that went to 
the Vice President, a classified memo, which they do frequently, to the 
Vice President telling him that the CIA had evidence that his partner 
and friend, Viktor Chernomyrdin, was involved in corruption with the 
Russian oil and gas industry.
  What was the Vice President's response? He was very upset, red-faced, 
and allegedly wrote the word ``bull,'' and I cannot say the last four 
letters, but Members can use their imagination, across the front of the 
memo, and sent it back to the CIA, because he did not want to hear it. 
He did not want to hear that our intelligence community said his 
partner was involved in corruption. The Russian people knew he was 
involved in corruption, which is why he ultimately had to leave office. 
But our Vice President did not want to hear it.
  Here is the rub, Madam Speaker. When the Vice President was asked 
about this memo on Tim Russert's show nationally telecast just a few 
weeks ago, the Vice President's statement to Tim Russert was that it 
never happened, it was not true.
  However, in our Russia Task Force, we interviewed a CIA lawyer. Guess 
what he informed the committee: that more than one CIA analyst saw the 
notation on a document relating to Chernomyrdin. So now we have a CIA 
lawyer saying, yes, we have a document that at least two people have 
seen with the word ``bull'' scribbled across the front of it relating 
to Chernomyrdin.
  The White House stated in a letter in October of this year that, 
after a diligent search, ``We cannot locate that document, and neither 
can the CIA.'' If that is the case, it means the document is either 
lost or stolen. Federal law prohibits the destruction of White House 
records. If that occurred, that is a Federal offense.
  But now, mysteriously, the White House counsel now acknowledges that 
the Vice President ``recalls having a strong reaction to a CIA report 
when it was originally shown to him,'' and that ``he may have uttered 
such a comment and it may have been written down by someone else.''
  So we went from a complete denial by the Vice President of ever 
having written any such statement down and ever knowing about it to now 
having White House counsel saying, well, yes, he did perhaps utter that 
statement when he saw the report, but he does not think it was he that 
wrote it down. Somebody else must have written that word down based on 
what the Vice President was saying.
  The problem was, Madam Speaker, the President and the Vice President 
did not want to hear the bad news. We all wanted Yeltsin and 
Chernomyrdin to succeed, but the to deal with Russia, we have to be 
candid and consistent.
  Do Members know why the Russian people hate Americans today, Madam 
Speaker? It is because they feel we let them down. When Boris Yeltsin 
left office last fall, the polls in Moscow were showing his popularity 
was 2 percent. Only 2 percent of the Russian population supported Boris 
Yeltsin, but Bill Clinton and Al Gore still support him.
  When the Russian people knew that Boris Yeltsin's friends, including 
his daughter, Tatiana, and the bankers that he put into office, the 
oligarchs, were stealing billions of dollars of money that were going 
to Russia to help improve the economy, the Russian people knew what was 
going on. They knew that we knew what was going on. We pretended we did 
not see it because Bill Clinton and Al Gore did not want to embarrass 
their friends.
  When technology was being transferred to Iraq and Iran, the Russians 
knew that we knew it was taking place, but they knew that we were 
hiding that fact. They lost respect for us, because they knew that all 
America was trying to do was to basically wash over any problems that 
Russia had.
  When Lieutenant Jack Daley, a 15-year career naval intelligence 
officer, was lasered in the eye by a Russian spy ship out in Puget 
Sound, the administration's response was to send a secret cable to 
Moscow telling the Russians that we have caught them lasering one of 
our military persons in the eye.
  What was the response of the administration? They tried to ruin the 
career of Jack Daley. After 15 years of the highest ratings in the 
Navy, in two consecutive ratings he was given the lowest rating that he 
could get, and his superior officer told him this, and I quote 
directly, ``Jack, you don't know the pressure I am under to get rid of 
your case.''
  Thank goodness we have a group of stalwart Democrats and Republicans 
in this body, people like the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), 
who joined with us and called the Defense Department and said they 
cannot do this to an American soldier in uniform. He has been injured. 
He has been lasered by the Russians, and they were taking the side of 
Russia.
  Thank goodness we stood up, and in September of last year former 
deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre called me on the phone and said, 
Curt, we have just convened a special board of inquiry and they have 
just reported that Jack Daley was wronged. He got his promotion.

[[Page H11767]]

  How about Jay Stuart, a career Department of Energy intelligence 
official who had an outstanding career, given the highest award, but 
because he was telling Hazel O'Leary that there were problems with 
Russia's nuclear weapons, his job was eliminated. His career was 
ruined.
  Or how about Notra Trulock, whose simple offense was he told the 
truth? He has not been able to work for the past 3 months.
  Time and again, Madam Speaker, this administration has played 
politics with our relationships. Today our relationship with Russia is 
as bad as it ever was under the Communist rule. In fact, I would say it 
is far worse than that, because the Russians no longer trust us. They 
do not know what our foreign policy is. They think it is a roller 
coaster, up and down. We use Russia when it is to our convenience, and 
we ignore them when it is in our best interests, according to our 
administration.
  Madam Speaker, I can tell the Members this, that it is absolutely 
unacceptable that the Vice President of the United States 5 years ago 
entered into a secret agreement with the Prime Minister of Russia that 
allowed technology to flow to Iran, as acknowledged by Secretary 
Albright in her letter that I just put in the Record, that would have 
been subject to sanctions under U.S. laws and arms control treaties.
  The President wonders why this Congress will not support treaties 
that he has brought up, like the treaties involving strategic arms 
reductions, or treaties involving chemical weapons, or treaties 
involving a nuclear test ban? How can this Congress trust this 
administration on treaties when we have had secret deals and 
arrangements made by individuals that basically say those treaties are 
not worth anything?
  Madam Speaker, this is not the way this country has operated. We have 
had some embarrassing things occur in our history by leaders in both 
parties. I am not saying this is only done by Democrats, because that 
would be false. But I have never seen an incident where a Vice 
President negotiated a secret deal to allow technology to continue to 
flow to one of our enemies, and agree with the leader of that country 
that the Congress should be kept uninformed, even though we admitted 
that every violation that occurred was a violation of an arms control 
agreement that would have required sanctions.
  Madam Speaker, there is no wonder why we do not have the respect 
around the world from China, Russia, from the Middle East, the 
Palestinians, North Korea. Foreign policy has to be based on 
consistency and candor, and we have neither.
  Mr. GILMAN. Madam Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon, for organizing this discussion of the Clinton 
Administration's policy toward Russia, and I thank him for inviting me 
to participate in it.
  During the six years that I have chaired the Committee on 
International Relations, we have been keenly interested in U.S. 
relations with Russia. The members of our Committee have become 
increasingly concerned in recent years as the optimism that we had 
about the prospects for reform in Russia have evaporated. Sadly, the 
policies of the Clinton Administration have failed to consolidate 
democracy, free markets, and respect for human rights in Russia.
  The failure of the Clinton Administration policy has many dimensions, 
and my colleagues have touched on many of those dimensions today. I 
will focus my remarks on one dimension that is of particular concern to 
me: the failure to stem Russian proliferation of dangerous weapons and 
weapons-related technologies to Iran.
  Congress has tried repeatedly over the years to force the Executive 
branch to do something about Russian proliferation to Iran. When Vice 
President Al Gore was still a Senator, he joined with Senator John 
McCain to author legislation known as the Iran-Iraq Arms Non-
Proliferation Act of 1992. More recently, Congressman Gejdenson and I 
worked with Senator Trent Lott and Senator Joe Lieberman to enact the 
Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000.
  These laws, and others that have been enacted between 1992 and this 
year, attempted to discourage Russian proliferation to Iran by 
threatening to impose U.S. sanctions.
  I regret to inform my colleagues that these laws appear to have 
failed. They have failed not because they were badly written, but 
because the Clinton Administration has put at least as much effort into 
avoiding having to apply them as it has put into applying them.
  Our Committee held a hearing three weeks ago on the Administration's 
systematic disregard of the recently-enacted Gilman-Gejdenson-Lott-
Lieberman Act. Our hearing revealed that the Administration has failed 
to submit either of the first two reports on proliferation to Iran 
required to be submitted under that law, and that the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration has adopted a legal interpretation 
of the law designed to eviscerate it. Clearly NASA wants to continue 
business as usual with Russia as if this law had never been enacted. 
NASA's legal interpretation of the Gilman-Gejdenson-Lott-Lieberman Act 
was denounced on a bipartisan basis at our hearing.
  Even more alarming, we have learned from press reports that Vice 
President Gore signed an agreement with Russia in 1995 in which he 
agreed to permit certain Russian arms sales to Iran to proceed, and he 
promised that no sanctions would be imposed under the Gore-McCain Act. 
To get to the bottom of this alarming news, we have asked the 
Administration to let us see the full text (including all attachments) 
of the agreements they signed. To date, the Administration has refused 
to show the full text to anyone in this body other than the Speaker and 
the Minority Leader.
  Madam Speaker, it is clear that this Administration has a lot of 
explaining to do about its policy toward Russia.
  Yesterday I joined with the distinguished Chairman of the Committee 
on Armed Services, the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spence, and 
the distinguished Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence, Mr. Goss, in sending a letter to the President demanding 
full disclosure to Congress of all secret deals with Russia regarding 
proliferation to Iran. I submit our letter to be inserted at this point 
in the Record:


                                Congress of the United States,

                                 Washington, DC, October 31, 2000.
     The President,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President. We are deeply concerned about 
     information that has emerged recently about secret 
     understandings reached between your Administration and the 
     government of the Russian Federation regarding proliferation 
     to Iran. A distinguished bipartisan group of eleven former 
     secretaries of state, secretaries of defense, national 
     security advisors, and CIA directors has also expressed alarm 
     about your Administration's acquiescence in such 
     proliferation from Russia to Iran, as well as the 
     Administration's failure to fully disclose its policy to 
     Congress.
       We share the view of these distinguished former officials 
     that there can be no justification for your Administration's 
     acquiescence in the transfer to Iran of advanced military 
     equipment such as modern submarines, fighter planes, and 
     wake-homing torpedoes. Such transfers jeopardize the lives of 
     our military personnel in the Persian Gulf region and put at 
     risk the security of our nation and of our allies in the 
     region. Moreover, Iran, as the world's leading sponsor of 
     international terrorism, may well be a conduit for arms and 
     technology to terrorist groups. Obviously these groups pose 
     an imminent threat to U.S. personnel worldwide, as 
     demonstrated by the recent attack on the U.S.S. Cole.
       The Administration's failure to fully inform Congress of 
     this policy presents a threat of a different character. 
     Congress cannot effectively exercise its constitutional 
     responsibilities if kept in the dark about such matters. 
     Continued efforts by the Administration to withhold 
     information about such policies from Congress is inconsistent 
     with the constitutional separation of powers.
       We are especially troubled by the fact that both the policy 
     adopted by the Administration, and the Administration's 
     decision to withhold from Congress key documents relating to 
     that policy, may have violated U.S. law. The Gore-McCain Act 
     (50 U.S.C. 1701 note) may have been violated by the 
     Administration's commitment in the June 30, 1995, Aide 
     Memoire not to sanction certain weapons transfers from Russia 
     to Iran. That agreement was required to be transmitted to 
     Congress under the Case-Zablocki Act (1 U.S.C. 112b), but the 
     Administration chose instead to withhold that agreement from 
     Congress. And against this background, the Administration has 
     persisted in disregarding the recently-enacted Gilman-
     Gejdenson-Lott-Lieberman Act (Public Law 106-178) regarding 
     proliferation to Iran.
       In view of the serious questions that have been raised, we 
     believe that the only acceptable course for the 
     Administration at this point is full disclosure. In order to 
     permit you to clear the air regarding allegations that 
     officials of your Administration have secretly committed our 
     nation to policies which at best undermine our national 
     security, and at worst may violate U.S. law, we respectfully 
     submit the following request for relevant documents.
       We would appreciate your transmitting the documents 
     described in paragraph (1) to the Committee on International 
     Relations no later than Thursday, November 2nd. We would 
     appreciate your arranging for the custodians of the remaining 
     documents to transmit them to their oversight committee of 
     the House of Representatives no later than Friday, December 
     1st. Please be assured

[[Page H11768]]

     that we will properly protect all classified information 
     submitted in response to this request.
       (1) Documents in the custody of the Secretary of State:
       (A) The Aide Memoire dated June 30, 1995, signed by Vice 
     President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor 
     Chernomyrdin, along with all annexes thereto that have at any 
     time been in effect (including any amendments to such 
     annexes).
       (B) The letter dated December 9, 1996, from Russian Prime 
     Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to Vice President Al Gore, any 
     correspondence from the U.S. Government to which that letter 
     was responding, and any U.S. Government response to that 
     letter.
       (C) The letter dated January 13, 2000, from Secretary of 
     State Madeleine Albright to Russian Foreign Minister Igor 
     Ivanov, transmitted by the Department of State on January 13, 
     2000, in a telegram designated ``State 008180''.
       (D) The letter dated December 17, 1999, from Russian 
     Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to Secretary of State Madeleine 
     Albright.
       (E) The Department of State telegrams designated ``State 
     243445'', ``State 244826'', ``Moscow 32441'', and ``Moscow 
     362'', referred to in the Department of State telegram 
     designated ``State 008180'' of January 13, 2000.
       (2) Documents in the custody of the Secretary of State, the 
     Secretary of Defense, the director of Central Intelligence, 
     or any agency or establishment within the Intelligence 
     Community:
       (A) All documents that contain, refer, reflect, or relate 
     in any way to transfers or possible transfers of goods or 
     technology from Russia to Iran in violation or potential 
     violation of commitments contained in the Aide Memoire dated 
     June 30, 1995, signed by Vice President Al Gore and Russian 
     Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, or the letter dated 
     December 9, 1995, from Russian Prime Minister Viktor 
     Chernomyrdin to Vice President Al Gore.
       (B) All documents that contain, refer, reflect, or relate 
     in any way to possible revisions to the understanding set 
     forth in the Aide Memoire dated June 30, 1995, signed by Vice 
     President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor 
     Chernomyrdin, and the annexes thereto.
       (C) All documents that contain, refer, reflect, or relate 
     in any way to possible application of the Case-Zablocki Act 
     (1 U.S.C. 112b) to the Aide Memoire dated June 30, 1995, 
     signed by Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister 
     Viktor Chernomyrdin, or the letter dated December 9, 1995, 
     from Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to Vice 
     President Al Gore.
       (D) All documents that contain, refer, reflect, or relate 
     in any way to consideration of whether goods or technology 
     transferred from Russia to Iran contributed to efforts by 
     Iran to acquire destabilizing numbers and types of advanced 
     conventional weapons.
       (E) All documents that contain, refer, reflect, or relate 
     in any way to consideration of whether weapons transferred 
     from Russia to Iran destabilized the military balance in the 
     Persian Gulf region, or enhanced Iran's offensive 
     capabilities in destabilizing ways.
       (F) All documents that contain, refer, reflect, or relate 
     in any way to other secret understandings or agreements, or 
     secret provisions of understandings or agreements, reached by 
     the Clinton Administration with Russia regarding transfers to 
     Iran or any other country of weapons-related goods, services, 
     or technology.
       (3) Documents in the custody of the Administrator of the 
     National Aeronautics and Space Administration:
       (A) All documents that contain, refer, reflect, or relate 
     in any way to the rationale or justification for purchase 
     from the Russian Aviation and space Agency of the items 
     referred to in the letters dated February 11, 2000 and 
     February 15, 2000, from the Administrator of the National 
     Aeronautics and Space Administration to Chairman F. James 
     Sensenbrenner, Jr., of the Committee on Science (exclusive of 
     those items that, as of the date of the adoption of this 
     resolution, already have been acquired from the Russian 
     Aviation and Space Agency).
       (B) All documents that contain, refer, reflect, or relate 
     in any way to utilization of the exception for crew safety 
     contained in section 6(f) of the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 
     2000 (Public Law 106-178), or interpretation of the term 
     ``necessary to prevent the imminent loss of life by or 
     grievous injury to individuals aboard the International Space 
     Station'' as contained in that section.
       We appreciate your prompt attention to this request.
       With warmest regards,
           Sincerely,
     Benjamin A. Gilman,
       Chairman, Committee on International Relations.
     Porter J. Goss,
       Chairman, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
     Floyd Spence,
       Chairman, Committee on Armed Services.

                          ____________________