[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 155 (Friday, December 15, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11841-S11843]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RETIREMENT OF SENATOR DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, it saddens me to note that the Senate will
soon lose one of its most visionary and accomplished members, a great
American, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
It boggles the mind just to think of all of the important positions
that Pat Moynihan has held, including cabinet or subcabinet posts under
four presidents: John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and
Gerald Ford. He served as Ambassador to India in the 1970's and then as
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He came to the United States
Senate in 1977 already a scholar, author and public official of great
distinction and renown. In the 24 years he has spend here, he has only
greatly expanded his enormous reputation and body of work. Pat Moynihan
is a Senator's Senator. Over the years, he has earned the respect of
every member of the Senate.
Pat Moynihan is a person who has shown tremendous vision throughout
his life. He has shown foresight about the importance of a strong
family and about the importance of strong communities in America. He
raised the critical important of these basic values and concerns about
the deterioration of these family values, long before others. He has
shown great foresight about our Constitution. One of the highlights for
me in my service in the Senate was joining Senator Moynihan and Senator
Robert Byrd in fighting against the line item veto as a violation of
our Constitution. And, he has shown great foresight about the world and
the role of the United States in international affairs. His work at the
United Nations and in the Senate, as a former Chairman of the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, and as Chairman of the Finance
Committee have been marked by his perceptive, analytical, and worldly
view on trade, foreign policy, and intelligence matters. Long before
others, Senator Moynihan was speaking of the economic and ultimately
military weaknesses of the Soviet Union and predicting its collapse.
It is virtually impossible to list all of Pat Moynihan's
accomplishments in the U.S. Senate. Among the most lasting, however,
will be his efforts on behalf of architectural excellence in the
nation's capital. He was a crucial force behind the return to greatness
of the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor between the U.S. Capital and the
White House, the restoration of Washington's beautiful, elegant, and
historic Union Station, and the construction of the Thurgood Marshall
Judiciary Building here on Capitol Hill.
The author or editor of eighteen books, Senator Moynihan has been at
the forefront of the national debate on issues ranging from welfare
reform, to tax policy to international relations. His most recent book,
written in 1998, ``Secrecy: The American Experience'' expands on the
report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy
of which he was the Chairman. This is a fascinating and provocative
review of the history of the development of secrecy in the government
since World War I and argument for an ``era of openness''.
At home in New York, in a state which is known for its rough and
tumble politics, he has shown leadership again and again, demonstrating
the power of intellect and the ability to rise above the fray. That has
been a wonderful contribution not just to New York but to all of
America.
As they leave the Senate family, which will never forget their huge
contribution, we salute Pat and Elizabeth Moynihan.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, in the 211-year history of the United
States Senate, the State of New York has one of the richest and most
storied legacies.
Since 1789, New York has sent to the Senate 63 Senators. I have had
the distinct privilege of serving with four of them, most memorably,
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
When the people of New York elected Pat Moynihan to represent them
nearly 25 years ago, they sent to Washington a uniquely gifted and
talented man. Those are the reasons, Senator Moynihan is one of only
two, out of 63 Senators from New York, to have been elected to four
consecutive terms in the United States Senate.
Senator Moynihan began his service to this nation more than 50 years
ago when he served in the United States Navy from 1944-1947--and he
never stopped being ``Mr. Public Servant.'' He served one governor, New
York's Averell Harriman, and four United States Presidents: two
Democrats, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and two Republicans,
Presidents Nixon and Ford.
What a record. Pat Moynihan has given more than three quarters of his
life to his nation and his state. This country, the United States
Senate, and New York are joyously thankful.
He has been a leader in so many areas that it challenges one to list
them all. But his impact on public architecture, monuments for future
generations, are the hallmarks which this quiet gentleman reveres.
For over fifteen years now, I have had the privilege of serving with
Pat on the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. I have been
fortunate to work closely with him and observe his tireless effort and
commitment to maintaining the architectural integrity of our great
public institutions.
Some 40 years ago, the Kennedy Administration made the decision to
revive Pennsylvania Avenue and restore the Federal Triangle. It was an
extraordinary stroke of fortune that Pat Moynihan, a deputy to Labor
Secretary Goldberg who played a primary role in the effort, had the
responsibility to draft a report that contained core ideas for
redevelopment. The Federal Triangle, including the Ronald Reagan
Building, and the Judiciary Building--to mention just a few--are
dramatic evidence of his contributions that will live for years to come
in the foundation of these magnificent buildings.
I cannot resist the temptation to recall that Senator Moynihan was
fond of noting that it was Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon who
initially championed the idea of reviving the Federal Triangle and
establishing it as an international trade and cultural center. It took
a man of Pat Moynihan's talent, character and foresight to pick up and
finish that vision, started in the early 1930s, in such a grand manner.
I would be remiss were I not to take a minute to thank Senator
Moynihan for his leadership and the personal courtesies he extended to
me, as he took the initiative to name the departmental auditorium at
the Commerce Department building, the Andrew Mellon Auditorium. It
truly is a remarkable structure and aptly named.
Over 200 years ago, Pierre L'Enfant, as he laid plans for the new
United States capital, could only hope that a man like Senator Moynihan
would one day work with such compassion and perseverance to keep alive
the true spirit and design envisioned in the original blueprints of
George Washington's federal city.
One of the most rewarding assignments in my own career in public
service, has been the opportunity to serve with Senator Moynihan as a
member of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents. The talented men and
women who have served on the Board are unquestionably committed to the
arts and preserving this nation's cultural heritage. And I am certain,
that all of them who have served with him would agree that Pat
Moynihan's leadership and guiding wisdom have been indispensable.
Beyond the physical monuments to his achievements, I will always
remember Pat Moynihan for his humor, his intellect, his grace, his
eloquence, and his humility.
All of us here, before we cast the first vote, before we discharge
the first responsibility, take the oath of office. We solemnly commit
``to support and defend the constitution. . . .'' ``Against all
enemies. . . .'' we commit ``to bear true faith and allegiance'' and we
undertake ``to faithfully discharge'' our duty. Senator Moynihan was a
man of his word and here in the Senate he has always been true to his
principles and true to his oath.
Pat Moynihan has been a giant in the Senate for some time. I only
hope that the years ahead give him the time he has always wanted to do
those things he has never quite had the time to do.
[[Page S11842]]
The Senate and the nation know Senator Moynihan as a true patriot, a
gentlemen, and a statesman. His legacy is a remarkable gift we will
benefit from for years to come.
In closing, I would like to submit for the Record two articles that
appeared in the Washington Post--one, written by George Will and the
other by Benjamin Forgery. I ask to have printed in the Record these
articles, so all citizens can read of the enormous contributions
Senator Moynihan has made to this institution, his home State of New
York, and, indeed, this country.
The Nation's Capital--in the words that Navy men and women
understand--bids you a final ``Well done, Sir. We salute you as the
L'Enfant of this century.''
There being no objection, the material ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Sept. 17, 2000]
Farewell, Mr. Moynihan
(By George F. Will)
When this Congress ends, so will one of the broadest and
deepest public careers in American history. Daniel Patrick
Moynihan--participant in John Kennedy's New Frontier, member
of Lyndon Johnson's White House staff, Richard Nixon's
domestic policy adviser, Gerald Ford's ambassador to India
and the United Nations, four-term senator--will walk from the
Senate and political life, leaving both better for his having
been in them, and leaving all who observe them berefit of the
rare example of a public intellectual's life lived well--
adventurously, bravely and leavened by wit.
The intellectual polarities of his life have been belief in
government's ameliorative powers--and in William Butler
Yeats's deflation of expectations for politics:
Parnell came down the road, he said to a cheering man:
Ireland shall get her freedom and you will still break
stone.
Having served four presidents, Moynihan wrote that he did
not remember ever having heard at a Cabinet meeting ``a
serious discussion of political ideas--one concerned with how
men, rather than markets, behave.'' Regarding the
complexities of behavior, Moynihan has stressed the
importance of ethnicity--the Balkans, the Bronx, come to
that. Moynihan knew how wrong Marx was in asserting the lost
saliency of pre-industrial factors, such as ethnicity and
religion, in the modern age.
His gift for decorous disruptions was apparent early, when,
during a 1965 audience with Pope Paul VI, at a time when the
Church was reconsidering its doctrine of the collective guilt
of Jews for Christ's crucifixion, Moynihan, a Catholic,
shattered protocol by addressing the pope: ``Holy Father, we
hope you will not forget our friends the Jews.'' Later, an
unsettled member of the audience, the bishop of Chicago,
said, ``We need a drink.'' Moynihan said, ``If they're going
to behave like a Medieval court, they must expect us to take
an opportunity to petition him.''
During his U.N. service he decided that U.S. foreign policy
elites were ``decent people, utterly unprepared for their
work'' because ``they had only one idea, and that was
wrong.'' It was that the bad behavior of other nations was
usually a reaction to America's worse behavior. He has been a
liberal traditionalist, keeper of Woodrow Wilson's crusade
for lawful rather than normless dealings among nations.
``Everyone,'' says Moynihan the social scientist, ``is
entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.'' When in
1993 the Clinton administration's Goals 2000 asserted that by
2000 America's high school graduation rate would be 90
percent and American students would lead the world in
mathematics and science achievements, Moynihan acidly
compared these goals to the old Soviet grain production
quotas. Of the projected 2000 outcome, Moynihan said: ``That
will not happen.'' It didn't.
Moynihan has written much while occupying the dark and
bloody ground where social science and policymaking
intersect. Knowing that the two institutions that most shape
individuals are the family and the state, he knows that when
the former weakens, the latter strengthens. And family
structure is ``the principal conduit of class structure.''
Hence Moynihan's interest in government measures to
strengthen families.
Moynihan understands that incantations praising minimalist
government are America's ``civic religion, avowed but not
constraining.'' Government grows because of the ineluctable
bargaining process among interest groups that favor
government outlays that benefit them. And government grows
because knowledge does, and knowledge often grows because of
government.
Knowledge, says Moynihan, is a form of capital, much of it
formed by government investment in education. And knowledge
begets government. He says: Behold California's Imperial
Valley, unchanged since ``the receding of the Ice Age.'' Only
God can make an artichoke, but government--specifically, the
Bureau of Reclamation--made the valley a cornucopia. Time
was, hospitals' biggest expense was clean linen. Then came
technologies--diagnostic, therapeutic, pharmacological--that
improved health, increased costs and expanded government.
``Not long ago,'' Moynihan has written, ``it could be
agreed that politics was the business of who gets what, when,
where, how. It is now more than that. It has become a process
that also deliberately seeks to effect such outcomes as who
thinks what, who acts when, who lives where, who feels how,''
Moynihan appreciates the pertinence of political philosopher
Michael Oakshott's cautionary words: ``To try to do something
which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting
enterprise.''
The 14-year-old Moynihan was shining shoes on Central Park
West when he heard about Pearl Harbor. In the subsequent six
decades he has been more conversant with, and more involved
in, more of the nation's transforming controversies than
anyone else. Who will do what he has done for the
intellectual nutritiousness of public life? The nation is not
apt to see his like again, never having seen it before him.
____
[From the Washington Post, Oct. 7, 2000]
Moynihan's Legacy Is Written in Stone
(By Benjamin Forgey
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, on the edge of retirement as
the 106th Congress argues its way to a finish, tells the
story whenever he feels the audience is right. And why not?
It is a true-life Washington legend.
Time: Summer 1961. Place: The White House. Scene: A Cabinet
meeting with President John F. Kennedy. The nation's chief
policymakers are busily deliberating foreign affairs but
pause, Moynihan says, ``when the next-most-important issue in
government comes up--which, of course, is office space.''
That line always gets a laugh. Moynihan knows Washington
and knows what people think about Washington--one-liners at
the expense of the bureaucracy never miss. But what comes
afterward is the true beginning of the legend.
The president appoints Labor Secretary Arthur J. Goldberg
to co-chair ``something with the unpromising title of Ad Hoc
Committee on Federal Office Space.'' To Moynihan, then
Goldberg's 34-year-old deputy, falls the duty of finding out
exactly how much space is needed, and writing the report.
It is far-fetched to imagine a 15-page committee report
about government office space having much significance for
even 38 minutes after being written. This one, completed in
the spring of 1962, has had a far-reaching impact across 38
years, for it contained, improbably, the genesis of a plan to
redevelop Pennsylvania Avenue.
The opportunistic idea was Goldberg's--he had decided to
try to do something about the avenue when surveying its
fragmented, decaying north side from a slow-moving limousine
during Kennedy's inaugural parade. But the brilliant words
were Moynihan's.
He vividly sketched the ``scene of desolation'' on the
northern side, opposite the impressive classic revival
buildings of the 1930s Federal Triangle. He sensitively
summarized the avenue's history, showing a rare understanding
of the crucial role assigned to it in Pierre Charles
L'Enfant's 1791 plan--``symbolizing,'' Moynihan wrote, ``at
once the separation of powers and the fundamental unity in
the American Government.''
Above all, Moynihan showed that he understood cities. The
avenue's poor state meant that private capital soon would
begin the process of tearing down and building anew. The
opportunity had arisen, he wrote, ``to design and
construct what would, in effect, be a new avenue,'' and
the federal government had a historic duty ``to maintain
standards of buildings and architecture in the nation's
capital.''
Moynihan's vision was humane and, for its time,
exceptionally urbane. ``Care should be taken,'' he
admonished, ``not to line the north side with a solid phalanx
of public and private office buildings which close down
completely at night and on weekends. . . . Pennsylvania
Avenue should be lively, friendly, and inviting, as well as
dignified and impressive.''
More than any other American politician of the second half
of the 20th century, Moynihan has engaged the issue of
architecture, urban design and infrastructure. He has used
his intellectual prowess, political skills and sheer power to
establish meaningful rules, to save historic buildings, to
improve federal architecture, to get buildings built.
Washington has been the great beneficiary of these
involvements--most dramatically on the section of the great
boulevard linking the Capitol and the White House.
There is a sense in which the rebuilding of Pennsylvania
Avenue became Moynihan's destiny. Partly by chance, partly by
design, he has been around to persuade, push and prod a
vision into reality. And, for the last 10 years, he has been
able to watch it happen with his wife, Elizabeth, from their
apartment above the Navy Memorial and Market Square, on the
avenue between Ninth and Seventh Streets NW.
Soon after the report was published, Goldberg was appointed
to the Supreme Court. Moynihan thus inherited responsibility
for shepherding the avenue dream in the Kennedy
administration. He became great pals with Nathaniel Owings,
the celebrated architect Kennedy chose to come up with a
plan. The pair would walk the avenue in the evenings and talk
excitedly of its past and future while sitting, recalls
Moynihan, on ``those nice, strong benches next to the
National Archives.''
Then, after Kennedy was assassinated, Moynihan helped keep
the project alive during the Lyndon Johnson presidency--
nothing
[[Page S11843]]
had been built. He had the enthusiastic collaboration of
White House counsel Harry McPherson Jr., and an invaluable
plug from Jacqueline Kennedy, who ``saved the undertaking in
a farewell call on President Johnson,'' Moynihan recalls.
Thereafter, he says, Johnson ``took Mrs. Kennedy's wishes as
something of a command.''
Moynihan admits that, as much as he liked and admired Nat
Owings, he did not care for Owings's formidable first plan.
It was a ``terrible plan,'' he now says, though he did not
say so at the time. The young politician was perhaps a bit in
awe of the elder Great Architect--lots of people were. The
firm that Owings had started in the 1930s--Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill--was by then world-renowned.
How flawed was that first plan? Well, typical of its time,
it called for massive demolitions--including the National
Press Club building and the Willard and Washington hotels.
These were to be replaced by an impressively bloated National
Square or by massive buildings all in a row.
Fortunately, time was not kind to this vision. We can judge
how lucky we are by pondering the one building that actually
got built: the FBI headquarters, that odd-looking, off-
putting giant facing the avenue between Ninth and
10th streets NW.
It is possible that, even them, Moynihan suspected he was
in this for the long haul. As it happened, he left Washington
in 1965 but was backed by 1969--shockingly, to his liberal-
Democrat colleagues--as top urban affairs adviser to
Republican President Richard Nixon.
Once again, Moynihan had lots to say about Pennsylvania
Avenue. It is no coincidence that during Nixon's first term
the avenue plan was given real teeth in the 1972 legislation
creating the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp. And it was
a very different, less destructive plan--much more in keeping
with Moynihan's original admonishment to be ``lively,
friendly and inviting.''
Nothing much got build during the '70s, but the PADC was
quietly preparing the groundwork. By the time building got
started in the early '80s, Moynihan was back in town, this
time as a senator from New York. Since then, he has been
there tirelessly for the avenue--out front or behind the
scenes, in large matters or small.
How large? The Ronald Reagan Building and International
Trade Center--the big mixed-use federal building at
Pennsylvania and 13th Street NW--is one of his enthusiasms.
Back in the Kennedy years, Moynihan's Labor Department office
in the Federal Triangle had looked out on parking lot of
``surpassing ugliness.'' He never forgot, and that lot is
where the Reagan Building stands.
How small? Moynihan never forgot, either, that the Ariel
Rios Building, at 13th Street, had been left incomplete when
work on the Federal Triangle ceased; its brick sidewall was
left exposed ``just like an amputated limb,'' in the words of
J. Carter Brown, chairman of the federal Commission of Fine
Arts. Moynihan, Brown believes, was the ``eminence grise who
was able to shake the General Services Administration by the
lapels and get that thing finished.''
But if in one way or another Moynihan had a hand in
practically everything that was built--or saved--on this
crucial stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, he also worked for
Washington in other ways. He helped mightily to preserve and
find new uses for three of Washington's most notable historic
structures--the Old Patent Office (now housing two
Smithsonian museums), the Old Post Office (a mixed-use
building because of a law Moynihan pushed through) and the
Old Pension Building (now the National Building Museum).
Just about single-handedly did Moynihan arrange for the
construction of the distinguished U.S. Judiciary Building
next to Union Station. He was a crucial negotiator in the
brilliant deal by which New York and Washington each get a
share of the National Museum of the American Indian. Moynihan
fought to get cars off Frederick Law Olmsted's Capitol
grounds. He continues to wage an enlightened campaign for
reasonableness about security in federal buildings. The list
could go on.
Of course, it isn't simply Washington that has benefited.
As might be expected, Moynihan's own state has profited
immensely as well.
The new Penn Station--a complex, ongoing project involving
federal, state and city bureaucracies and private
enterprise--is just the latest of dozens of important
examples. There's much talk of calling it ``Moynihan
Station'' because he was its ``guiding light and soul,'' says
chief architect David Childs.
Nor is it just Washington and New York. It is the nation.
Two examples of many: The Intermodal Surface Transportation
and Efficiency Act of 1991 and its successor, the
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (``Ice Tea''
and ``Tea 21'' for short), are Moynihan bills through and
through and through. By encouraging mass transit and
loosening the highway lobby's decades-old stranglehold on the
nation's transportation policy, these laws do the country an
estimable service.
And then there are his ``Guiding Principles of Federal
Architecture.'' They are straightforward and smart: There
should be no official style; the architecture should embody
the ``finest contemporary American architectural thought.''
Regional characteristics should be kept in mind. Sites should
be selected with care. Landscape architecture also is
important.
The principles take us back to that committee report of 38
years ago. Nobody asked for a Pennsylvania Avenue plan and no
one asked for architectural guidelines. Moynihan simply
invented them and attached them to the report, and they have
functioned as a beacon for high-quality federal architecture
ever since.
Moynihan's act is almost impossible to follow. In the
phrase of Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon), another
architecture fan, Moynihan possesses ``a bundle of
qualities'' seldom found in a single politician: a good eye,
a first-rate mind, a passion for the subject, lots of power,
long experience, a certain flamboyance, a canny sense of
timing.
Nor is there likely to be another politician alive whose
favorite quotation is Thomas Jefferson's statement: ``Design
activity and political thought are indivisible.''
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today, I wish to pay tribute to the very
distinguished Senator from New York, who will be retiring at the end of
this Congressional session.
Senator Moynihan, as his recent biography makes clear, has been an
intellectual giant in the Senate and throughout his service to our
nation. The breadth of his interests--and his knowledge--is
extraordinary. From questions about the architecture and urban
development of Washington, D.C. to the problems created by single
parent families to the workings of the International Labor
Organization, Senator Moynihan has thought deeply and designed policy
answers. I don't think there's a Senator who hasn't learned something
from Senator Moynihan's vast stock of personal experience,
understanding of history, and ability to draw parallels between
seemingly unrelated topics to enlighten our understanding of both.
I have had the particular pleasure of serving with Senator Moynihan
on the Finance Committee for eight years. As Chairman and as ranking
member of the Finance Committee, Senator Moynihan has been a true
leader. Starting in 1993, when I took Senator Bentsen's seat on the
Committee and Senator Moynihan claimed his chairmanship, Chairman
Moynihan successfully guided the 1993 economic plan through the
committee and the Senate. That budget, which I was proud to help shape
and support, laid the foundation for our current record economic
expansion. That same year, we worked together to expose the
shortcomings of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
After Republicans took control of the Senate in the 1994 election,
Senator Moynihan was a fierce critic of their excessive budget
proposals. We joined in opposing shortsighted proposals to have
Medicare ``wither on the vine,'' turn Medicaid into a block grant, and
destroy welfare rather than reforming it. Senator Moynihan was, as
always, an especially passionate defender of teaching hospitals,
warning that the plan to slash spending for Medicare's graduate medical
education would threaten medical research in this country--a fear that
has proved well-founded as teaching hospitals have struggled to survive
the much smaller changes enacted as part of the compromise Balanced
Budget Act that emerged in 1997.
The Finance Committee--and the Senate--will not be the same without
him. Who else will be able to gently tutor witnesses on the importance
of the grain trade in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century
to a current debate about health care policy? Who else will call for
the Boskin and Secrecy Commissions of the future? And who else will
educate his colleagues on the inequitable distribution of federal
spending and taxation among the various states?
Mr. President, I will miss Pat Moynihan. But I have no doubt that he
will continue to be part of the debate. As Senator Moynihan retires to
his beloved farm in upstate New York, I join my colleagues in looking
forward to more and more insightful treaties on new and complicated
policy issues.
____________________