[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 6, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E120-E121]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       A TRIBUTE TO ALAN CRANSTON

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BOB FILNER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 6, 2001

  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, today I pay tribute to Alan Cranston, a man 
who walked among us as world leader, candidate for President, Senator, 
public servant, businessman, writer, reporter, public speaker, athlete, 
and artist--a true Renaissance man. He had a passion for civil rights, 
freedom of the press, nuclear disarmament and environmental causes. He 
worked selflessly to try to make the planet a better place for us all.
  I was honored to know Senator Cranston personally and fortunate to 
benefit from his advice when I was first elected to Congress.
  We celebrate today his noteworthy efforts on the international level 
for world peace, especially helping to end the Vietnam War and to 
improve our relations with the Soviet Union. He was a leader in Senate 
consideration of the SALT I and SALT II treaties, Middle East peace, 
and reduced military spending. In 1996, he entered private-sector work 
on nuclear disarmament, as Chairman of the Gorbachev/USA Foundation and 
later founding the Global Security Institute, both San Francisco-based 
think tanks.
  Senator Cranston authored bills to create three major national parks 
and to expand two others, seven park wilderness areas and 51 forest 
areas. He was the original author of the California Desert Protection 
Act, finally enacted in 1993.
  He was the second-longest serving U.S. Senator from California--and 
was Democratic whip seven times and Chairman of the Veterans' Affairs 
Committee.
  His work in the Senate included not only the international peace and 
environmental efforts already mentioned, but he was in the forefront in 
the fight for affordable housing, mass transit to combat air pollution 
and traffic congestion, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, choice 
and women's rights, veterans' rights and medical care, education, civil 
rights and civil liberties, immigration reform, and the prevention of 
drug abuse and crime.
  He was a Stanford University graduate, an early San Francisco home 
builder, a foreign correspondent for International News Service (now 
part of the United Press International), and an author of ``The Killing 
of the Peace'' which the New York Times rated one of the 10 best books 
of 1945. This book was written about the Senate's decision in 1919 to 
keep the United States out of the League of Nations, in an effort to 
help the United Nations avoid a similar fate.
  He was also athletically gifted. He was a world-class quarter-miler 
in the mid-1930s and resumed his sprinting at the age of 55. In 1984, 
as one of eight Democrats running for President, he could be found 
sprinting barefoot through the hotel hallways.
  He credited his participation in track with teaching him the need to 
focus. He said he could have been in the Olympic Games in 1936 and was 
good enough but didn't quite make it because he did not concentrate 
enough. That taught him a lesson that stayed with him throughout his 
life: success requires discipline and focus.
  His artistic bent was evident by the three of his oils that hung in 
his Senate office.

[[Page E121]]

  When praising someone of such wide and varied interests and talents, 
the tributes often end up listing accomplishment after accomplishment. 
And, as impressive as that may be, such tributes often miss the soul of 
the man. The life of Alan Cranston presents us with these goals. To put 
the good of country and of the people of our nation first. To work 
tirelessly for the causes we believe are important. To understand that, 
working together, we really can change the world! We will miss him 
deeply, but we pledge to remember his dedication and to carry on his 
work.

                          ____________________