[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Page 9300]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO DR. JAMES BILLINGTON

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I admire and appreciate very much my friend 
the Republican leader mentioning Dr. James Billington, a friend of 
mine.
  I had a wonderful conversation with Dr. Billington yesterday. I wrote 
him a nice letter talking about what we have done together over these 
past three decades.
  It seems only yesterday that I was chairman of the Legislative Branch 
Appropriations Subcommittee and a new Senator here. One of the first 
attacks we got from Republicans at that time was to whack the Library 
of Congress. They even went after the magazines that were produced in 
braille. I can remember the debate we had about Playboy magazine. I 
don't know what they were trying to eliminate, but they tried. I don't 
know what they could do with the braille in a Playboy magazine. But we 
were able to turn that back.
  I so appreciate this good man and what he has done. His academic 
record is terrific. As a person, he is the best. We have traveled parts 
of the world with him, together with Mark Hatfield, a Republican, who 
was one of the Republican leaders of the Senate, and I was a junior 
Senator at the time. We had a great trip. Prior to coming to the 
Library of Congress, Jim Billington was the acting leader of our 
country on the Soviet Union. He is a wonderful man, and I ask that my 
remarks indicate that I agree with every word the Republican leader 
said about Jim Billington.

                          ____________________