[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2178-2180]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           PAUL D. COVERDELL

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, we have just adopted a resolution offered by 
the majority leader and others that will honor our former colleague, 
Paul Coverdell of Georgia, for his service as a Member of this body, as 
a member of the political life of the State of Georgia, and as a 
Director of the U.S. Peace Corps.
  This resolution, among other things, would name the Washington 
national headquarters of the Peace Corps as the Paul D. Coverdell Peace 
Corps Headquarters.
  The bill would also authorize $10 million in appropriations to give 
an award to the University of Georgia to support the construction of 
the Paul D. Coverdell Building at the Institute of Biomedical and 
Health Sciences at the University of Georgia.

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  The legislation to honor our former colleague, in addition to what 
was done last year--when we enacted the Paul D. Coverdell Worldwide 
School Act of 2000--would designate the Worldwide Schools Program as 
the Paul D. Coverdell Worldwide Schools Program that was begun by 
Senator Coverdell when he was Director of the Peace Corps.
  Last year's action was a fitting one by this Congress to honor our 
former colleague and is an appropriate tribute which recognizes the 
special contribution Paul Coverdell made to the Peace Corps during his 
tenure as its Director. I strongly and enthusiastically supported its 
enactment.
  Let me, first of all, say there is a particular reason I speak on 
this particular issue, in addition to my affection for Paul Coverdell 
and the years I spent working with him.
  As I mentioned a moment ago in the colloquy with the distinguished 
majority leader, some 33 years ago, after I finished college, I served 
as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic not far from the 
Haitian border for 2\1/2\ years in the mountains. I worked with 22 
communities and some 11,000 people in the northwest region of that 
country. It was an important period of maturation in my life. I learned 
a great deal about myself and have a deeper appreciation of my own 
country.
  Serving outside of the United States and seeing the shortcomings of 
other nations, one appreciates in many ways unimaginable as a U.S. 
citizen, how fortunate we are to live in this great country with 200 
years of strong democracy and freedoms and opportunities that the world 
envisions. One also comes away with a deeper appreciation of other 
cultures and other peoples. It was a wonderful experience.
  I have often said that next to my family and the circumstances of 
growing up in a strong, healthy household with five siblings and 
wonderful parents, no other event in my life was as significant as 
these years as a Peace Corps volunteer--as a part of growing up and 
learning more about myself, sparking, in many ways, a determination to 
be a part of public life. And that has occurred over the years since my 
arrival in the House of Representatives as the first former Peace Corps 
volunteer to be elected to the Congress, along with Paul Tsongas that 
year, a blessed memory. And then I arrived in the Senate, along with 
Paul Tsongas, 2 years after his arrival, as Peace Corps volunteers 
here. Today I am the only returning volunteer.
  I sometimes like to have some fun with my colleague from West 
Virginia, Mr. Rockefeller, the junior Senator from West Virginia, who 
was a staff member of the Peace Corps. But we make a significant 
distinction between staff members and volunteers. The 161,000 Americans 
who are former Peace Corps volunteers will appreciate that distinction.
  There are deeply emotional and strong feelings that I have about this 
organization and the contribution that it has made to our Nation and to 
millions of people all over the globe.
  This was an idea that was born in a speech given by another Senator 
in the State of Michigan as he was running for President in 1960. His 
name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He said, on the steps of the 
University of Michigan, that he had an idea where Americans of all ages 
might take a period out of their lives to serve the needs of others 
around the globe. It was an idea that Hubert Humphrey had talked about 
as a Senator--not specifically the Peace Corps, but he had raised the 
idea of Americans serving the interests of others around the globe.
  Then, over the years, beginning with the remarkable leadership of 
Sargent Shriver as the first Director of the Peace Corps, there have 
been 14 other Directors over 40 years. Most remarkably, there was one 
directorship under Loret Ruppe, the wife of a former Republican House 
Member, who I served with for 8 years under the Reagan years. She led 
the Peace Corps in a most magnificent way. In fact, I remember she even 
forwent some of her salary initially because she did not feel she 
understood the Peace Corps well enough to take a salary. That is how 
dedicated she was to this organization.
  But over the years, we have talked about the Peace Corps not as John 
Kennedy's Peace Corps or Hubert Humphrey's Peace Corps or Sargent 
Shriver's Peace Corps or Loret Ruppe's Peace Corps or my Peace Corps; 
it has been the Nation's. It just says: The Peace Corps. There is one 
room at the Peace Corps named for Sargent Shriver, but that is the only 
facility I know of that has a name on it at all, because we never 
thought it belonged to any particular person.
  Literally hundreds of thousands of people, in direct and indirect 
ways, have made a significant contribution to this organization. I 
served with volunteers who lost their lives during the term of their 
service. Yet despite that, and the efforts maybe in some countries to 
designate certain places or areas in memory of these individuals, we 
have kept it sort of as a nameless organization in that sense.
  I hope people understand that when this proposal was made--and I 
respect the fact that these things can happen--no one came and asked me 
what I thought about whether or not we ought to name this building 
after one particular individual. Had I been asked about it prior to 
this decision to move forward with it--regardless of who had come 
forward with any particular name--I would have expressed the same 
reservation. This has nothing to do with my deep respect for Paul 
Coverdell. As the majority leader pointed out, I gave a heartfelt set 
of remarks at the time of his passing, so I feel somewhat awkward in 
even standing up and talking about this. But we have to be far more 
judicious, and careful not to race down and offer resolutions to put 
names on buildings in this community and elsewhere without thinking 
through what the implications are.
  For those who have served well, brought honor to institutions, to try 
to race ahead with one name over another does not serve this country 
well, does not serve its institutions well.
  I was asked to be the co-chairman of a bipartisan group last year to 
choose two Senators' portraits to be painted on two ovals outside this 
Chamber in the reception area. Slade Gorton from the State of 
Washington was the other member of this two-member commission. We made 
selections after deep discussions with the Senate historian and with 
other Members. In fact, I remember having a conversation with the 
distinguished former minority-majority leader, Senator Byrd of West 
Virginia, about his ideas.
  We went to our respective caucuses, shared these ideas, and, finally, 
after having vented the entire process, came to the Chamber with the 
suggestions of Senator Vandenberg and Senator Wagner of New York to be 
the two suggestions. But we went through the process even before we 
decided to put the portraits of the two Senators high up on the wall of 
the reception area.
  I would urge my colleagues, aside from this particular set of 
circumstances, that rather than trying to compete with one another as 
to whether or not we are going to have a Republican or a Democrat or 
some particular name on a building, that we slow down, think, and be 
more careful about how we proceed on these matters.
  That was the motivation, more than anything else, that caused me to 
object yesterday to this resolution going forward, the concerns I had 
about the naming process, in this particular resolution. So in no way 
does my lack of enthusiasm for this resolution, which is before us and 
which has just been adopted, suggest a criticism of Paul Coverdell's 
tenure at the Peace Corps. In fact, he was a very fine Director of the 
Peace Corps, who made a number of contributions to the organization, 
including the establishment, as we already heard, of the Worldwide 
Schools Program, and the dispatching of volunteers, for the first time, 
to Hungary and Poland.
  As I said, there were also 14 other Directors of the Peace Corps who 
made significant contributions. Paul was not the Peace Corps's first 
Director. As I mentioned, Sargent Shriver was the first Director, who 
gave the organization the kind of direction and definition it needed at 
the outset and during his entire tenure. Loret Ruppe, who I

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mentioned, holds the honor of having served as the longest Director of 
the Peace Corps, which was during the 8 years of the Reagan 
administration. I respected Paul Coverdell enormously. I worked closely 
with him on Peace Corps issues when he was the Director between 1989 
and 1991. I actually chaired his confirmation hearings before the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
  He and I continued to work together on Peace Corps matters when he 
joined the Senate in 1993, and served, as he did then, as the ranking 
member. I was then chairman of the subcommittee having jurisdiction 
over the Peace Corps. Whenever he would discuss any legislation related 
to the Peace Corps, the first thing Paul Coverdell would ask was, is it 
good for the Peace Corps? Is it going to create problems? Is it going 
to fracture the bipartisan consensus that has existed for 40 years with 
respect to this organization?
  Paul always put the interests of the organization, and particularly 
the volunteers, first. I believe we should do so as well. That is our 
responsibility, in my view.
  This year the Peace Corps will celebrate its 40th anniversary since 
being established by President Kennedy in 1961. The Peace Corps stands 
as a living embodiment of the well-remembered challenge that President 
Kennedy posed to all Americans more than four decades ago: It is not 
what your country can do for you but, rather, what you can do for your 
Nation.
  The Peace Corps was first established by Executive order during the 
early days of the Kennedy administration. Sargent Shriver was named as 
its first Director. Soon thereafter Congress enacted legislation to 
codify it into law.
  The legislation is quite simple. It set forth three goals for the 
organization: to help the people of interested nations in meeting their 
need for trained men and women, to help promote a better understanding 
of Americans on the part of peoples served, and to help promote a 
better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
  As the first Director of the Peace Corps, Sargent Shriver confronted 
the special challenge of transforming President Kennedy's challenge to 
America's young adults into an operation program that would meet the 
three goals established by this organization.
  During the 5 years of his tenure as Director, Sargent Shriver gave 
form to the dream of voluntary service. The 14 Directors who followed 
in his footsteps benefitted from the foundation that he had established 
for the organization. However, each succeeding Director, in his or her 
own way, has also made significant contributions, which has kept the 
Peace Corps strong and vibrant over these past 40 years.
  The heart and soul of the organization, however, is not the Directors 
of the Peace Corps, or the Peace Corps staff in Washington, or the 
buildings; it is the volunteers--past, present, and future.
  Over the past 40 years, more than 161,000 Americans, young and old, 
men and women, have given up at least 2 years of their lives in service 
to our Nation, and in far flung corners of the world. I was privileged, 
as I said at the outset of these remarks, to be one of those 
volunteers.
  Peace Corps volunteers have served in 130 nations, working to bring 
clean water to communities, teaching their children, helping start 
small businesses, and more recently joining in the international 
efforts to stop the spread of AIDS.
  Today, there are more than 7,000 volunteers serving in 76 nations, 
working to put a living face on America for those people in developing 
countries who might never otherwise have any contact with America or 
her values. Through the Peace Corps, the United States has shared its 
most valuable resource in the promotion of peace and development--its 
people. That is our greatest resource, and volunteers are the very 
embodiment of our best values.
  The men and women who have served and answered the call of the Peace 
Corps reflect the rich diversity of our Nation, but they have one thing 
in common; namely, a common spirit of service, of dedication, and of 
idealism. We should not let politics or partisan bickering ever in any 
way diminish that spirit. Let us continue to respect the unique nature 
of the Peace Corps and show deference to the tens of thousands of 
volunteers who have given their time to make the Peace Corps the 
internationally respected organization that it is today. It is more 
than one director. It is more than any one volunteer. In fact, the sum 
total of the Peace Corps is larger than all of its parts. That is why 
we should not try to embody the spirit of the organization by placing 
one of its elements above the others.
  For those reasons, I raised the objections and the reservations about 
this resolution. I withdrew those reservations in the spirit of 
cooperation, knowing it is important that the Peace Corps not be 
embroiled in this kind of battle.
  I hope in the future more patience will be demonstrated, more 
consultation involved, before we move ahead at the pace we did with 
this particular proposal. My respect and admiration to Paul and his 
family, to his wife, and to his staff and others who have worked with 
him over the years. Please understand that my objections raised here 
today, my reservations raised here today, have nothing whatsoever to do 
with my deep admiration for him, his work as Senator, or his work as 
Director of the Peace Corps during his 2 years of service.
  I thank my colleague from West Virginia and yield the floor.

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