[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 50 (Thursday, March 27, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4465-S4470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
Mr. LAUTENBERG. At the same time, I wish to pay tribute to a dear
friend who passed away yesterday, Senator forever, Pat Moynihan.
I came to the Senate 6 years after he arrived here, and we served
together for 18 years. We left together at the same time in 2001.
I personally will miss him and think fondly of the moments we shared
together, but, at the same time, say thank goodness--thank goodness--
that this place and this country had Senator Pat Moynihan.
He was a great man, with a brilliant mind, an incredible wealth of
knowledge. He will have left a mark forever on our Government and on
our society, even at a time when our culture has exhibited an ephemeral
quality.
We can think of the moments we shared with him, all of us who had the
good fortune to serve with him. Because New York and New Jersey are
neighboring States and have many similar concerns, he and I worked
closely on many issues. We served together on the Environment and
Public Works Committee.
He will be rightfully remembered as one of the giants who have served
in this Senate. He will be able to be compared to the greats at the
founding of this country because his half century of contributions to
this body and to New York and to the region and to the Nation and to
the world are immeasurable.
He, like many who are serving now and have served, was born in modest
circumstances and was raised in an area on the west side of New York
called Hell's Kitchen, a rough and tumble area. He joined the Navy. He
served in World War II. And then he went on to earn degrees at the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
In the early 1950s, Pat Moynihan worked for the International Rescue
Committee, one of the earliest and most effective human rights
organizations. Then he joined the administration of New York Governor
Averill Harriman, where he met his beloved wife and someone we all
love, Liz.
Pat and Liz came to Washington with the Kennedy administration, and
Pat went on to serve in the cabinet or subcabinet of the next three
Presidents, two of whom were Republicans. He served as U.S. Ambassador
to India and as U.S. Representative to the United Nations.
All the while, he had a busy and prolific career in academia, with
teaching positions at Syracuse and Harvard and other universities. It
is often said that Pat Moynihan has written more books than most people
have read. And those books were on subjects as diverse as ethnicity,
welfare policy, secrecy as form of regulation, and international law.
His books and essays and op-eds were always erudite and displayed a wit
and wisdom and grace few people have. His books were so well received,
whenever they were produced.
I doubt anyone else ever entered the United States Senate with a
greater breadth of experience or knowledge. Pat Moynihan was made for
the Senate, and the Senate was made for men like Pat Moynihan.
Pat was not only a great intellectual; he was a man of principles,
deeply held and eloquently expressed. And yet he had that remarkable
ability of being able to disagree without being disagreeable. There
isn't a single Member of the Senate who served with him who didn't also
love and revere him.
We are poorer for Pat's passing, but rather than dwell on that, I
would like to express my gratitude that someone with such inestimable
talents and energies devoted them to public service. We are definitely
richer for that.
We send our sympathy to Liz Moynihan, and to the children, Timothy
and Maura and John, and to the grandchildren, Michael Patrick and Zora.
We live in tumultuous and dangerous times. No one understood that
better than Pat Moynihan, and we would benefit from his counsel. I will
include for the Record a commencement address that Pat delivered at
Harvard University about world events and foreign policy, and I commend
it to my colleagues.
On a more personal note, my legislative director, Gray Maxwell, was
Pat's legislative director from 1995 to 2000. When Pat retired, Gray
wrote a tribute that was printed in Long Island Newsday. I will also
ask that the tribute be printed in the Record.
In closing, I note that one of Pat's great abiding passions was
public works--not just in New York but here in Washington. He authored
much of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, ISTEA, he
fought for Amtrak and mass transit, he wrote the guiding principles for
federal architecture, he shepherded the Union Station redevelopment and
the Thurgood Marshall and Ronald Reagan buildings to completion, and he
almost single-handedly transformed Pennsylvania Avenue. I think what
was written in St. Paul's Cathedral in London for Sir Christopher Wren
would serve as an equally fitting tribute to Pat Moynihan: Si
monumentum requiris circumspice [If you would see the man's monument,
look about you.].
I ask unanimous consent that his commencement address delivered at
Harvard University on June 6, 2002, to which I referred, and an article
written by a person on my staff, Gray Maxwell, who was on the Moynihan
staff before that, that demonstrates beautifully the character and
capability Pat Moynihan brought to his job and to all of us, be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Commencement Address, June 6th, 2002, by Daniel Patrick Moynihan
A while back it came as something of a start to find in The
New Yorker a reference to an article I had written, and I
quote, ``In the middle of the last century.'' Yet persons my
age have been thinking back to those times and how, in the
and, things turned out so well and so badly. Millions of us
returned from the assorted services to find the economic
growth that had come with the Second World War had not ended
with the peace. The Depression had not resumed. It is not
perhaps remembered, but it was widely thought it would.
It would be difficult indeed to summon up the optimism that
came with this great surprise. My beloved colleague Nathan
Glazer and the revered David Riesman wrote that America was
``the land of the second chance'' and so indeed it seemed. We
had surmounted the depression; the war. We could
realistically think of a world of stability, peace--above
all, a world of law.
Looking back, it is clear we were not nearly so fortunate.
Great leaders preserved--and in measure extended--democracy.
But totalitarianism had not been defeated. To the contrary,
by 1948 totalitarians controlled most of Eurasia. As we now
learn, 11 days after Nagasaki the Soviets established a
special committee to create an equivalent weapon. The first
atomic bomb was acquired through espionage, but their
hydrogen bomb was their own doing. Now the Cold War was on.
From the summer of 1914, the world had been at war, with
interludes no more. It finally seemed to end with the
collapse of the Soviet Union and the changes in China. But
now . . .
But now we have to ask if it is once again the summer of
1914.
Small acts of terror in the Middle East, in South Asia,
could lead to cataclysm, as they
[[Page S4466]]
did in Sarajevo. And for which great powers, mindful or not,
have been preparing.
The eras are overlapping.
As the United States reacts to the mass murder of 9/11 and
prepares for more, it would do well to consider how much
terror India endured in the second half of the last century.
And its response. It happens I was our man in New Delhi in
1974 when India detonated its first nuclear device. I was
sent in to see Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with a statement
as much as anything of regret. For there was nothing to be
done; it was going to happen. The second most populous nation
on earth was not going to leave itself disarmed and
disregarded, as non-nuclear powers appeared to be. But
leaving, I asked to speak as a friend of India and not as an
official. In twenty years time, I opined, there would be a
Moghul general in command in Islamabad, and he would have
nuclear weapons and would demand Kashmir back, perhaps the
Punjab.
The Prime Minister said nothing, I dare to think she half
agreed. In time, she would be murdered in her own garden;
next, her son and successor was murdered by a suicide bomber.
This, while nuclear weapons accumulated which are now poised.
Standing at Trinity Site at Los Alamos, J. Robert
Oppenheimer pondered an ancient Sanskrit text in which Lord
Shiva declares, ``I am become Death, the shatterer of
worlds.'' Was he right?
At the very least we can come to terms with the limits or
our capacity to foresee events.
It happens I had been a Senate observer to the START
negotiations in Geneva, and was on the Foreign Relations
Committee when the treaty, having been signed, was sent to us
for ratification. In a moment of mischief I remarked to our
superb negotiators that we had sent them to Geneva to
negotiate a treaty with the Soviet Union, but the document
before us was a treaty with four countries, only two of which
I could confidently locate on a map. I was told they had
exchanged letters in Lisbon [the Lisbon Protocol, May 23,
1992]. I said that sounded like a Humphrey Bogart movie.
The hard fact is that American intelligence had not the
least anticipated the implosion of the Soviet Union. I cite
Stansfield Turner, former director of the CIA in Foreign
Affairs, 1991. ``We should not gloss over the enormity of
this failure to forecast the magnitude of the Soviet crisis.
. . . The corporate view missed by a mile.''
Russia now faces a near-permanent crisis. By mid-century
its population could well decline to as few as 80 million
persons. Immigrants will press in; one dares not think what
will have happened to the nuclear materials scattered across
11 time zones.
Admiral Turner's 1991 article was entitled ``Intelligence
for a New World Order.'' Two years later Samuel Huntington
outlined what that new world order--or disorder--would be in
an article in the same journal entitled ``The Clash of
Civilizations.'' His subsequent book of that title is a
defining text of our time.
Huntington perceives a world of seven or eight major
conflicting cultures, the West, Russia, China, India, and
Islam. Add Japan, South America, Africa. Most incorporate a
major nation-state which typically leads its fellows.
The Cold War on balance suppressed conflict. But the end of
the Cold War has brought not universal peace but widespread
violence. Some of this has been merely residual proxy
conflicts dating back to the earlier era. Some plain ethnic
conflict. But the new horrors occur on the fault lines, as
Huntington has it, between the different cultures.
For argument's sake one could propose that Marxism was the
last nearly successful effort to Westernize the rest of the
world. In 1975, I stood in Tiananmen Square, the center of
the Middle Kingdom. In an otherwise empty space, there were
two towering masts. At the top of one were giant portraits of
two hirsute 19th century German gentlemen, Messrs. Marx and
Engels. The other displayed a somewhat Mongol-looking Stalin
and Mao. That wasn't going to last, and of course, it didn't.
Hence Huntington: ``The central problem in the relations
between the West and the rest is . . . the discordance
between the West's--particularly America's--efforts to
promote universal Western culture and its declining ability
to do so.''
Again there seems to be no end of ethnic conflict within
civilizations. But it is to the clash of civilizations we
must look with a measure of dread. The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists recently noted that ``The crisis between India and
Pakistan, touched off by a December 13th terrorist attack on
the Indian Parliament marks the closest two states have come
to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.'' By 1991, the
minute-hand on their doomsday clock had dropped back to 17
minutes to midnight. It has since been moved forward three
times and is again seven minutes to midnight, just where it
started in 1947.
The terrorist attacks on the United States of last
September 11 were not nuclear, but they will be. Again to
cite Huntington, ``At some point . . . a few terrorists will
be able to produce massive violence and massive destruction.
Separately, terrorism and nuclear weapons are the weapons of
the non-Western weak. If and when they are combined, the non-
Western weak will be strong.''
This was written in 1996. The first mass murder by
terrorists came last September. Just last month the vice
president informed Tim Russert that ``the prospects of a
future attack . . . are almost certain. Not a matter of if,
but when.'' Secretary Rumsfeld has added that the attack will
be nuclear.
We are indeed at war and we must act accordingly, with
equal measures of audacity and precaution.
As regards precaution, note how readily the clash of
civilizations could spread to our own homeland. The Bureau of
the Census lists some 68 separate ancestries in the American
population. (Military gravestones provide for emblems of 36
religions.) All the major civilizations. Not since 1910 have
we had so high a proportion of immigrants. As of 2000, one in
five school-age children have at least one foreign-born
parent.
This, as ever, has had bounteous rewards. The problem comes
when immigrants and their descendants bring with them--and
even intensify--the clashes they left behind. Nothing new,
but newly ominous. Last month in Washington an enormous march
filled Pennsylvania Avenue on the way to the Capitol grounds.
The marchers, in the main, were there to support the
Palestinian cause. Fair enough. But every five feet or so
there would be a sign proclaiming ``Zionism equals Racism''
or a placard with a swastika alongside a Star of David. Which
is anything but fair, which is poisonous and has no place in
our discourse.
This hateful equation first appeared in a two-part series
in Pravda in Moscow in 1971. Part of Cold War ``agit prop.''
It has since spread into a murderous attack on the right of
the State of Israel to exist--the right of Jews to exist!--a
world in which a hateful Soviet lie has mutated into a new
and vicious anti-Semitism. Again, that is the world we live
in, but it is all the more chilling when it fills
Pennsylvania Avenue.
It is a testament to our First Amendment freedoms that we
permit such displays, however obnoxious to our fundamental
ideals. But in the wake of 9/11, we confront the fear that
such heinous speech can be a precursor to violence, not least
here at home, that threatens our existence.
To be sure, we must do what is necessary to meet the
threat. We need to better understand what the dangers are. We
need to explore how better to organize the agencies of
government to detect and prevent calamitous action.
But at the same time, we need take care that whatever we do
is consistent with our basic constitutional design. What we
do must be commensurate with the threat in ways that do not
needlessly undermine the very liberties we seek to protect.
The concern is suspicion and fear within. Does the Park
Service really need to photograph every visitor to the
Lincoln Memorial?
They don't, but they will. It is already done at the Statue
of Liberty. In Washington, agencies compete in techniques of
intrusion and exclusion. Identity cards and X-ray machines
and all the clutter, plus a new life for secrecy. Some
necessary; some discouraging. Mary Graham warns of the
stultifying effects of secrecy on inquiry. Secrecy, as George
Will writes, ``renders societies susceptible to epidemics of
suspicion.''
We are witnessing such an outbreak in Washington just now.
Great clamor as to what the different agencies knew in
advance of the 9/11 attack; when the President was briefed;
what was he told. These are legitimate questions, but there
is a prior issue, which is the disposition of closed systems
not to share information. By the late 1940s the Army Signal
Corps had decoded enough KGB traffic to have a firm grip on
the Soviet espionage in the United States and their American
agents. No one needed to know about this more than the
President of the United States. But Truman was not told. By
order, mind, of Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. Now as then there is police work to be done. But so
many forms of secrecy are self-defeating. In 1988, the CIA
formally estimated the Gross Domestic Product of East Germany
to be higher than West Germany. We should calculate such
risks.
The ``what-ifs'' are intriguing. What if the United States
had recognized Soviet weakness earlier and, accordingly, kept
its own budget in order, so that upon the breakup of the
Soviet Union a momentous economic aid program could have been
commenced? What if we had better calculated the forces of the
future so that we could have avoided going directly from the
``end'' of the cold War to a new Balkan war--a classic clash
of civilizations--leaving little attention and far fewer
resources for the shattered Soviet empire?
Because we have that second chance Riesman and Glazer wrote
about. A chance to define our principles and stay true to
them. The more then, to keep our system open as much as
possible, with our purposes plain and accessible, so long as
we continue to understand what the 20th century has surely
taught, which is that open societies have enemies, too.
Indeed, they are the greatest threat to closed societies,
and, accordingly, the first object of their enmity.
We are committed, as the Constitution states, to ``the Law
of Nations,'' but that law as properly understood. Many have
come to think that international law prohibits the use of
force. To the contrary, like domestic law, it legitimates the
use of force to uphold law in a manner that is itself
proportional and lawful.
Democracy may not prove to be a universal norm. But decency
would do. Our present conflict, as the President says over
and again, is not with Islam, but with a malignant growth
within Islam defying the
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teaching of the Q'uran that the struggle to the path of God
forbids the deliberate killing of noncombatants. Just how and
when Islam will rid itself of current heresies is something
no one can say. But not soon. Christianity has been
through such heresy--and more than once. Other clashes
will follow.
Certainly we must not let ourselves be seen as rushing
about the world looking for arguments. There are now American
armed forces in some 40 countries overseas. Some would say
too many. Nor should we let ourselves be seen as ignoring
allies disillusioning friends, thinking only of ourselves
inthe most narrow terms. That is not how we survived the 20th
century.
Nor will it serve in the 21st.
Last February, some 60 academics of the widest range of
political persuasion and religious belief, a number from here
at Harvard, including Huntington, published a manifesto:
``What We're Fighting For: A Letter from America.''
It has attracted some attention here; perhaps more abroad,
which was our purpose. Our references are wide, Socrates, St.
Augustine, Franciscus de Victoria, John Paul II, Martin
Luther King, Jr., Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
We affirmed ``five fundamental truths that pertain to all
people without distinction,'' beginning ``all human beings
are born free and equal in dignity and rights.''
We allow for our own shortcomings as a nation, sins,
arrogance, failings. But we assert we are no less bound by
moral obligation. And, finally, reason and careful moral
reflection teach us that there are times when the first and
most important reply to evil is to stop it.
But there is more. Forty-seven years ago, on this occasion,
General George C. Marshall summoned our nation to restore the
countries whose mad regimes had brought the world such
horror. It was an act of statesmanship and vision without
equal in history. History summons us once more in different
ways, but with even greater urgency. Civilization need not
die. At this moment, only the United States can save it. As
we fight the war against evil, we must also wage peace,
guided by the lesson of the Marshall Plan--vision and
generosity can help make the world a safer place.
Thank you.
____
Sui Generis
As the final summer of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's
public career comes to an end, I think back to one languid
Friday afternoon three summers ago. Not much was happening;
the Senate was in recess. So Senator Moynihan--my boss at the
time--and I went to see an exhibit of Tyndale Bibles at the
Library of Congress. Tyndale wrote the first English Bible
from extant Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. Senator Moynihan
was eager to learn more about a man whose impact on the
English language, largely unacknowledged, is probably equal
to Shakespeare's.
One might wonder what Tyndale has to do with the United
States Senate. Not much, I suppose. But like Tennyson's
Ulysses, Senator Moynihan is a ``gray spirit yearning in
desire to follow knowledge like a sinking star.'' He has
unbounded curiosity. I'm not one who thinks his
intellectualism is some sort of an indictment. Those who do
are jealous of his capabilities, or just vapid. In a
diminished era when far too many Senators know far too
little, I have been fortunate to work for one who knows so
much and yet strives to learn so much more.
There is little I can add to what others have written or
will write about his career in these waning moments. But I
would make a few observations. On a parochial note, I know of
no other Senator who shares his remarkable facility for
understanding and manipulating formulas--that arcane bit of
legislating that drives the allocation of billions of
dollars. He has ``delivered'' for New York but it's not
frequently noted because so few understand it.
More important, every time he speaks or writes, it's worth
paying attention. I think back to the summer of 1990, when
Senator Phil Gramm offered an amendment to a housing bill.
Gramm wanted to rob Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)
funds from a few ``rustbelt'' States and sprinkle them across
the rest of the country. The amendment looked like a sure
winner: more than 30 States stood to benefit. Senator
Moynihan went to the floor in opposition. He delivered an
extemporaneous speech on the nature of our Federal system
worthy of inclusion in the seminal work of Hamilton, Madison,
and Jay as The Federalist No. 86. (The amendment was
defeated: New York's share of CDBG funding was preserved.)
While Senator Moynihan has been enormously successful as a
legislator, I think of him as the patron Senator of lost
causes. By ``lost'' I mean right but unpopular. Every Senator
is an advocate of the middle class; that's where the votes
are. What I most admire and cherish about Senator Moynihan is
his long, hard, and eloquent fight on behalf of the
underclass--the disenfranchised, the demoralized, the
destitute, the despised.
T.S. Eliot wrote to a friend, ``We fight for lost causes
because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface
to our successors' victory, though that victory itself will
be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in
the expectation that anything will triumph.'' this wistful
statement, to me, captures the essence of Senator Moynihan
and his career. Too many of today's tepid, timid legislators
are afraid to offer amendments they think will fail. They
have no heart, no courage. Senator Moynihan always stands on
principle, never on expediency. He's not afraid to be in the
minority, even a minority of one.
His statements over the years on a variety of topics
constitute a veritable treasury of ``unpopular essays.'' He
characterizes the current bankruptcy ``reform'' bill as a
``boot across the throat'' of the poor. A few years ago, he
fought against a habeas corpus provision in the
``Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty act'' (a truly
Orwellian name for that bill). He argued, in vain, that
Congress was enacting a statute ``which holds that
constitutional protections do not exist unless they have been
unreasonably violated, an idea that would have confounded the
framers . . . thus introducing a virus that will surely
spread throughout our system of laws.'' These are just a few
examples. Others include his passionate opposition to welfare
repeal, the balanced budget act, the ``line-item'' veto, the
Constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. The list
goes on.
For the past quarter-century, Senator Moynihan has been the
Senate's reigning intellectual. But he has also been its--and
the nation's--conscience. His fealty as a public servant,
ultimately, has been to the truth. He seeks it out, and he
speaks it, regardless of who will be discomfitted. He has
done so with rigor, and wit, a little bit of mischief now and
then, and uncommon decency.
When Thomas Jefferson followed Benjamin Franklin as envoy
to France, he told the Comte de Vergennes, ``I succeed him;
no one could replace him.'' Others will succeed Senator
Moynihan; no one will replace him. We are fortunate indeed
that he has devoted his life to public service.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield the floor.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, when I first came to the Senate, I had the
good fortune, as my friend the distinguished Senator from Montana did,
to serve on a committee with Pat Moynihan. My friend had it double; he
not only got to serve with him on the Environment and Public Works
Committee but also the Finance Committee.
Even though this is a time of sadness because we have lost a giant in
the history of America, for those of us who spent time with Pat
Moynihan, just mentioning his name brings a smile to our faces. There
is no one I have ever served with in government or known in government
who is anything like Pat Moynihan. He was a unique individual.
I was over in the House gym this morning, meeting with someone I came
to the House of Representatives with, Ed Towns, from New York. We were
talking about Pat Moynihan. Congressman Towns said the last
conversation he had with Pat Moynihan was a very pleasant conversation.
Pat Moynihan called him--very typical of Pat Moynihan.
I wish I could mimic his voice. People who worked for Pat Moynihan
can talk just like him. I can't. But he said--with his distinctive
staccato delivery--he wanted to name this big building in Brooklyn for
Governor Carey.
Congressman Towns said: No, I have someone else. I don't need to
embarrass that person by mentioning that name. He said: I have someone
else and I can't agree with you, Senator. I know Governor Carey was a
good person, but I think we should name it after someone else.
Senator Moynihan, the gentleman that he was, simply said: Thank you
very much.
Five or six weeks later he called back and said: You know,
Congressman Towns, I am getting old. He said: This means a lot to me to
have this building named after one of my close personal friends. I hope
you will reconsider.
Ed Towns said: I have reconsidered. You can do it.
Senator Moynihan said: Did I hear you just say I could name this
building after Governor Carey?
And Congressman Towns said: Yes.
Pat Moynihan said: I am so happy.
Senator Baucus and I can imagine that conversation because he was
truly a gentleman.
I had the privilege, as I indicated, of serving with him. I had the
good fortune over many years to serve with many outstanding people in
the Senate, men and women with extraordinary talent and achievements,
people who have accomplished so much in their personal and professional
lives, people highly educated, people who have great records of
military service, and people who are just good public servants.
Certainly there have been many skilled orators in the Senate--today
and in the past--and many other highly intelligent Senators, but I have
to
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say, I trust nobody will disagree or be offended if I point out that
Pat Moynihan stood out as an intellectual giant in the Senate, not only
for the time he served here but in the history of our country.
Pat Moynihan spoke in a unique style, with a delivery that would not
be taught in an oratory class.
He was a professor. He was a college professor, and he never lost
that ability to teach.
I always felt, when I was in the presence of Pat Moynihan, that I had
the opportunity to learn from him, whether we were on the Senate floor,
or in a committee hearing, or in an informal conversation. I hope no
one is going to be upset with me, but when I ran the Democratic Policy
Committee for a number of years, we would take down names of speakers.
I cheated a little bit and always moved Pat high up on the list because
I loved to hear him talk, and he did not have a lot of patience and
would leave if you did not recognize him pretty quickly.
He would come to our luncheons, and I remember he usually ordered egg
salad sandwiches. He would eat, listen for a while, and if it were not
something he was really interested in, he would go back to his hideaway
and start writing. That is what he did most of the time.
Pat was unlike most of us. We devote a lot of our time to constituent
services. Pat Moynihan did not do that. He was an intellectual giant,
and he spent his time in the Senate reading and writing. He was a great
thinker. Although he certainly did a good job of representing the State
of New York, and served the interests of his constituents as his
popularity makes clear, he often focused on the bigger picture and
contemplated big ideas.
We identify Pat Moynihan with New York. He was actually a native of
the American West. He was born in Tulsa, OK. His family moved to New
York when he was a child. His father abandoned them, and his mother,
thereafter, struggled to provide for Pat and his siblings.
Pat always worked hard. He worked as a shoeshine boy, later as a
longshoreman. He did not come from a privileged background, but he had
a privileged education because of his great intellect. He was able to
achieve much because he was a hard worker and extremely smart.
He graduated first in his class from high school in Harlem, and by
serving in the Navy, he was able to attend college. He graduated from
Tufts University and remained there to earn his Ph.D. from the Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy. He also studied at the London School of
Economics as a Fulbright Scholar.
Pat had enlisted in the Navy during World War II. Just a short time
ago, when he was still serving in the Senate, he had back surgery for
an injury sustained years ago while he was in the U.S. Navy. He was
proud of his military service and grateful that he was sent to college
for training as an officer. But he was, indeed, a scholar. He was a
professor at Syracuse University early in his career and then later at
Harvard. He published numerous articles and studies covering a wide
array of topics that reflected the tremendous breadth of his interests
and depth of his knowledge.
I am not sure which Senator said this, although I think it was Dale
Bumpers, who also recently has published a book--but if it was not Dale
Bumpers, I apologize for not giving credit to the right Senator--who
said he had not read as many books as Pat Moynihan had written. That is
how he looked at Pat Moynihan. He was a voracious writer. He wrote 18
books, including 9 while he was a Senator. In addition, he wrote parts
of many other books and articles too numerous to mention.
After one of his books was published, while we here in the Senate, he
asked me if I had read it. I said: Pat, I didn't receive the book. He
said: Well, maybe somebody on your staff borrowed it. So he gave me
another copy, and I read it.
Much of his writing is famous. For me personally the most far-
reaching, the most visionary article he wrote was called ``Defining
Deviancy Down.'' In this brief article--probably no more than 30
pages--he discussed how our societal values have changed over the
years, how one thing we would not accept 20 years ago, now we accept.
It is a wonderful article that reveals his perspective and insights and
calls on us to recognize we have to change what is going on in our
society.
Senator Moynihan had great compassion for America's poor, especially
for children growing up in poverty. He sought to develop public policy
that took into account social scientific methods and analysis. He
applied academic research to benefit people living in the real world.
Pat was also interested in architecture and historic preservation. He
worked to improve the appearance of Washington, D.C. to reflect its
status as our Nation's Capital, and of federal buildings across the
country. Those of us who leave the Capitol and travel along
Pennsylvania Avenue, and see the beautiful buildings will remember his
role in improving this area. When I was back here going to law school,
that area of the city was a slum. It was a slum. Right off Capitol
Hill, it was a slum. And Pat Moynihan recognized, when President
Kennedy was inaugurated, that should change. And he changed it. He
personally changed it.
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation was something that Pat
Moynihan thought up. When you drive down that street today, you see the
beautiful building that we are proud of, that is part of the U.S.
Capitol. That was the work of Pat Moynihan.
I can remember, there was one Senator who thought it was really bad
that the courthouses we were building around the country were basically
too nice. Pat Moynihan proceeded to indicate to all of us that is what
we should do, that we should construct buildings for the future that
people would like to look at that are nice inside. And Pat Moynihan won
that battle.
To serve on the Public Works Committee with Pat Moynihan was like
going to school and not having to take the tests because there was not
a subject that came up that he did not lecture us on--the great
architect Moses, not out of the Bible but of New York City. In
everything we did Pat Moynihan taught us to be a little better than
ourselves.
My thoughts and sympathies are with Senator Moynihan's wife Liz, his
daughter Maura, his sons Timothy and John, and his grandchildren.
Mr. President, I wish words could convey to everyone within the sound
of my voice what a great man Pat Moynihan was, how much he did to
benefit the State of New York and our country. Because of my contact
with Pat Moynihan, I honestly believe I am a better person. I better
understand government. I do not have his intellect, his ability to
write, but I think I understand a little bit about his enthusiasm for
government and how important it is to people.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been listening to the tributes to a
great man. I probably have a different feeling about Patrick Moynihan
than most people do. Many people are not aware Patrick Moynihan came
from Tulsa, OK, my hometown. Most people think of him as being a New
Yorker, but really he is not. We hit it off many years ago before he
was even in the Senate. I considered him one of the really sincere and
lovable liberals of our time.
People would ask, why are the two of you such close friends? I would
explain to them that we have many things in common, even though
ideologically we have nothing in common. In fact, during the years we
served together in the Senate, his office was next to mine. When the
bell would ring to come over and vote, I would walk to the door and
wait for him so I could have those moments with him.
I don't think there is anyone who has had a more colorful career than
Patrick Moynihan. It is one we will remember for a long time. But he
had courage also. I used to say this about Paul Wellstone. There are
few people who are really sincere in their philosophy, and yet they
want to do the right thing. I remember standing right here when Patrick
Moynihan, just a few seats over, stood up during one of our debates on
partial-birth abortion, and he made this statement in a long and
passionate speech, going into all kinds of detail as to what this
barbaric procedure is. This is a quote. He said:
I am pro-choice, but partial-birth abortion is not
abortion. It is infanticide.
It took an awful lot of courage for him to say that.
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I can tell you from when we knew each other back before our Senate
days, following his colorful career has been a wonderful experience. I
am hoping we will have others like him. We will be truly blessed if
that is the case.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in paying tribute to
Senator Moynihan. He was one of the most special, most erudite,
forward-thinking persons I have had the privilege to meet. He was an
amazing man.
Senator Moynihan died yesterday at the age of 76. With a little bit
of history--and then I will give a few personal anecdotes--he was
elected to the Senate in 1976. I was elected in 1978, 2 years later. I
had the privilege and honor to join both the Environment and Public
Works Committee and the Finance Committee at the same time as Senator
Moynihan. Senator Moynihan served as both chairman and ranking member
of both committees. I had huge shoes to fill, as I immediately followed
him as chairman and ranking member of each committee. I sat next to him
many days and many hours. He was a wonderful man.
We all know about Senator Moynihan's great contributions in such
important areas as foreign policy, trade policy, welfare,
transportation, and environmental policy. They are enormous.
On the foreign side, Senator Moynihan was a visionary. In 1979, while
the CIA and others were talking about how strong the Soviet Union was,
Senator Moynihan predicted its downfall. I heard him say that many
times. With keen understanding of history and the laws of economics,
Senator Moynihan understood the inherent weakness of the Soviet
structure.
Senator Moynihan's foreign policy experience led him to his
groundbreaking work on Government secrecy, advocating greater openness
as a core strength for any democracy.
On trade policy, Senator Moynihan had a vast depth of experience from
being a trade negotiator to being a legislator. As a legislator, he was
quick to educate his colleagues on the importance of pursuing a strong,
bipartisan, open trade policy. With an unfailing independent voice, he
was a firm believer in the principle that partisanship should not
extend beyond our borders.
On welfare policy, Senator Moynihan was the center of debate for more
than three decades. From his groundbreaking report on family policy for
President Johnson, to his work for President Nixon on his welfare
proposal, to his own Family Support Act of 1988, the first welfare
reform legislation passed in decades, to his passionate dissent to the
1996 welfare legislation, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan never forgot
what it was like to grow up in a poor family. For him it was clearly
always about helping the children.
On transportation policy, Senator Moynihan was the author of the
groundbreaking highway bill known as ISTEA. That legislation led to the
dramatic improvement in transportation policy by focusing on surface
transportation more broadly.
On environmental policy, Senator Moynihan was one of the first to
stress that good environmental policy should be based on sound science.
I heard that many times--sound science. He was right. He absolutely
insisted that we obtain a careful understanding of the scientific
problems and understanding of them on a scientific basis before we
proceeded with environmental policy.
But his incredible contributions to our Nation did not stop there.
One of his most enduring, but least known, contributions was his
contribution to public architecture, particularly on the Environment
and Public Works Committee.
Thomas Jefferson said:
Design activity and political thought are indivisible.
In keeping with this, Senator Moynihan sought to improve our public
places so they could reflect and uplift our civic culture. He himself
said it well in 1961. We all know he held many important positions in
Government, but it is not known so well that early in his career, in
1961, he was the staff director of something called the Ad Hoc
Committee on Federal Office Space. That is right, in addition to all of
his books, he once wrote a document called ``The Guiding Principles for
Federal Architecture.'' He wrote it in 1961, and it remains in effect
today. It is one page long. It says that public buildings should not
only be efficient and economical, but also should ``provide visual
testimony to the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the
American Government.''
For many years, Pat Moynihan worked with energy and vision to put the
goals expressed in the guidelines into practice. As an assistant to
President Kennedy, he was one of the driving forces behind the effort
to renovate Pennsylvania Avenue and finally achieve Pierre L'Enfant's
vision.
He followed through. There is the Navy memorial, Pershing Park, the
Ronald Reagan Building, and Ariel Rios, and there are other projects.
Along with Senator John Chafee, he had the vision to restore Union
Station--now a magnificent building--and then to complement it with the
beautiful Thurgood Marshall Judiciary Building not far away.
It is a remarkable legacy leaving a lasting mark on our public places
that brings us together as American citizens. In fact, it is no
exaggeration to say that Daniel Patrick Moynihan has had a greater
positive impact on American public architecture than any statesman
since Thomas Jefferson.
In St. Paul's Cathedral in London, there is a description
memorializing the architect of that cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren,
and it reads: If you would see his memorial, look about you.
If years from now you stand outside the Capitol and look west down
Pennsylvania Avenue, north at Union Station, and the Marshall Building,
you can say the same about Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan; that is, if
you would see his memorial, look about you.
A few years ago when we were naming the Foley Square Courthouse in
his honor, I used the same quote. I must confess, I was very pleased to
have found this quote in English history and hoped to impress my very
learned colleague. However, as is often the case, I fell a little
short. No one, it turns out, can match his learning.
After my remarks, Senator Moynihan gave me a big hug. He was so
happy. But he also corrected me quietly and politely. I had, he said,
given the correct translation. I had said it was in Italian. He said:
Max, I think it's in Latin. Sure enough, it is in Latin.
In his honor, I stand corrected. The inscription memorializing the
architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren, reads: Si
monumentum requiris, circumspice; Latin for: If you want to see the
memorial, look about you.
As we consider ways of memorializing Senator Moynihan, I have a
suggestion. He loved Pennsylvania Avenue. He inspired its renovation.
He helped design it. He helped build it. He lived there when he
retired. It is his home. Therefore, I suggest that at an appropriate
point on the avenue, we add his inscription: Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.
I might also add, Senator Moynihan gave the commencement address this
last June at Harvard University. I have read it. I was very impressed
with it. I said to him: Patrick, that was a great speech. Do you mind
if I put that in the Congressional Record? He said: I would love it.
About 2 months later, I received a letter from Senator Moynihan, and
it said: Dear Max, you once offered, perhaps irrationally, to include
my commencement address in the Record.
Mr. President, I think it is appropriate that Senator Lautenberg
asked that Senator Moynihan's speech be printed in the Record. It is
the commencement address he gave last June 6 at Harvard University. I
commend it to my colleagues.
Senator Moynihan's speech includes many wise words about the future
of our country, about terrorism, how to handle the world, which leads
me to another memory of him. It was at the end of a session, and we
were about to go on a 2-week recess. Senator Moynihan's chair is behind
me at the end of the aisle by the door. I said: Patrick, what are you
going to do this recess?
He said: I am going to give the Oxford lecture.
I said: What is that? He explained it.
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He said: I am going to give the Oxford lecture. I am going over to
England.
What are you going to talk about? What are you going to say?
I am going to talk about the rise of ethnicity.
What do you mean?
At the end of the cold war, he talked about the urdu, an Israeli
sect, which was very strong, which epitomizes the rise of ethnicity in
the world at the conclusion of the cold war. It is so true, if one
stops and thinks about it. The world order has collapsed, and we are
now almost in a free-for-all when different ethnicities, different
countries, different people are pursuing their own dreams, and it is
very difficult to find some managed order in this chaotic world today.
That was Senator Moynihan: The rise of ethnicity. It is very true.
Another time, I had a wonderful encounter with him, a wonderful
exchange. People often ask us: What is going to happen, Senator? Who is
going to win this election? What is going to happen?
I always answered: Well, as Prime Minister Disraeli would always say,
in politics a week is a long time. That was before television. That was
before radio. Today, it is even a shorter period of time to try to
predict what is going to happen in political matters. Sometimes it is
just a minute.
I was standing in the well of the Senate and somebody asked me: What
is going to happen? And I said: Well, Disraeli said, in politics a week
is a long time.
Senator Moynihan happened to overhear me, and very graciously and
politely he walked up to me when the other Senators had left. He kind
of leaned over to me and he said: Max, now I think that was Baldwin.
I looked it up. Sure enough, it was Lord Baldwin--it was not
Disraeli--who said, in politics a week is a long time.
He was an absolutely amazing man, the Senator's Senator, a professor.
I have never known a Senator so gifted as Senator Moynihan. We are all
going to certainly mourn his passing, but even more important than
that, we are going to have very fond memories of him and I think be
guided and inspired by him in so many different ways. We are very
thankful he chose to serve our country as his calling.
I yield the floor.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am going to make a longer speech about
Pat Moynihan, who was a close personal friend. That sounds almost
presumptuous to say. He was such a towering intellect and profound
political figure, to claim a personal friendship with him seems to be
somewhat presumptuous. But he was.
Of all that I recall Pat Moynihan said and did, there is one thing
that sticks in my mind that seems particularly appropriate on the day
after his passing.
He once said, and I am paraphrasing but it is close to a quote, about
John Kennedy's death:
There is no sense in being Irish unless you understand the
world is eventually going to break your heart.
I want Mrs. Moynihan to understand that there are a lot of us--Irish
and non-Irish--who have a broken heart today because of the passing of
a man who was truly, truly a giant in 20th-century American politics.
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