April 30, 1980
Page 9386
EDMUND S. MUSKIE, NOMINEE, SECRETARY OF STATE
Mr. MATHIAS. Mr. President, the U.S. Senate, under our Constitution shares with the President of the United States the responsibility for formulating our foreign policy. A man who has sat as a Member of this body for 22 years has necessarily participated in many foreign policy debates, has cast many votes on foreign policy questions, and has made many foreign policy decisions.
A man who has sat on the Foreign Relations Committee for more than a quarter of his 22 years in the Senate has received a basic education in foreign policy which certainly prepares him in all the fundamentals of the job of Secretary of State. Such a man has deliberated the great issues of our times and has searched his conscience for solutions.
When we add to that experience his executive experience as Governor of a great State, Governor of the State of Maine, then it is clear that EDMUND S. MUSKIE has the potential to be a great Secretary of State.
In turning to the U.S. Senate to find a replacement for Secretary of State Vance, the President has acted wisely. In choosing Senator MUSKIE for that critical assignment at this critical time, he has acted with rare inspiration.
The circumstances of Cyrus Vance's departure from the councils of state dictated that his replacement be a person of exceptional moral and intellectual stature.
Senator MUSKIE is such a man. Yesterday, shortly after the President announced this appointment, I heard a wave of sustained applause in the hall outside my office. It was not the kind of applause you hear after someone has made a good speech — applause that has a beginning and an end. This applause just kept on going, getting bigger and bigger.
Instinctively I knew that ED MUSKIE was across the hall.
When I went over to congratulate him, I could read delight and relief in the expressions on the faces of all who crowded around him. I think that was the universal reaction when ED MUSKIE was nominated Secretary of State. We breathed a great national sigh of relief.
Although we might wish that our distinguished colleague could be Secretary of State in a less troubled time, we could not wish for a Secretary of State better equipped by experience and by temperament to "take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing end them."
I look forward to working with ED MUSKIE in the momentous task that lies before us: the task of formulating the strategic foreign policy that the future demands of a great nation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further morning business?
THE NOMINATION OF SENATOR MUSKIE TO BE SECRETARY OF STATE
Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it is with great sincerity that I look upon the nomination of our colleague, ED MUSKIE, as Secretary of State. In my time here, my brief time of 5 months, I have come to serve with him on the Committee on Environment and Public Works. He has taught me much. He is fair and he is tough. That is the kind of person we need in that job at this time in our Nation's history.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further morning business?
Mr. PRYOR addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I want to share this morning in the comments made yesterday and those comments made today about our colleague, Senator ED MUSKIE. I do not know of a better appointment that the President could have made under these circumstances. Senator MUSKIE is certainly one of the giants of the U.S. Senate. He is a man of deep compassion. In addition to that, he is a man who has the necessary toughness and all of the other qualifications that are going to be required today to be in that particular role at this particular time, at this moment in the history of our country. I commend the President for the appointment of Senator MUSKIE and I congratulate Senator MUSKIE and extend to him my full support in his new role and his new capacity.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I join with my other colleagues who have commended the President for his appointment of Senator MUSKIE of Maine to be the new Secretary of State. It has been my privilege to know Senator MUSKIE from my younger years, having been his next-door neighbor when I was a high school student. I can say that, in all of that time of having known him, my respect for him has grown with each passing year.
He has been a personal inspiration to me ever since I first made his acquaintance because of his sincere commitment to this country and his desire to be a public servant in the highest sense of the word. It has been a great privilege to have had this brief opportunity to serve with him as a Member of the U.S. Senate.
Again, as Senator PRYOR and others have just indicated, time and time again, he has demonstrated that he has the courage to make decisions that are difficult, but to make those decisions that he feels are in the best interests of the Nation. The President has exercised great good judgment and the country is certainly well served by the nomination of Senator EDMUND MUSKIE to be Secretary of State.
Mr. EXON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, many of my colleagues have spoken on the floor, and I agree with everything they have said, with regard to the President's choice for Secretary of State. I have had the pleasure of knowing Senator ED MUSKIE for a long, long time. Not only was he a distinguished Governor of his home State of Maine, but since he has come to the U.S. Senate, he has certainly written a record that we are all tremendously proud of.
I had the pleasure of serving on the Committee on the Budget, where Senator MUSKIE has been the chairman since the beginning of that committee. He has the high respect of all the members of the Budget Committee. I have talked to most of the members on both sides of the aisle of the Committee on Foreign Relations. I have talked to others in this body and in the House of Representatives. I have yet to hear any discouraging word with regard to the President's selection of our distinguished colleague, Senator ED MUSKIE of Maine. I join with others and add my voice to wishing him well in what I am sure will be a very successful career as Secretary of State for these United States.
I thank the Chair.