[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 134 (Thursday, October 20, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2151]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    HONORING THE LIFE OF PENN KEMBLE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 20, 2005

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, friends of freedom today are mourning the 
death of Penn Kemble, who was one of its most ardent, eloquent, and 
effective defenders. Although he died at the relatively young age of 
64, after a year-long struggle with brain cancer, Penn was an activist 
on behalf of social causes for more than 40 years. Whether arguing on 
behalf of civil rights, supporting organized labor, which he considered 
the ``balance wheel of democracy,'' or advocating on behalf of 
democratic movements around the world, Penn brought an unparalleled 
passion combined with a hardheaded realism to every cause he adopted.
  Penn through his close affiliation with Senators Henry Jackson and 
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, worked to move the Democratic Party in the 
direction of strong and ``muscular'' internationalism in its foreign 
policy. As Deputy Director--and later Acting Director--of the United 
States Information Agency under President Clinton, he played a strong 
role in the creation of an international network on civic education and 
in the establishment of the Community of Democracies. Even as the end 
of his life drew near, he was busy working to develop a transatlantic 
democracy network, collaborating with colleagues at the National 
Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House, where he served as a senior 
scholar after leaving government service.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to place in the Record a 
Washington Post obituary that chronicles the life of this remarkable 
American. Let me take this opportunity to express my condolences to 
Penn's wife Mal and the other members of his family.

               [From the Washington Post, Oct. 19, 2005]

               Political Activist Penn Kemble Dies at 64

                            (By Joe Holley)

       Penn Kemble, 64, a political activist who considered 
     himself a ``muscular Democrat'' and who kept himself in 
     intellectual fighting trim by engaging in policy tilts with 
     adversaries on both the left and the right, died Oct. 16 of 
     brain cancer at his home in Washington. A former acting 
     director of the U.S. Information Agency, he was in recent 
     years senior scholar at Freedom House, a nonpartisan, pro-
     democracy think tank.
       Mr. Kemble believed in a robust internationalism in the 
     tradition of former senator Henry M. ``Scoop'' Jackson (D-
     Wash.). He also had an affinity for organized labor, which 
     was, in his words, ``the balance wheel of democracy.''
       During his career, he helped found or lead a number of 
     advocacy groups, including the Coalition for a Democratic 
     Majority.
       A friend and former colleague, Joshua Muravchik, resident 
     scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that Mr. 
     Kemble's political and intellectual journey traversed a path 
     from democratic socialist to social democrat. It was a 
     journey similar in its rightward arc to that of many 
     prominent neoconservatives. Although he occasionally took 
     such positions, Mr. Kemble stopped short of leaving the 
     Democratic Party and never considered himself a 
     neoconservative.
       He believed, for example, in building a democratic Iraq but 
     sharply criticized the Bush administration's approach on the 
     country. ``The distinction between liberation and 
     democratization, which requires a strategy and instruments, 
     was an idea never understood by the administration,'' he told 
     the New Republic last year.
       Richard Penn Kemble was born in Worcester, Mass., and grew 
     up in Lancaster, Pa., where he was a small but feisty 
     football player in high school. His political activism began 
     at the University of Colorado, where he helped establish the 
     Colorado chapter of the Young People's Socialist League.
       After receiving a bachelor's degree in 1962, he moved to 
     New York and took a job as a copy boy at the New York Times. 
     His journalism career ended shortly afterward, when the 
     typesetters went out on strike and he refused to cross the 
     picket line.
       He stayed in New York and immersed himself in socialist 
     politics, seeking to resurrect the youth section of the 
     Socialist Party, famously led earlier in the century by 
     Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas.
       Muravchik, who also was part of the movement, recalled that 
     Mr. Kemble stood out as a ``good-looking, neatly dressed 
     WASP'' in what was otherwise ``a scruffy-looking crowd'' made 
     up primarily of young Jewish intellectuals.
       He was one of the few whites among the leadership of the 
     East River chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, once 
     staging a sit-in that blocked the eastbound lanes of the 
     Triborough Bridge during rush hour. The aim was to force 
     commuters to ponder the plight of Harlem residents before 
     arriving back at their comfortable homes in the suburbs.
       In 1967, he founded Negotiation Now!, which demanded an end 
     to the bombing of North Vietnam and a negotiated end to the 
     war.
       In the early 1970s, Mr. Kemble moved to the District and 
     plunged into Democratic Party politics. After the party's 
     1972 presidential debacle, he helped found the Coalition for 
     a Democratic Majority. Associated primarily with Sens. 
     Jackson and Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.), the group sought to 
     move the party back toward the center and refocus its 
     reliance on a traditional blue-collar base.
       Mr. Kemble served as executive director of the group from 
     1972 to 1976, when he joined the New York senatorial campaign 
     of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He was Moynihan's special 
     assistant and speechwriter until 1979.
       During the Reagan administration, he founded a group called 
     PRODEMCA, or the Committee for Democracy in Central America. 
     He caused consternation among many fellow Democrats by 
     advocating support for the anti-communist contra rebels in 
     Nicaragua. He sought a democratic middle way between 
     communist Sandinistas and former supporters of rightist 
     dictator Anastasio Somoza.
       He worked in the Clinton presidential campaign in 1992 and 
     was appointed deputy director of the USIA in 1993. He became 
     USIA's acting director in 1999.
       In recent years, Mr. Kemble sought to maintain a network of 
     American social democrats. From his sickbed, he conceived and 
     helped organize a conference dedicated to the thought of 
     philosopher Sydney Hook, an intellectual model for Mr. Kemble 
     of the politically engaged social democrat. The event took 
     place October, 1.
       His marriage to Charlotte Rowe ended in divorce.
       Survivors include his wife of 22 years, Marie-Louise 
     ``Mal'' Caravatti of Washington; two sisters, Sara Kemble of 
     Columbia and Eugenia Kemble of Washington; and a brother, 
     Grover Kemble of Morristown, N.J.
       Mr. Kemble was in many ways still a socialist, his wife 
     said. ``He believed in the public sector as a civilizing 
     force,'' she added. ``He believed in a role for government.''




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