[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 139 (Thursday, October 27, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2200]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE DEATH OF RICHARD PENN KEMBLE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. STEVE ISRAEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 27, 2005

  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, all too seldom we are blessed with a person 
of extraordinary talent, vision and blinding commitment to social 
justice who devotes his entire life--selflessly and completely--to the 
public interest, and to spreading the values of his nation all across 
the planet. Penn Kemble, who died October 15th after a fierce year long 
struggle with brain cancer, was that rare kind of American.
  Penn devoted his life to ideas. He fought with passion for what he 
believed, and he sometimes fought alone. He was a college socialist who 
battled against the Stalinists who led the Soviet Union; a hardliner on 
defense and foreign policy issues who came to become a leader in the 
fight to negotiate an end to the war in Vietnam. He was a Scoop Jackson 
Democrat, a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, a Bill Clinton Democrat--always a 
Democrat working within our Party to make it more committed to social 
and economic justice and more committed to a strong and realistic 
national security policy. Some talked change--Penn caused it: a civil 
rights leader who put his life on the line fighting for racial 
equality, but confident enough in himself and his values to lead the 
fight against racial quotas; an internationalist who was not afraid to 
confront and challenge what he perceived to be dangerous isolationism 
within his Party. Through the difficult decades of the 1970s and 1980s, 
some chose to cut and run when they did not have their way. Penn Kemble 
chose to stay and fight. No one fought harder and with more conviction.
  And nothing exemplified his commitment to values, to ideas and to the 
strength of the American experience more than his work as Deputy 
Director and Acting Director of the United States Information Agency, 
where he created and executed the brilliant and unique international 
CIVITAS program to promote civil society and civic education around the 
world. Like so many things that Penn developed, he created CIVITAS to 
break out of the worn mold of traditional West-to-East assistance in 
democracy building by replacing it with an innovative participatory 
network to develop civil society and free markets in emerging 
democracies through civic education and grass roots civic 
participation. CIVITAS was thinking ``outside the box.'' It was, in the 
words of one of its Russian participants, ``a unique possibility to see 
the full context of what we can do to support democracy, in concrete 
terms, now and in the future.'' CIVITAS is an international dialogue, 
not a monologue by the U.S.
  Penn's vision can best be summarized in his own words. In Prague, in 
1995, Penn Kemble said that ``today there is an emerging recognition 
that what we usually think of as the civic realm and the economic realm 
are interlinked, and that when one is strong the other is generally 
strong, and that when one is weak or broken the other is in danger, too 
. . . One thing we surely have neglected is education. Education is the 
principal means for transmitting and strengthening the values and 
understandings--the subjective element, the culture--on which the 
institutions of all societies rest. Perhaps democratic society more 
than any other depends on the quality of its education.''
  At USIA Penn Kemble saw that our embassies and public diplomacy posts 
abroad would work with local NGOs to foster civic education as a 
transformative element to grow democracy from the grass roots. He 
understood that a truly international movement for civic education 
could take an issue and give it life, a place on the international 
agenda of the community of democratic nations--whether it was human 
rights, sensible environment polices, or equal protection, treatment 
and opportunity for women in modern society. He internationalized 
national issues. He was nobly committed to the globalization of social 
democracy.
  Participants in the most recent gathering of the CIVITAS consortium 
in Amman, Jordan in June 2005, were struck with the realization that 
the group that Penn Kemble first convened in Prague 10 years before was 
still at it, plugging away in the trenches to build support for 
teaching democracy in schools and building a culture of democracy from 
the bottom up.
  Robert F. Kennedy once said that ``the future does not belong to 
those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and 
their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and 
bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, 
reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great 
enterprises of American Society.''
  That future--the future of the universal dream of social justice that 
should be the dream of all people everywhere--belongs to Penn Kemble. 
The very definition of CIVITAS is Penn's legacy: ``the concepts and 
values of citizenship that impart shared responsibility, common purpose 
and a sense of community among citizens.'' He will be missed, but the 
power of his ideas makes him immortal. Time, justice and the forces of 
history are on Penn's side.

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