[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 138 (Thursday, November 13, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1569-E1570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HONORING DAVID ABSHIRE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 13, 2014

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. David M. Abshire, 
who passed away on October 31st, 2014, in Alexandria, Virginia. I 
worked with David during my career in Congress and always held him in 
the highest regard.
  David was an indispensable public servant. He began his career at 
West Point, from which he graduated and led a platoon in the Korean 
War, earning a Bronze Star for bravery. He went on to found the Center 
for Strategic and International Studies and lead the Center for the 
Study of the Presidency & Congress. David also served as assistant 
secretary of state for congressional relations and chairman of the 
Board for International Broadcasting under President Nixon and United 
States ambassador to NATO under President Reagan. He coordinated 
President Reagan's internal investigation of the Iran-Contra Affair as 
well.
  David was a man of moral strength and character. He will be deeply 
missed by his family, friends and community. David is survived by his 
wife Carolyn, five children and 11 grandchildren.
  I respectfully submit David's obituary from The New York Times and 
ask my colleagues to join me in honoring David's life and 
accomplishments.

                [From The New York Times, Nov. 3, 2014]

 David M. Abshire, Who Helped Reagan Through Iran-Contra Scandal, Dies 
                                 at 88

                          (By Douglas Martin)

       David M. Abshire, who led respected research groups and 
     held high government posts but made his most visible mark by 
     helping President Ronald Reagan navigate the political storms 
     of the Iran-contra scandal, died on Friday in Alexandria, Va. 
     He was 88.
       His death was announced by the Center for the Study of the 
     Presidency & Congress, a Washington group he helped lead.
       Reagan sought out Mr. Abshire in December 1986. He called 
     him in Brussels, where he was the United States ambassador to 
     NATO, and asked him to accept a cabinet-level job as 
     coordinator of the White House's response to multiple 
     investigations of the administration's secret sales of arms 
     to Iran, despite an embargo on such sales.
       There were allegations that United States officials had 
     hoped the arms sales would secure the release of several 
     hostages being held in Lebanon by a group with ties to Iran, 
     which would have been another violation of policy. Proceeds 
     from the sales were to be used to finance the anti-Communist 
     insurgents in Nicaragua known as contras--aid that Congress 
     had expressly forbidden.
       Reagan asked Mr. Abshire to handle all requests and 
     obligations stemming from investigations in both the House 
     and the Senate and from an independent commission headed by 
     John Tower, a former senator from Texas.
       ``What we wanted was someone who would come and could 
     immerse himself in all the details of this Iran controversy--
     the dates, when the arms went, who said what on which date,'' 
     Patrick J. Buchanan, then the White House communications 
     director, said in an interview with CNN in 1986. ``It really 
     is a detailed job, and the rest of the White House staff, 
     which was not involved in the controversy, has to get on with 
     the budget, has got to get on with the State of the Union. We 
     simply don't have the expertise.''
       In a profile in 1987, The New York Times said the job could 
     leave Mr. Abshire in a ``potentially tricky position'' and 
     raised the possibility that he could turn up an incriminating 
     ``smoking gun.''
       Mr. Abshire accepted the post on the condition that the 
     administration would be forthcoming. He told The Times that 
     he regretted suppressing information about military 
     incursions into Laos and Cambodia during the Nixon 
     administration, when he was assistant secretary of state for 
     congressional relations.
       ``That,'' he said, ``was an example of how not to do it.''
       In his first meeting with Reagan, recounted in his 2005 
     book, ``Saving the Reagan Presidency: Trust Is the Coin of 
     the Realm,'' Mr. Abshire told the president that it was 
     unwise to keep insisting that the United States did not trade 
     arms for hostages. He pointed out that two-thirds of the 
     public believed that the administration had made such a deal.
       ``Dave, I don't care if I'm the only person in America that 
     does not believe it--I don't believe it was arms for 
     hostages,'' he quoted Reagan as saying.
       But in a dozen meetings with the president and in others 
     with the first lady, Nancy Reagan, Mr. Abshire pressed his 
     case for admitting what seemed obvious to him and to many 
     others. He also released thousands of unedited documents to 
     investigators, handled press relations and signed off on the 
     president's speeches about the subject.
       On March 4, 1987, with evidence of the arms deal mounting, 
     Reagan admitted in a speech to the nation that he had learned 
     he was wrong. ``What began as a strategic opening to Iran 
     deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for 
     hostages,'' he said.
       Mr. Abshire soon resigned, feeling he had finished the job 
     90 days after taking it. Reagan largely escaped personal 
     blame and saw his approval rating rise from 46 percent to 64 
     percent in less than two years.
       The Washington Post in 2006 called Mr. Abshire the 
     ``judicious convener and manager of the A-list powerful.'' In 
     1962, he joined with Adm. Arleigh Burke to start the Center 
     for Strategic and International Studies, originally as an 
     affiliate of Georgetown University. Distinguished foreign 
     policy figures like Henry A. Kissinger, James R. Schlesinger, 
     Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft have been senior 
     advisers and adjunct fellows there.
       Mr. Kissinger, at a colloquium in Mr. Abshire's honor in 
     2006, said that Mr. Abshire had a knack for getting people to 
     do what he wanted, ``making you feel that he's doing you a 
     tremendous favor for giving you that opportunity.''
       From 1999 to 2012, Mr. Abshire was president and chief 
     executive of the Center for the Study of the Presidency & 
     Congress. More recently he was vice chairman. He served on 
     government task forces and policy study groups and wrote 
     seven books. He headed Reagan's foreign affairs transition 
     team after his election in 1980, and was often mentioned as a 
     candidate for national security adviser in Republican 
     administrations.
       His job as assistant secretary of state under President 
     Richard M. Nixon was to be a liaison to Congress. Nixon then 
     appointed him chairman of the Board for International 
     Broadcasting, overseeing Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
       As NATO ambassador, Mr. Abshire helped parlay the 
     deployment of American Pershing II missiles in Europe into a 
     treaty limiting intermediate-range nuclear weapons there.
       David Manker Abshire was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., on 
     April 11, 1926. An imposing figure at 6-foot-4, he never lost 
     his courtly Tennessee drawl.
       He graduated from the United States Military Academy at 
     West Point in 1951 and, as a platoon leader in the Korean 
     War, was awarded a Bronze Star and other decorations for 
     bravery. He earned a Ph.D. in history from Georgetown.
       Mr. Abshire, who died in a nursing home in Alexandria, is 
     survived by his wife of 56 years, the former Carolyn Sample; 
     his son, Lupton; his daughters, Anna Bowman, Mary Lee 
     Jensvold, Phyllis d'Hoop and Carolyn Hall; and 11 
     grandchildren.
       Reagan was not the first president to ask for Mr. Abshire's 
     help in dealing with a crisis. In his memoir, Mr. Abshire 
     wrote that Nixon had asked him to join his staff to fight the 
     threat of impeachment during the investigations of the cover-
     up of the Watergate break-in. He tactfully said no.
       He recalled that when a relative expressed amazement that 
     he had turned down a president, he replied: ``I don't believe 
     he's telling the truth.''

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