[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 116 (Thursday, September 23, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H7545]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             ACCEPTING THE TRUTH OF INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Mr. Speaker, the basis of international alliances rests 
not upon ephemeral, nebulous sentimentality, but upon concrete national 
interests. To willfully ignore this truth and instead wallow in the 
wistful mists of melancholy and nostalgia is injurious for a nation at 
peace and lethal to a nation at war. To prove the point, I cite the 
Democratic presidential nominee's recent New York speech in which he 
said, ``In the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy 
sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe to build support. 
Acheson explained the situation to the French President de Gaulle, and 
then he offered to show him highly classified satellite photos as 
proof. De Gaulle waved the photos away saying, the word of the 
President of the United States is good enough for me.
  It is a fine story, but what proves the point about changes in world 
circumstance I think is a story from 1966 about the Johnson 
administration's experience.
  In 1966, upon being told that President Charles de Gaulle had taken 
France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of 
French soil, President Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean 
Rusk that he should ask de Gaulle a rather pointed question. Dean 
implied in his answer that de Gaulle really should not be asked that in 
a meeting, but LBJ, a Texan, insisted.
  During his meeting with de Gaulle, the Secretary of State did ask if 
his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 
60,000-plus soldiers buried in France from World War I to World War II. 
President de Gaulle did not respond.
  Mr. Speaker, September 11 was a defining moment in the life of our 
country and, indeed, all the world. In such perilous times we must 
accept the hard truth of international alliances. While we regret the 
state of our erstwhile alliances, we must always strive to honor and 
expand the valorous new alliances that we have forged that are fighting 
for freedom throughout the world.

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