[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 129 (Wednesday, July 22, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S4415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING LORNE CRANER

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute to someone 
many of my colleagues knew and admired, Lorne Craner, who passed away 
on July 2 at the too young age of 61, a victim of cancer.
  Lorne dedicated his professional life to advancing freedom and 
justice in the world. He served that cause faithfully as the longest 
tenured president of the International Republican Institute, IRI, as 
the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor 
in the George W. Bush administration, as Director of Asian Affairs on 
President George H.W. Bush's National Security Council, and as an 
advisor to Members of Congress, including his service as foreign 
affairs aide to a newly elected Senator from Arizona, our late 
colleague, John McCain. He continued to advance American values abroad 
as president of the American Councils for International Education, as a 
board member of several distinguished organizations, including the 
Millennium Challenge Corporation.
  I got to know Lorne when Senator McCain, who was IRI's chairman, 
asked me to serve on its board. I saw the Institute thrive in size and 
reach under Lorne's leadership, becoming one of the world's most 
effective agencies for democratic development, respected by human 
rights advocates around the world and in both U.S. political parties.
  Like John, Lorne was a tireless defender of the dignity of all human 
beings, the bedrock value that democracies are instituted to respect. 
Like John, Lorne fought the bad guys to defend the little guys. Toward 
that end, he usually exercised a little more skill at diplomacy than 
John sometimes possessed, but they shared an equal devotion to 
mankind's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
Secretary of State Colin Powell awarded Lorne the Distinguished Service 
Medal, the State Department's highest decoration.
  Lorne and John shared, too, a dedication to the peaceful conduct of 
international relations. Both knew that our interests and values 
sometimes had to be defended by force of arms, but they were both so 
personally familiar with the costs of war that they worked hard to 
resolve international conflicts peacefully where possible and to make 
new friends of former enemies.
  Lorne went to work for John in his last term as a Member of the House 
and his first term in the Senate, but their relationship began earlier 
than that. Lorne's father, Air Force Colonel Bob Craner, resided for 
more than 2 years in the cell next to John's in a Hanoi prison the POWs 
called, ``the Plantation.'' John described Colonel Craner to me as one 
of the finest officers he had ever served with and ``probably the 
person I was closest too in my life that I wasn't related to.'' John 
was held in solitary confinement at the time, the hardest period of his 
imprisonment, and he credited Bob Craner, whom he constantly 
communicated with by tap code, ``with keeping me sane.''
  Despite the mistreatment of the POWS, John resolved early in his 
Senate career to help America reconcile with Vietnam, recognizing that 
the U.S. and Vietnam had shared interests in Southeast Asia, and that 
the cause of human dignity in the country where he had resided 
involuntarily for over 5 years could be served through friendly rather 
than hostile relations. The normalization of relations between the U.S. 
and Vietnam wouldn't have happened when it did if not for John's 
efforts to help bring it about. I think it is one of his greatest 
achievements. And Lorne Craner, the son who was deprived of his father 
for 5 years by the Vietnam war, provided invaluable help in that 
effort.
  Lorne travelled to Vietnam with John in 1990, where he helped John 
build productive partnerships with Vietnamese officials who would help 
resolve issues that were in the way of better relations. And from his 
positions in government and at the IRI, he continued to advance 
American interests and ideals in Southeast Asia. Today, growing 
security and commercial ties between the two former enemies, symbolized 
by the port calls in Vietnam by U.S. Navy ships, including the USS John 
S. McCain, are a testament to both John and Lorne's vision and 
effectiveness. They imagined a better future out of the resentments and 
rubble of war, and, with others, made it a reality. They were both men 
who believed to do good in the world was why we were put on this earth.
  Lorne was deeply committed to his cause, a cause he never strayed 
from, for a day in his life, and we are all better for it. He was, too, 
as all who knew him will testify, a devoted father and husband, and his 
family's loss is the most profound. He was a hard man to lose at such a 
young age, for his family and friends, and for the country and the 
world.
  Lorne Craner, son of Robert and Audrey Craner, husband of Anne 
Craner, father to three beloved children, Isabelle, Alexander, and 
Charles, brother of Charys, an American patriot, a man of justice, a 
peacemaker, and a friend to many, is gone. But his memory is a blessing 
to all who had the good fortune to have known him.
  To his wife and children, the people who loved him most, as much as 
you hurt today, time will assuage your grief, and you will still feel 
his presence in your hearts. I lost my parents when I was a young man. 
I can say with confidence that the day will come when you will recall, 
without heartache, the good and honorable man who loved you so and with 
whom you will one day be reunited. God bless you.
  Thank you.

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