[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3710-S3711]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE WORDS OF ALISTAIR COOKE

  Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I am glad to see an Alaskan in the 
chair as I make this statement. This morning, as it usually happens, 
when I turned on my computer, I found a series of e-mails from friends 
at home. I do not always have time to read them then, but I saw one 
from a very close friend, who has been a friend now for over 50 years--
Frank Reed, a former neighbor, a person who has helped me in many ways 
in my life. He asked me to read this article he attached to his e-mail. 
I get a little disturbed when I see that the testament is a little 
longer than the e-mail. But I found that he had sent me a verbatim 
transcript of an article by Alistair Cooke entitled ``Peace For Our 
Time,'' that was on the BBC News on Monday, February 3 of this year. I 
want to read that tonight because I think it reflects what I have been 
trying to say on the floor of the Senate these past several weeks.
  The following was written and spoken by Alistair Cooke. He said this:

       . . . I promised to lay off topic A--Iraq--until the 
     Security Council makes a judgment on the inspectors' report 
     and I shall keep that promise.
       But I must tell you that throughout the past fortnight I've 
     listened to everybody involved in or looking on to a 
     monotonous din of words, like a tide crashing and receding on 
     a beach--making a great noise and saying the same thing over 
     and over. And this ordeal triggered a nightmare--a day-mare, 
     if you like.
       Through the ceaseless tide I heard a voice, a very English 
     voice of an old man--Prime Minister Chamberlain saying: ``I 
     believe it is peace for our time''--a sentence that prompted 
     a huge cheer, first from a listening street crowd and then 
     from the House of Commons and next day from every newspaper 
     in the land.
       There was a move to urge that Mr. Chamberlain should 
     receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In Parliament there was one 
     unfamiliar old grumbler to growl out: ``I believe we have 
     suffered a total and unmitigated defeat.'' He was, in view of 
     the general sentiment, very properly booed down.
       This scene concluded in the autumn of 1938 with the British 
     prime minister's effectual signing away of most of 
     Czechoslovakia to Hitler. The rest of it, within months, 
     Hitler walked in and conquered. ``Oh dear,'' said Mr. 
     Chamberlain, thunderstruck. ``He has betrayed my trust.''
       During the last fortnight a simple but startling thought 
     occurred to me--every single official, diplomat, president, 
     prime minister involved in the Iraq debate was in 1938 a 
     toddler, most of them unborn. So the dreadful scene I've just 
     drawn will not have been remembered by most listeners.
       Hitler had started betraying our trust not 12 years but 
     only two years before, when he broke the First World War 
     peace treaty by occupying the demilitarized zone of the 
     Rhineland. Only half his troops carried one reload of 
     ammunition because Hitler knew that French morale was too low 
     to confront any war just then and 10 million of 11 million 
     British voters had signed a so-called peace ballot.
       It stated no conditions, elaborated no terms, it simply 
     counted the numbers of Britons who were ``for peace.''
       The slogan of this movement was ``Against war and 
     fascism''--chanted at the time by every Labour man and 
     Liberal and many moderate Conservatives--a slogan that now 
     sounds as imbecilic as ``against hospitals and disease.'' In 
     blunter words a majority of Britons would do anything, 
     absolutely anything, to get rid of Hitler except fight him.
       At that time the word pre-emptive had not been invented, 
     though today it's a catchword. After all the Rhineland was 
     what it said it was--part of Germany. So to march in and 
     throw Hitler out would have been pre-emptive--wouldn't it?
       Nobody did anything and Hitler looked forward with 
     confidence to gobbling up the rest of Western Europe country 
     by country--``course by course'', as growler Churchill put 
     it.
       I bring up Munich and the mid-30s because I was fully 
     grown, on the verge of 30, and knew we were indeed living in 
     the age of anxiety. And so many of the arguments mounted 
     against each other today, in the last fortnight, are exactly 
     what we heard in the House of Commons debates and read in the 
     French press.
       The French especially urged, after every Hitler invasion, 
     ``negotiation, negotiation''. They negotiated so successfully 
     as to have their whole country defeated and occupied. But as 
     one famous French leftist said:
       ``We did anyway manage to make them declare Paris an open 
     city--no bombs on us!''
       In Britain the general response to every Hitler advance was 
     disarmament and collective security. Collective security 
     meant to leave every crisis to the League of Nations. it 
     would put down aggressors, even though, like the United 
     Nations, it had no army, navy or air force.
       The League of Nations had its chance to prove itself when 
     Mussolini invaded and conquered Ethiopia (Abyssinia). The 
     League didn't have any shot to fire. But still the cry was 
     chanted in the House of Commons--the League and collective 
     security is the only true guarantee of peace.
       But after the Rhineland the maverick Churchill decided 
     there was no collectivity in collective security and started 
     a highly unpopular campaign for rearmament by Britain, 
     warning against the general belief that Hitler had already 
     built an enormous mechanized army and superior air force.
       But he's not used them, he's not used them--people 
     protested.
       Still for two years before the outbreak of the Second War 
     you could read the debates in the House of Commons and now 
     shiver at the famous Labour men--Major Attlee was one of 
     them--who voted against rearmament and still went on pointing 
     to the League of Nations as the savior.
       Now, this memory of mine may be totally irrelevant to the 
     present crisis. It haunts me. I have to say I have written 
     elsewhere with much conviction that most historical analogies 
     are false because, however strikingly similar a new situation 
     may be to an old one, there's usually one element that is 
     different and it turns out to be the crucial one. It may well 
     be so here.
       All I know is that all the voices of the 30s are echoing 
     through 2003 . . .

  Madam President, I was but 14, not 30. I remember the tension we all 
felt at that time, as country after country became destroyed by Hitler. 
Previously on the floor of the Senate, I mentioned Hitler and compared 
Saddam Hussein to Hitler. I was criticized even by the papers at home 
in Alaska.
  I was delighted to read Alistair Cooke's article that Frank Reed sent 
to me this morning, and I commend it to the rest of the Senate.
  This haunts me. It haunts those of us who lived through the thirties 
to know

[[Page S3711]]

we might go through the thirties again because too many people refuse 
to listen to the truth, refuse to listen to what some of us see in 
Saddam Hussein, as being another Hitler.
  (The remarks of Mr. Stevens pertaining to the introduction of S. 628 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. STEVENS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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