[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 161 (Tuesday, October 23, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ON THE DEATH OF RANDALL FORSBERG

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 23, 2007

  Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise to 
mark the passing of my friend Randall Forsberg, but it is with pride, 
admiration, and thankfulness that I remember her enormous contributions 
to the cause of nuclear disarmament.
  Randy Forsberg was the mother of the Nuclear Freeze movement. When 
she was a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology in 1980, she put forward a simple and inspired proposal: to 
end the ``testing, production, and deployment'' of all nuclear weapons 
everywhere. With her ``Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race,'' and her 
tireless advocacy for a nuclear weapons freeze, Randy galvanized a 
national grassroots campaign to end the threat of nuclear weapons.
  I was proud to introduce the very first nuclear freeze resolution in 
the Congress, and to work for its successful passage on the House floor 
in the spring of 1983. That vote shocked many within the dusty confines 
of the foreign policy establishment, who simply could not comprehend 
that ordinary citizens understood the unique and intolerable threat of 
nuclear weapons and that the American public would demand a 
fundamentally different course be set. Randy was at the center of the 
Nuclear Freeze throughout the country, and was a guiding light to many 
who believed in the necessity of the Nuclear Freeze. While the Freeze 
did not pass in the Senate, the activism that this movement created led 
the Congress to pass other legislation to cut in half the proposed size 
of the MX missile force, ban anti-satellite weapons testing in space, 
cut funding for Star Wars missile defenses, and to propose a moratorium 
on underground nuclear weapons testing. Those Congressional 
initiatives, in turn, led the Reagan Administration--which came to 
office opposed to arms control--to sign the START and INF treaties with 
the Soviet Union.
  In order to advance a nuclear weapons freeze, Randy founded the 
Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, in 1980. Since that time, IDDS has been an important 
part of the arms control community in the United States and abroad. 
Through its numerous publications, including its World Arms Database, 
IDDS has provided vital information and analysis to both policy makers 
and the public at large.
  Randy Forsberg passed away last Friday night, ending a long battle 
with endometrial cancer during which she had shown incredible bravery 
and dignity. My thoughts and prayers are with her daughter, Katarina 
Lilly, her mother, Genie Watson, and her sister, Celia Seupel.
  With Randy Forsberg's death, the world has lost an eloquent and 
inspired advocate for nuclear disarmament. But the cause to which she 
devoted her life endures, and her example serves to inspire others who 
share her dream of a world without nuclear weapons.

                          ____________________