[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13532-13533]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO RICHARD F. GRIMMETT

  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the extraordinary 
career achievements of Richard F. Grimmett, specialist in international 
security with the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the 
Congressional Research Service, who is retiring on September 30, after 
38 years of distinguished government service. A native of Akron, OH, 
Richard graduated with honors from Kent State University, where he also 
received a Ph.D. in American history with a focus on recent U.S. 
national security policy.
  Since 1974, when he joined CRS, Richard has been involved in a wide 
range of major international security policy issues that have 
confronted the Congress, from questions involving intelligence 
community oversight, war powers, and the basing and use of U.S. 
military forces overseas, to the international arms trade and arms 
export controls. Through his nearly four decades as a staff adviser to 
the Congress and several of its major committees, his various 
appearances as a committee witness, and through his authoring of 
numerous in-depth CRS reports, Richard has become recognized as a 
national expert in these critical defense and foreign policy issues.
  The broad sweep of his intellect is reflected in the substantive 
reports and memoranda he has written for the Congress. Yet an 
especially significant part of his contributions to congressional 
policy debates has been through the numerous consultations and 
briefings he has provided to major committees of the Senate and House 
on key issues before them. At the beginning of his career at CRS, 
Richard provided direct support to major congressional investigations 
of events of great consequence for U.S. national security interests. 
Among these were his analytical support for the Senate and House Select 
Intelligence Committees--the panels chaired by Senator Frank Church and 
Representative Otis Pike--charged with investigating the activities of 
the U.S. intelligence community during 1975 to 1976, investigations 
that ultimately led to the creation of permanent select committees in 
the House and Senate that oversee the budget and activities of the U.S. 
intelligence community today. Later, in 1985 to 1987, Richard was a 
senior coordinator of the support provided by CRS to the House and 
Senate joint committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair, personally 
providing advice and suggestions that focused attention on key 
deficiencies in U.S. law, several of which were later corrected by 
legislative enactment. Immediately after the attacks on the United 
States on September 11, 2001, he directly assisted the Senate and the 
House in clarifying its understanding of the legislative options 
available to the Congress to respond, through use of force, against 
those responsible for the attacks on this country. His comprehensive 
understanding of the War Powers Resolution and its provisions have 
proven invaluable to the Congress when it has needed to consider what 
actions it might take when the President has engaged the U.S. military 
in hostile operations overseas. In 2005 Richard provided the Congress 
with an analytical roadmap that highlighted the common policy 
suggestions for legislation that the 9/11 Commission and previous 
similar inquiries had made to bolster U.S. internal security against 
the threat of terrorism. Subsequently, several of these proposals were 
enacted into law.
  Throughout his career Richard has been the leading specialist at CRS 
on issues relating to U.S. arms sales to foreign nations, U.S. arms 
export control law, and the international arms trade in general. From 
the mid-1970s to the present, he has advised the Congress and its 
policy committees on issues associated with every controversial foreign 
arms sale proposal that has come before them. Since 1982 he has 
produced a comprehensive annual report for the Congress detailing the 
agreements and deliveries concluded by the world's conventional weapons 
suppliers, a work that has set the gold standard on this subject. 
Richard was also the editor and coauthor of the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee print ``Treaties and Other International 
Agreements: The Role of the United States Senate'' the definitive 
reference document on this subject.
  In the area of arms export control and oversight legislation, Richard 
has provided continuing expert support and advice to the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, from the 
original drafting of the Arms Export Control Act in 1976 through its 
various periods of amendment to the present day. More recently, he 
directly supported the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's exhaustive 
review of the Defense Trade

[[Page 13533]]

Cooperation Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom. In 
this endeavor, Richard provided his specialized expertise to the 
committee on the complex issues posed by this treaty, from its proposal 
by the President in 2007 through the Committee's consideration and the 
Senate's advice and consent to it in September 2010.
  In all of the examples I have noted, Richard Grimmett's institutional 
memory and command of the substance of the issues for which he has been 
responsible has made him an invaluable resource for the U.S. Congress 
at large and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in particular. I am 
confident that the Members of the Senate and the House join me in 
expressing our deepest appreciation to Richard for the extraordinary 
service he has provided to us over his long and distinguished career.

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