[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 24 (Monday, June 19, 1995)]
[Pages 1049-1050]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Memorial Service for Les Aspin

June 13, 1995

    I would like to begin by thanking all the people who have spoken 
before. Each of them has given us a little slice of the incredible, 
complex, rich person that Les was. I think he would have liked this 
service. I think somewhere he's saying, ``Gee, I guess I did all 
right.''
    I always identified with Les Aspin. We were policy wonks. We 
sometimes worried more about our workload than our waistlines. And on 
occasion, we forgot that in this complicated world, how things appear 
are sometimes almost as important as how things are. But I will never 
forget that the essence of him was truly extraordinary. And I am in 
great debt to the contribution he made to my life and to the work of 
this administration.
    One of my favorite pictures that has been in the press since I've 
been in office is one of Les and I walking across the White House lawn. 
I had my arm around him, and we looked like we were deep in thought. You 
know, what I was really telling him is, ``You have to stop working so 
hard, lose some weight, loosen up.'' [Laughter] If the Presidency is 
preeminently a place of the power of persuasion, I failed on that 
occasion. [Laughter]
    A friend once described Les' idea of a vacation as thinking about 
defense in a different setting. [Laughter] Once when he did take a few 
days off, he sent a postcard home to his staff. On the front, there was 
a picture of a beach; on the back he had scribbled, ``Why are you 
wasting time reading postcards?''
    Those of us who had the privilege of being close to Les Aspin know 
that he was not only exceptionally brilliant, he was iconoclastic in the 
best sense. That was a great benefit now as we go through this period of 
transition from the cold war into a new and exciting but still troubling 
world.
    He was always questioning the conventional wisdom and always 
refusing to be bound by it. He was a good teacher. I learned a lot from 
him. I remember the first time I came to see him I was the Governor of 
my home State and not a candidate for President, a curious person. And 
when I left his office after our first talk, I was utterly exhausted. I 
thought I had finally found somebody with 4 times the energy I have.
    Through the years, I sought him out more and more. And in 1992, he, 
more than any other person, was responsible for the fact that in our 
campaign we determined that both parties would be strong on defense.
    Les Aspin did a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. 
He showed sophistication, and then he showed the lack of it. But, as has 
been said in different ways today, everyone who really knew him never 
doubted one thing, that his first and foremost concern was to do 
whatever would make this country stronger and safer and better. That is 
what he cared about above all else.
    As the cold war wound down, he played a critical role as chairman of 
the Armed Services Committee. But as my Secretary of Defense, he was 
finally able to put his remarkable knowledge and passion and vision for 
defense policy at work to reshape our forces to the demands of the 21st 
century. The blueprint he took the lead in drafting will guide us into 
that new world. It will guide us for decades to come. And all of us will 
be in his debt.
    After he left the Defense Department, we continued to talk, and I 
continued to be amazed by his incredible openness to service,

[[Page 1050]]

by his incredible passion for the issues with which we were all called 
upon to deal. And he answered the call to serve again as the head of our 
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a post that is not much known 
outside of Washington, but is of profound importance to the future of 
this country. Then he agreed to serve on the Armed Services Commission 
on Roles and Missions. He did all these things no matter what else was 
going on in his life, no matter what had happened to him, with 
incredible good humor and grace and passionate devotion.
    It has been said that true patriotism is not short, frenzied 
outbursts of emotion but the steady dedication of a lifetime. By that 
standard, Les Aspin was a true and remarkable patriot who made a 
dramatic positive difference to the United States and all the people who 
live there.
    We will miss him terribly, but, as you heard today, his legacy 
remains all around us in the streets of Beloit, Racine, Kenosha, 
throughout southeast Wisconsin--how he loves that place. It will be seen 
in the students and the graduates of Marquette University, in the men 
and women who wear our uniform around the world and do more good in 
conditions that are more safe and secure because of his labor.
    It also lives on, as we heard today so movingly, in the memories of 
those of us who were lucky enough to have known and loved him. He left 
each of us our own stock of Les Aspin stories, guaranteed to bring a 
smile to our faces and warmth to our hearts as long as we remain on this 
Earth.
    Well, Les is God's servant now. And finally, finally, he is with 
someone with sufficient energy to keep up. [Laughter]

Note: The President spoke at 3:18 p.m. at St. John's Church.