[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 23 (Monday, February 26, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1578-S1581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTES TO ALAN CRANSTON

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues 
in mourning the death of our former colleague from California, Senator 
Alan Cranston. The nation lost a truly remarkable man last December.
  Senator Alan Cranston had a long and effective career of public 
service spanning six decades, including 24 years as a United States 
Senator. He first entered public service in 1942 as Chief of the 
Foreign Language Division of the Office of War Information in the 
Executive Offices of the President. This began his very productive life 
of public service.
  I served side-by-side with Senator Cranston for six years. In those 
six years alone he had his hand in many fundamental pieces of 
legislation. For example he produced the Cranston-Gonzales National 
Affordable Housing Act of 1990, the first major piece of housing 
legislation in a decade. He was also the original author of the 
California Desert Protection Act, which was enacted in 1993. Throughout 
his long career, Senator Cranston was a true advocate for the 
environment, civil rights, and world peace.
  Whether one agreed or disagreed with Alan Cranston's views, we here 
in the Senate will always remember him for his integrity and 
dedication. Alan Cranston fought tirelessly for his beliefs, no matter 
what the consequence. Yet he was also kind, energetic, and thoughtful.
  Put simply, I admired and respected Senator Alan Cranston. I would 
now like to take this opportunity to extend my thoughts and prayers to 
his sister Eleanor Cranston, his son Kim, his daughter-in-law Collette 
Penne Cranston, his granddaughter Evan Cranston, and to his remaining 
friends, family and staff. We will all miss him.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, when I heard that my friend, Alan 
Cranston,

[[Page S1579]]

passed away this New Year's Eve, I couldn't quite believe it. I 
remember Alan as a man in a constant state of motion, always pressing 
on for the causes he cared for, plotting the next steps, pondering how 
he could do more. It is hard to reconcile the finality of death with 
the endless, focused energy that defined his life.
  Alan's record of service spans the better part of the twentieth 
century. He was a journalist who covered World War II, an author who 
warned Americans about the threat of Hitler, a leader of an 
organization that opposed discrimination against immigrants, long 
before that was fashionable.
  He revived the California Democratic party in the 1950's, was the 
California state controller in the 1960's, and served his first term in 
the United States Senate in the 1970's. He was a Senator for 24 years, 
including seven consecutive terms as Democratic whip, and he even made 
a run for the Presidency in 1984. And since his retirement from the 
Senate in 1993, Alan had dedicated himself to the cause he cared about 
most; eliminating nuclear weapons.
  If you didn't know Alan, his impressive list of accomplishments might 
lead you to think that he must have been a man of great showmanship and 
obvious charisma. But that wasn't Alan.
  Alan believed in the philosophy of Lao-tzu: ``A leader is best when 
people barely know that he exists. But of a good leader, when his work 
is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say, `We did this ourselves.' 
'' Accordingly, Alan did a lot of his work behind the scenes. He had 
neither the time nor the patience for back-slapping and schmoozing: he 
liked to cut to the chase, let you know what was what, and move on to 
the next thing.
  Alan was never loud or arrogant or flashy. He didn't have to be. His 
authority came from a force deeper than personality. It came from his 
conscience.
  The anti-war activist, Father Daniel Berrigan, once talked about the 
danger of ``verbalizing . . . moral impulses out of existence.'' That 
was never within the realm of possibility for Alan. Whether he was 
standing up for veterans, working to save millions of acres of desert 
and wilderness, or speaking out for nuclear disarmament, Alan 
steadfastly followed his conscience, even when it led him to the 
uncharted paths or difficult places where no one else would go.
  I don't know whether it was the result of this active conscience or 
his fierce intellect or some combination of the two, but Alan had this 
extraordinary prescience, this ability to predict with startling 
accuracy what the future would bring. He understood the threat of Adolf 
Hitler long before many others, and he worked to warn us before it was 
too late. He fought discrimination against immigrants, long before most 
of us realized that was the right thing to do. He spoke out about 
nuclear weapons long before the disarmament movement took root in the 
popular imagination.
  And he believed in the notion of uniform world law decades before the 
rise of the global age. In fact, many decades ago, he was the leader of 
the World Federalist Association, a group dedicated to the idea of 
establishing a uniform world law. Back then, the WFA must have seemed 
like a somewhat eccentric organization, oddly out of synch with the 
times.
  But it was vintage Alan, just another manifestation of his profound 
idealism. Alan really believed that people of all different 
nationalities and races and ethnicities could rise to meet the standard 
of a just rule of law.
  Alan once said of nuclear deterrence: ``This may have been necessary 
during the cold war; it is not necessary forever. It is not acceptable 
forever. I say it is unworthy of our nation, unworthy of any nation; it 
is unworthy of civilization.''
  Alan had the highest hopes for our world. We owe it to him to try to 
live up to them and to carry out his legacy of peace in the new 
millennium he did not live to see.
  In conclusion, I ask that a recent article from Roll Call on Alan 
Cranston by Daniel Perry appear in the Record at the end of my remarks.
  Dan Perry, a former staffer for Alan Cranston, is a leader in his own 
right. For years he has been on the forefront of aging and health 
policy as head of the Alliance for Aging Research. His remarks reflect 
his deep admiration for Senator Cranston and his commitment to the 
Senator's lofty ideals.
  The article is as follows:

                     [From Roll Call, Jan. 4, 2001]

   Cranston Legacy Serves as Model for Members of the 107th Congress

                           (By Daniel Perry)

       The sharply divided 107th Congress would do well to ponder 
     the quiet but enduringly effective political skills of the 
     late Sen. Alan Cranston (D) of California. His 24-year Senate 
     career, during tumultuous and partisan times, showed that 
     strong beliefs make good politics, but success begins with 
     respecting the motives and sincerity of others, including 
     your opponents.
       Cranston's sudden death, just hours before the first day of 
     2001, ended a life devoted to issues about which he was 
     passionate: International peace and arms control, human 
     rights and protection of the environment. For this 
     Californian the quest for high public office--even the United 
     States Senate--was never a simple pursuit of power nor an end 
     in itself.
       Politics and policy were the means by which he could help 
     make the human passage on earth fairer, safer and more 
     serene. His commitment to halting future use of nuclear 
     weapons began when he was introduced to Albert Einstein in 
     1946. He was still working tirelessly toward that goal when 
     he died, at age 86, eight years after he left the Senate.
       In the shorthand of the obituary writer, Cranston is 
     remembered for winning four Senate elections, serving seven 
     consecutive terms as Democratic Whip, for having run for 
     president as the champion of a nuclear freeze and for being 
     tarred by the so-called Keating Five scandal. While all true, 
     that doesn't begin to describe a political career of amazing 
     productivity and accomplishment, showing just how much one 
     person quietly can do to shape his or her times.
       By one count, there were 2,500 tallies in the Senate 
     between 1969 and 1989 that were decided by fewer than five 
     votes, and often by a single vote. Cranston was often a 
     crucial player, not only for his vote alone but as a behind-
     the-scene strategist, head counter, marshaler of forces and 
     shrewd compromiser who always lived to fight another day.
       He was frequently one-half of various Senate odd-couple 
     pairings, meshing his principles with pragmatism. He teamed 
     with conservative Senators such as Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) to 
     improve veterans programs, Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.) on public 
     housing measures and the legendary Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) 
     to protect press freedoms guaranteed under the First 
     Amendment.
       Cranston was liberal and an idealist to the core, but never 
     an ideologue or blindly partisan. That balance enabled him to 
     become one of the most durable and successful California 
     politicians of the 20th century. He was elected six times to 
     statewide office from California.
       Representing the West Coast megastate in the Senate meant 
     skillfully balancing myriad insistent and often conflicting 
     home-state interests. Even as California changed politically 
     and demographically, Cranston managed to steer a delicate 
     course between the state's giant agribusiness interests and 
     those of consumers, family farmers and farm workers; he 
     weighed the claims of home builders and growing communities 
     against the need to preserve open spaces and wildlife 
     habitats.
       Amazingly, he helped end the Vietnam War and was a major 
     figure in the nation's arms control and peace movements, even 
     as he effectively represented the epicenter of the nation's 
     defense and aerospace industries.
       It is a measure of the man that he was able to separate the 
     warriors of Vietnam from the war itself. From 1969 to 1992 
     all legislation concerning America's veterans bore his stamp, 
     especially measures improving health care and mental health 
     services for those who fought in the nation's most unpopular 
     war.
       Teaming up with the late Rep. Phillip Burton (D) of San 
     Francisco on environmental issues, the two Californians 
     managed to place under federal protection as much acreage as 
     all the national park lands created earlier in the 20th 
     century combined.
       Today there is a catalog of thousands of bills and 
     amendments he personally authored affecting virtually every 
     aspect of national life: civil rights, adoption and foster 
     care reform, wild rivers, research to improve aging and 
     longevity, workplace safety, emergency medical services and 
     much more.
       He lived by the maxim that a leader can accomplish great 
     things if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.
       The Cranston style has not been much in evidence in 
     Washington during recent years. However, Members in the 107th 
     Congress--where many a cause will be determined by one or 
     very few votes--would do well to consider the lessons of his 
     enabling career. If they study the Cranston legacy and seek 
     to emulate it, the nation and the world will be better for 
     it.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, Kim, Colette, Evan, R.E.--let me begin by 
saying I loved Alan too. I will never forget the 24 years of friendship 
and leadership and achievement with which he graced the Senate and the 
nation. So it's a special privilege and honor for

[[Page S1580]]

me to be part of this tribute today. Alan is profoundly missed by his 
family and friends, his colleagues in the Congress, and by all those 
around the world who pursue the great goals of hope and progress and 
peace.
  I must say, I grew up thinking Cranston was a city in Rhode Island. 
But Alan taught each of us that Cranston stands for something else as 
well, the very best in public service.
  Alan loved to lead behind the scenes, for 14 of those 24 Senate years 
with us, he was our Democratic whip, and he wrote the book about the 
job. In those great years, we used to tease Alan about the position, 
because so few people outside Congress knew what it involved. Since 
Alan was from California, a lot of people thought the Minority Whip was 
the name of a Leather Bar in Malibu.
  But seriously, Alan was a giant of his day on many issues, and his 
concern for social justice made him a leader on them all. We served 
together for many years on the Labor Committee and especially the 
Health Subcommittee, and his insights were indispensable. I always felt 
that if we'd had another Alan Cranston or two in those years, we'd have 
actually passed our Health Security Act, and made health care the basic 
right for all that it ought to be, instead of just an expensive 
privilege for the few.
  Perhaps the greatest legacy that Alan left us was his able and 
tireless work for democracy and world peace. Every village in the world 
is closer to that goal today because of Alan. No one in the Senate 
fought harder or more effectively for our nuclear weapons freeze in the 
1980's, or for nuclear arms control. His hope for a nuclear-free future 
still represents the highest aspiration of millions, even billions, 
throughout the world.
  I also recall Alan's pioneering efforts to press for Senate action to 
end the war in Vietnam, and his equally able leadership for civil 
rights at home and human rights around the world. We know how deeply he 
felt about injustice to anyone anywhere. His leadership in the battle 
against apartheid in South Africa was indispensable.
  Throughout his brilliant career, the causes of civil rights and human 
rights were central to Alan's being and his mission--and America and 
the world are better off today because Alan Cranston passed this way.
  A key part of all his achievements was his unique ability to 
translate his ideals into practical legislation. Few if any Senators 
have been as skilled as Alan in the art of constructive legislative 
compromise that fairly leads to progress for the Nation.
  He was a vigorous supporter of the Peace Corps, a strong overseer of 
its performance, and a brilliant advocate for all the Peace Corps 
Volunteers. He was a champion for health coverage of returning 
Volunteers, and one of the first to understand that good health 
coverage had to include mental health services too.
  In many ways, his first love was the Peace Corps, and I know that 
President Kennedy would have been very proud of him. Even before he 
came to the Senate, he had his first contact with the Corps, as a 
consultant for Sargent Shriver. As Alan often said, he became involved 
because he was so inspired by my brother's vision of a world where 
Americans of all ages could work side-by-side with peoples throughout 
the world to put an end to poverty.
  Because of Alan, the Peace Corps today is thriving as never before--
free of the partisan tensions that divide us on other issues, spreading 
international understanding of Alan's and America's best ideals, 
educating new generations of young Americans about our common heritage 
as travelers on spaceship earth, teaching us about the beauty, the 
richness, and the diversity of other peoples, other languages, and 
other cultures and about the enduring importance of the greatest 
pursuit of all, the pursuit of peace.
  Near the end of John Bunyan's ``Pilgrim's Progress,'' there is a 
passage that tells of the death of Valiant:

       Then, he said, I am going to my Father's. And though with 
     great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not regret me 
     of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My 
     sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, 
     and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and 
     scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me, that I have 
     fought his battle who now will be my rewarder.
       When the day that he must go hence was come, many 
     accompanied him to the riverside, into which as he went, he 
     said, `Death, where is thy sting?' and as he went down 
     deeper, he said, `Grave, where is thy victory?' So he passed 
     over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

  We loved you, Alan. We miss you. And we always will.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, it is a special privilege to join all of 
you today to honor the life and extraordinary accomplishments of Alan 
Cranston.
  As we all know, Alan was a sprinter and--always with an incredible 
mischievous twinkle in his eye he sprinted through life. I think one of 
the most enduring images of him is of Alan on the eve of the Iowa 
caucuses in 1984 at the Holiday Inn in Keokuk, Iowa, sprinting 
barefooted down the 40-meter hallway, walking back and repeating the 
exercise for about 40 minutes. It was no coincidence that Alan's 
favorite hotel in the country, Chicago's O'Hare Hilton, boasts 250-
meter hallways.
  Three weeks ago in California we shared a goodbye to our friend, this 
sprinter, at a memorial service--calling to mind the many ways he 
enriched public lives and personal relationships.
  There in the Grace Cathedral, we heard Colette Cranston say that in 
death Alan Cranston ``has become my Jiminy Cricket--that little voice 
in her conscience that says, `Colette, think before you leap.' '' It 
would not be an exaggeration to say that warning was characteristic of 
Alan when he served here in the United States Senate. He wanted us to 
look, and he wanted us to leap. He implored us to put a human face on 
public policy--to think not in statistics and numbers and programs 
alone, but in terms of people: and the people he spoke of most often 
were senior citizens, children, those without decent housing, 
immigrants, and those in need of a helping hand regardless of race or 
religion. He was a moral voice, a voice of conscience, someone who 
understood that even as he remained vigilant defending the needs of the 
homefront in California, he was also a global citizen who knew this 
institution had global responsibilities.
  Through four terms as a United States Senator, he remained a man of 
enormous humility on his answering machine he was simply ``Alan''--as 
he was to so many who knew him. This personal sense of place and 
restraint made it easy to underestimate the contributions he made to 
the Senate, and to our country. Certainly he never paused long enough 
to personally remind us of the impact of his service, of the history he 
was a part of and the lives he touched.
  I first met Alan in 1971 when I had returned from Vietnam and many of 
our veterans were part of an effort to end a failed American policy in 
Vietnam. In Alan Cranston we found one of the few Senators willing not 
just to join in the public opposition to the war in Vietnam, but to 
become a voice of healing for the veterans of the war a statesman whose 
leadership enabled others, over time, to separate their feelings for 
the war from their feelings for the veterans of the war. At a time when 
too many wanted to disown its veterans, Alan offered Vietnam veterans a 
warm embrace. He was eager to do something all too rare in Washington: 
listen--and he listened to veterans who had much to say, much of it 
ignored for too long. He honored their pride and their pain with 
sensitivity and understanding.
  That's when I first saw the great energy and commitment Alan brought 
to the issues affecting veterans, especially those of the Vietnam era. 
He was deeply involved on veterans' health care issues, among the first 
to fight for recognition of post-Vietnam stress syndrome, and a leader 
in insisting on coverage under the V.A. for its treatment. When the 
Agent Orange issue came to the fore, Alan insisted on getting answers 
from an unresponsive government about the consequences of exposure to 
dioxin, making sure that veterans and their families got the health 
care they needed. Under his leadership Congress grudgingly increased GI 
Bill benefits for Vietnam veterans--veterans who too often had to fight 
for benefits they should have been guaranteed without question--indeed, 
for veterans who had to fight if only to have a memorial and if only to 
have the government recognize that they fought in a war and not a 
police conflict Alan's leadership made all the difference. It is

[[Page S1581]]

a sad truth in our country's history that a weary Nation seemed eager 
to turn its back on so many Vietnam veterans who simply sought their 
due; it should forever be a source of pride to the Cranston family that 
Alan was chief among those who insisted that America honor that service 
and keep faith with sons who left pieces of themselves and years of 
their lives on the battlefield in that far-away Nation.

  This was a man who fought with the greatest of passion for those who 
had fought in a difficult war--even as he was also the Senator who 
fought against all that war represents--remembering that war, 
brutality, and killing are the ultimate failure of diplomacy.
  Alan Cranston was above all a man of peace. With him it was not just 
a policy but a passion. Remember: This was a man who, in 1934, found 
himself in the same room as Adolf Hitler. Five years later, he wrote a 
critical English translation of Adolf Hitler's ``Mein Kampf'' in an 
effort to reveal the German leader's true plans. He wore Hitler's 
ensuing lawsuit as a badge of honor, proud that he had stood up to try 
and warn the English-speaking world about the evils of Nazism.
  Throughout the rest of his service he used public office to force 
Americans to listen to other prescient warnings--about nuclear arms, 
about a dangerous arms race spiraling beyond our control, and about 
hopes for peace that he refused to give up even as others chose to beat 
the drums for war.
  Senator Cranston came to his famous commitment to arms control after 
meeting with Albert Einstein in 1946. He left that meeting convinced 
that the threat of atomic weapons had to be stemmed--and he spent the 
balance of his life arguing that conviction before the Nation.
  As a member of the Senate leadership and a senior voice on the 
Democratic side of the Foreign Relations Committee he worked to reduce 
the nuclear threat. One of his most important efforts was one of the 
least publicized. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980's, Alan convened a 
unique arms control study group the ``SALT Study Group''. This 
senators-only gathering met monthly in his office, off the record, and 
face to face to define common ground. He knew the impact quiet 
diplomacy could have on the issues he cared about most of all.
  He loved what the Peace Corps does, and he fought for it. He fought 
to attach human rights conditions on aid to El Salvador and to halt 
contra aid. He was a leading national advocate for a mutual verifiable 
nuclear freeze. He was always an idealist whose increase in political 
power was always met by progress for the issues he cared about so 
deeply. It was not just the work of a career, but of a lifetime--after 
he left the Senate he chaired the State of the World Forum and joined 
with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as chairman of the 
Gorbachev Foundation/USA and in 1999, he founded the Global Security 
Institute.
  He did that because he sensed that the end of the Cold War, with all 
the opportunity it afforded, created a more dangerous world, with aging 
nuclear weapons in increasingly disparate and unreliable hands. He was 
haunted by the threat of nuclear terrorism. He was passionate about the 
nuclear test ban treaty and was angry when it went down to a shallow 
and partisan defeat in the Senate. We missed his voice in that debate; 
we miss him still more today.
  When he left the Senate, Alan reflected upon his service and his 
accomplishments. Of his lasting legacy, he said simply: ``Most of all, 
I have dedicated myself to the cause of peace.''
  That dedication was real and lasting--a legacy of peace for a good 
and peaceful man who gave living embodiment to Culbertson's simple, 
stubborn faith that ``God and the politicians willing, the United 
States can declare peace upon the world, and win it.'' That belief was 
Alan Cranston and it is a belief worth fighting for.

                          ____________________