Daniel Moynihan

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. The Family Support Act, 1 year.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. No, none, zero. Higher payments are not hard to explain. States with higher per capita income have higher per capita benefits. They just have higher everything, including higher cost of living. If you adjust for cost of living, New York State has the sixth highest poverty rate in the Nation, but you would not know it from our numbers of dollars.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I first thank the distinguished majority leader, the Republican leader, for the tone and the openness with which he begins once again a welfare debate. We did this 7 years ago with the Family Support Act of 1988. I had introduced it a year earlier. It was a bipartisan measure. It passed the Senate 96-1. President Reagan signed it in the company of the Governors who had been so much involved, then chairman of the association, Governor Clinton of Arkansas; the chairman of the committee of the Governors' Association concerned with this matter; then-Governor Castle of Delaware, now Representative Castle. I regret that the time now has seemingly come when we will be asked to put an end to the Federal commitment to sharing State efforts to provide for the dependent children. They are a massive number. They overwhelm the capacity of our great cities. Would the Senator from Kansas believe, for example, that in the city of Los Angeles, 62 percent of all children are on AFDC, in Chicago 44 percent, in New York 28 percent, and in Detroit 79 percent? This is beyond--this is a social experience which we have had, of which there is no counterpart. We put in place legislation in 1988, which has been working. States have been innovating. The results are beginning to appear. I will have a bill which is offered in the Finance Committee, the Family Support Act of 1995, bringing it up to date as I believe we should. The distinguished Democratic leader, with Senator Mikulski and Senator Breaux, will have measures. We will have amendments. We will have a good debate. It need not be an endless debate. I hope the outcome will be better than is now forecast. And we will see. Mr. President, I thank the Senate for giving me this time late in the day. I look forward to 10:30 on Monday morning when we will commence. I yield the floor.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I want to record my considerable concerns about this appropriations bill. The amount appropriated for Treasury is inadequate, specifically as it regards IRS enforcement efforts. The amount appropriated by the Senate for enforcement represents a decrease of $705 million from the amount appropriated last year. This is even lower than the amount appropriated for enforcement by our colleagues in the House. Over half of the decrease in enforcement funds is attributable to the IRS Taxpayer Compliance Initiative that was first established last year. The Compliance Initiative funds should be made available now, to enable the IRS to realize the full benefits of its recent technological improvements. Specific enforcement efforts that will be jeopardized if these funds are not forthcoming include the collection of $30 billion in delinquent accounts; increased audit coverage; improved information reporting by Federal employees; and improved enforcement of international tax provisions including the transfer pricing laws. Thanks to prior appropriations for the Tax Systems Modernization Program, the IRS has improved its technology to the point that it is within reach of benefiting from that significant investment of taxpayer dollars. Denying funds for the Compliance Initiative means turning our backs on what the IRS estimates is $9.2 billion, over 5 years, that would come, not from any tax increase, but from collecting taxes that are owed but are presently going unpaid. Very simply, providing the IRS with adequate funding for their Compliance Initiative would reduce the deficit, without a tax increase. We know that these expenditures would yield increased revenues in excess of the amount spent. The IRS estimates that the return on these expenditures would approach $5 for every $1 spent. Viewing the appropriation of funds for this purpose as the same as all other spending is shortsighted. Commending the providence atf and urging adequate staffing levels

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise in recognition of my summer intern staff. These fine young men and women volunteered their time and energy this summer, and did a most outstanding job. Mr. President, in recognition of a job well done, I ask that a list of their names be printed in the Record: The list follows: Daniel Anziska, Matthew Cross, Cheryl Glickler, Stacey Goldberg, Jessica Lappin, Michael McGinn, Jim Papa, Daniel Preister, Elizabeth Ross, Jeffrey Rotenberg, Jessica Ruthizer, Peter Sims, Rina Schiff, and Zachery Stillerman.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I am introducing a bill today to eliminate a serious tax impediment to venture capital investments. It would treat the investment expenses of individuals investing in partnerships the same for alternative minimum tax [AMT] purposes as they are currently treated for regular tax purposes. No longer would individuals who are subject to the AMT and invest in venture capital funds set up as partnerships face taxation on their gross earnings, rather than their net income after deduction of expenses. This provision was included in the Tax Fairness and Economic Growth Act of 1992, H.R. 11, legislation that was passed by Congress but vetoed for reasons unrelated to this issue. Under current law, most investors are permitted to deduct the expenses of earning investment income so that they pay tax on the net income from an investment. Individual taxpayers not subject to the AMT are permitted to deduct investment expenses against investment income, to the extent that expenses exceed 2 percent of the taxpayer's adjusted gross income. Further, individuals who invest through mutual funds effectively get a deduction for all investment expenses without regard to the 2 percent floor applicable to direct investment. Corporate taxpayers are also entitled to a tax deduction for all investment expenses. In contrast to the general rule, the AMT as it applies to individuals denies them a deduction for any investment expenses, despite the fact that such expenses are legitimate costs of earning investment income. Denying the deduction for investment expenses is especially harsh when applied to individual partners in a venture capital partnership, because all of the partnership's expenses--for example, salaries, rent, legal and accounting services, and the costs of investigating and managing investment opportunities--are considered investment expenses that cannot be deducted under the AMT. The goal of the AMT is to properly measure a taxpayer's income, so that the tax is paid on economic income. There is no policy justification for preventing the deduction of legitimate expenses of earning investment income. The bill that I am introducing today would address the undesirable AMT policy in current law by treating individuals investing in partnerships and subject to the AMT the same as individuals under the regular income tax. Partners would be allowed to deduct partnership investment expenses against their partnership investment income, subject to the same 2 percent floor applied to other individual investors under the regular income tax. These proposed tax changes should increase the flow of funds to partnerships investing in new businesses by eliminating a substantial tax barrier that currently exists. The vast majority of venture capital funds are organized as partnerships. Further, this proposed legislation should improve the efficiency of capital markets by bringing the AMT rules for partnership investments into conformity with those applicable under the regular income tax rules, and closer to those applicable to investors in mutual funds. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be placed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today, on my own behalf and on behalf of Senators Roth, Murray, Baucus, D'Amato, Grassley, Breaux, Hatch, and Pryor, to introduce legislation that will reinstate and make permanent the tax exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance under section 127 of the Internal Revenue Code. This bill ensures that employees will be able to continue to receive up to $5,250 annually in tuition reimbursements or similar educational benefits from their employers on a tax-free basis. First enacted in 1978, section 127 has enabled over 7 million working men and women to advance their education and improve their job skills, without incurring additional income tax liabilities and a reduction in take-home pay. Without this provision, an employee would owe taxes on the value of any educational benefits provided by an employer that do not directly relate to his or her current job. For example, a clerical worker pursuing a college diploma who earns $21,000 annually, and who receives tuition reimbursement for two semesters of night courses-- worth approximately $4,000--would owe additional Federal income and payroll taxes of $1,200 on this educational assistance. The effects are even more severe if he or she lives in a State that uses the Federal definition of income for State tax purposes. It is shortsighted to impose such a tax burden on employees seeking to further their education. For many low- and moderate-income employees, this cut in take-home pay is simply prohibitive, preventing them from enrolling in courses that would upgrade their job skills and improve their future career prospects. Without this investment in our employees' education, the ability of our work force to compete in the global economy erodes. By removing the requirement that educational assistance be job related in order to be tax-free, section 127 eliminates a tax burden on workers seeking to further their education and improve their career prospects. Moreover, section 127 removes a tax bias against lesser-skilled workers. The tax bias arises because lesser-skilled workers have greater difficulty proving educational expenses are directly related to their current jobs due to their narrower job descriptions. Therefore, absent section 127, such lesser-skilled workers are more likely to owe taxes on employer-provided educational benefits than are higher- skilled, more senior workers. Congress has never quite found sufficient revenue to enact section 127 on a permanent basis, opting instead for temporary exclusions. Since 1978, there have been 7 extensions of this provision. Most recently, the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993 provided for an extension of section 127 through December 31, 1994. The exclusion has once again expired. I hope that Congress will recognize the importance of this provision, and [[Page S 10969]] enact it permanently. Temporary extensions create great practical difficulties for the intended beneficiaries. Employees cannot plan sensibly for their educational goals, not knowing the extent to which accepting educational assistance may reduce their take-home pay. As for employers, the fits and starts of the legislative history of section 127 have been a serious administrative nuisance. If section 127 is in force, then there is no need to withhold taxes on educational benefits provided; if not, the job-relatedness of the educational assistance must be ascertained, a value assigned, and withholding adjusted accordingly. Uncertainty about the program's continuance magnifies this burden, and discourages employers from providing educational benefits. The legislation that I introduce today would restore certainty to section 127 by extending it retroactively, to the beginning of this year, and then maintaining it on a permanent basis. Mr. President, my previous efforts to extend this provision have enjoyed wide, bipartisan support. Encouraging workers to further their education and to improve their job skills is an important national priority, crucial for preserving our competitive position in the global economy. Permitting employees to receive educational assistance on a tax-free basis, without incurring significant cuts in take-home pay, is a demonstrated, cost-effective means for achieving these objectives. Employee educational assistance is not an extravagant, free benefit for highly paid executives. It largely benefits low- and moderate- income employees seeking access to higher education and further job training. A survey undertaken by Coopers & Lybrand indicated that over 70 percent of recipients of section 127 benefits in 1986 earned less than $30,000. In fact, lower-income employees are more likely to participate in educational assistance programs than those at the higher end of the income scale. Employees making less than $30,000 participate at a much higher rate than those making above that income, and participation rates decline as salary levels increase. Moreover, employees making less than $15,000 participate at almost twice the rate of those who earn over $50,000. Further, section 127 makes an important contribution to simplicity in the Tax Code. Without it, employers and the IRS would be required to determine, on a case-by-case basis, which employer-provided educational benefits are sufficiently related to the job to avoid treatment as taxable income. Today, American workers are the most productive in the industrialized and developing world. Yet pressures from international competition and the pace of technological changes require continual adjustment by our work force. Retraining will thus be necessary to maintain and strengthen American industry's competitive position in the global economy. Section 127 permits employees to adapt and retrain without incurring additional tax liabilities and a reduction in take-home pay. By removing the tax burden from workers seeking retraining, section 127 enables employees displaced by foreign competition or technological change to learn new job skills. Finally, section 127 has also helped to improve the quality of America's public education system, at a fraction of the cost of direct- aid programs. It has enabled thousands of public schoolteachers to obtain advanced degrees, augmenting the quality of instruction in our schools. A survey by the National Education Association a few years ago found that almost half of all American public school systems provide tuition assistance to teachers seeking advanced training and degrees. The Tax Code should not impose obstacles to this kind of shared effort toward improvement. This legislation, by making section 127 permanent, will ensure that it does not. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I rise for the simple purpose of clarifying, to the degree that I am able, a point of law, a point of international practice, an American principle which is at issue in the first two amendments that we are going to consider. And I thank my friends from Virginia and Connecticut for allowing me this time. A very brief proposition, sir, but a long history behind it: Article 24 of the charter, drafted in a time of great expectations for post- world war that did not come to pass, states that, In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council act on their behalf. Sir, this was at a time when we anticipated that the Security Council would have available to it armed forces from various member countries. The Senate provided that the President could make available specific military units--the 6th Fleet, the 1st Marine Division. If once we had agreed in the Senate and in the Congress to do this, he could thereafter deploy them at will. However, it was stated, and it was a matter of great concern in our delegation in San Francisco--Senator Vandenberg was most particularly concerned--that the powers of the Security Council would not interfere with the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense, which was the basic law of nations. Senator Vandenberg said that, if this was not provided in the charter explicitly, a reservation would be offered on this floor, and he would support it, and, in the end, it was agreed to. Then Republican adviser John Foster Dulles, was not that enthusiastic, but after much debate by the delegation it became the position of the United States that it had to be included in the charter. Now, sir, here is the simple point, and I hope I can be heard on this. I speak as someone who was Permanent Representative to the United Nations under President Ford. I speak as someone who once served as the President of the Security Council. If we adopt the two amendments before us, we concede that in the one instance, the Security Council, in the other, the General Assembly, has the right to deny the inherent right of individual or collective self- defense. If they have to vote to agree to the exercise of that right, then it is not a right itself; it is simply an authority that can be conferred by a higher body; to wit, the Security Council or the General Assembly. I say once again, sir, this is an article of great concern to us. The Treaty of Chapultepec, the Western Hemisphere defense system, the Monroe Doctrine--all of those things were agreements which we were concerned might be limited by the charter, putting into question the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense. If we ever concede, for whatever transient purposes of this moment, that the Security Council has the right to confer what becomes simply a privilege, not a right, or the General Assembly has the right to confer what becomes now a privilege, not a right, then we are in grossest ignorance and avoidance of the history of the charter and the text of the charter. Mr. President, I hope we do not make this mistake. It would be something that 50 years ago on this floor would have been clearly understood. And we have not dealt with these issues much in the last half century. We may have become forgetful, although the revered former chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations would remember. He was there. I point out, sir, that the right of individual or collective self- defense is inherent. That is the language of the charter. The charter is simply a codification of rights. The right to self-defense being an inherent right, we cannot ever concede to the Security Council or to the General Assembly some authority to confer-- let the right become operational, or however you like to say it--that right. It ceases at that point to be a right. It becomes a privilege to be conferred or denied. I thank the Chair most specifically for his kindness and attention. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a memorandum of law be printed in the Record.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I would only say the same thing over and over again. The right of self-defense--individual, collective--is inherent and in no way depends on the approval of the Security Council or the General Assembly or any other international body.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. It is.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. NATO will have been engaged in its first military action in almost 50 years and it will have been defeated. Just at that moment when it seemed to have triumphed by virtue of its capacity and presence in the face of the Soviet Union, it will have in fact gone to war and will have been defeated. And we will have put it in that situation. The aftermath will be demoralization, domestic protest, a sense of ``what are we doing?'' And curiously, at just the moment you see some sense of the complex issues involved. I note that the situation is at such a critical level in Bosnia that the Jewish community in Germany asked that German forces be committed to this issue. It is genocide. And you put not just at risk the whole situation in the Islamic world. It is an idea that I do not want to insist too much on, but not everyone would know, I suppose, that until recently the third largest nuclear power in the world was Kazakhstan. We put that at risk. In Turkey, the civil government of Istanbul and of the other major cities, including the capital, is an Islamic fundamentalist party, known as the Welfare Party, that being a translation into English as such. Turkey joined with nations with which it normally has no relationship at that meeting which you related. We could see NATO come apart along ethnic religious lines. We could see its moral collapse and its domestic support disappear because we will have allowed it to be defeated by deploying forces never envisioned by the U.N. Charter. The U.N. Charter specifically calls for military forces to be made available to the United Nations through the military staff committee. Statutes enacted on this floor provide that the President of the United States can reach an agreement to provide soldiers to the U.N. Security Council. And the Congress having approved of this, the President may deploy them thereafter without further reference to Congress. That was a system of collective security envisioned by the charter. At no time were peacekeeping forces envisioned. Deploying peacekeeping troops was well intentioned, but a good invention in a situation where there was peace, not in the present situation.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I rise in support of the measure, of which I am a cosponsor, for the purpose, within the limit of my ability, of clarifying some of the issues that have been raised in this debate. Specific consideration must be given to the role of the United Nations, as against that of NATO, and with regard to the right of individual and collective self defense. These are three cascades, you might say, of rank from the collective to the regional to the individual state. I am very conscious that I am standing on the Senate floor in the presence of our revered former chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, who was at the U.N. conference in San Francisco where the Charter was drafted, the anniversary of which was observed just 1 month ago. He knows this subject as few persons living ever can do. I would plead the lesser but not perhaps the irrelevant credentials of having been the permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations and of having served in one period as President of the Security Council. I would first of all go to the subject of whether this action would Americanize the war. Anyone who was in San Francisco last month, certainly much less 50 years ago, would know that the U.N. Charter had as its fundamental purpose a system of collective security in which the United States and the other permanent members of the Security Council would automatically be involved in any international conflict anywhere in the world as would the United Nations itself. Article 24 of the Charter states: In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility, the Security Council acts on their behalf. Now, the point I would wish to make here is that what we are seeing in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the whole Balkan region right now is not an action by the Security Council under article 24 concerning the taking of prompt and effective action ``for the maintenance of international peace and security.'' It is another thing altogether. It is an invention, an important one, that came in the course of the 1948 Middle East conflict in which U.N. volunteers acted as peacekeepers in a situation where there was peace. There is not peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And it was, as all agree now, an incomparable blunder to have sent peacekeepers into the middle of a war. The Charter provides for warmaking capacity in the United Nations. We tend to forget it. Article 45 says: In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action. It goes on to provide, under article 46, for military planning by the Security Council to be conducted with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee. It goes on in article 47 to describe the functions of the Military Staff Committee with respect to the forces made available to it. This Congress, the Senate, in 1945, passed legislation stating that the President was authorized to make available forces to the United Nations under article 45. He was to propose which forces might be made available. The Congress was to agree to the particulars--for instance, the 10th Mountain, the First Marine Division, the Sixth Fleet might be authorized to participate. And Congress having agreed, the President was thereafter free to deploy those forces under U.N. direction at his own behest without further reference to the Congress. That was the depth of our conviction and commitment to assist in collective security. We do know that the whole arrangement vanished in the cold war. When I was at the United Nations amidst the cold war our representative on the Military Staff Committee was a colonel. They originally had been admirals. After it became clear that the Soviets were not going to cooperate--they did not--little by little this idea faded. But now the cold war is over, and the first test is before us. And if we meet it, fine. If we do not, we shall find ourselves asking what did we go through the last three-quarters of a century for? What has been accomplished since the time Woodrow Wilson brought the League of Nations Covenant back to this body? Mr. President, at the San Francisco Conference, there was a specific and revealing difficulty. Members of the U.S. delegation were opposed to including language on the right of self-defense in the charter for fear that such a provision might be used to limit the right of self- defense. Somewhat the same issue arose with respect to the American Constitution and the adoption of the Bill of Rights. There were those who argued that if you ever list any specific number of rights about which Congress may make no law, if you leave one out, you may indicate that possibly you could make a law with respect to that right. Wiser counsel prevailed, and we have the Bill of Rights, and wiser counsel prevailed in San Francisco. On May 15, 1945, James Reston described the breakthrough. He said: San Francisco, May 15.--President Truman broke the deadlock today between the Big Five and the Latin American nations over the relations between the American and the world security systems. After over a week of negotiating, during which American foreign policy was being made and remade by a bi-partisan conference delegation, the President gave to the Latin American nations the reassurance which they wanted before accepting supremacy of the World Security Council--World Security Council it then was--in dealing with disputes in the Western Hemisphere. This assurance was announced late tonight by Secretary Stettinius, who said that an amendment to the Dumbarton Oaks proposal would be proposed reading substantially as follows: Mr. Reston was not only a great journalist. He had a great friend on the Chinese delegation, that we now know, and he quotes: Nothing in this charter impairs the inherent right of self- defense, either individual, or collective, in the event that the Security Council does not maintain international peace and security and an armed attack against a member State occurs. That with very slight changes became article 51 of the charter. And that, sir, is exactly the situation which we confront today. The Security Council has not carried out its responsibility to maintain international peace and security under article 24. An ambiguous and in the end unavailing deployment of NATO and other forces as peacekeepers where there is no peace has clearly broken down. A year ago, I was speaking on this subject on this floor, and I said what the UNPROFOR had become at that time. I said: But if we are to refrain from helping the Bosnians out of concern for their welfare, let us be candid and call the members of UNPROFOR what they have become: hostages. I have visited some of the UNPROFOR forces and found them to be courageous to a fault, incredibly self-sacrificing, honorable, everything you would want in military men: but hostages even so. Now, the question is what if we move to lift this arms embargo which I regard as an illegal sanction. It was never directly imposed on Bosnia and Herzegovina. How could it be? They have committed no act of aggression. They have violated no international law. People say, ``Well, what about Iran? What about Iraq? What about Libya?'' The answer, Mr. President, is very simple. In each case, those sanctions apply to a country which is in violation of international law--invaded a neighboring country, committed international acts of terrorism. In no sense is there a comparable situation. To make such an argument is to equate the victim with the victimizer in this situation. The U.N. forces are not capable of carrying out the assignment given them, nor are the forces from other countries involved. I was in Sarajevo in Thanksgiving of 1992. I made my way into the capital through a hail of small arms fire and heavy machine gun fire in a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier, was then transferred to an Egyptian armored personnel carrier to meet with President Izetbegovic and dined at the ceremonial mess with a British officer formerly with the Gurkha Regiment. That is the international setting in Bosnia, the urge to collective security, [[Page S 10620]] but they cannot defend themselves. They cannot make peace. And they are sent as peacekeepers where there is no peace. In this situation, sir, could I suggest that one of our problems as a nation is that we have never fully understood the role of ethnicity, of religion, of nationalism in this second half of the 20th century where it seemed that the great issue was the impending Armageddon of an encounter between the Soviet Union and its Marxist-Leninist creed and the western, liberal, Democratic, free enterprise world. Yes, there was that. Heaven knows, there was that. It ended up with the Soviet Regime collapsing under ethnic pressures--not that we ever foresaw it but it could have been foreseen. Some of us who have worked in this field predicted it, wrote about it, but were not heard. Now because the Soviet Union is over, there is the impression such tension is over. To the contrary. To the contrary, we invite, by the actions we now take, a conviction in the Islamic world that we will not defend Muslims horribly violated by Christian forces from a neighboring country and living also within their own country. Even as this London conference was meeting this weekend, Islamic nations met to ask what were they to understand the world was saying about an Islamic State, the victim of aggression. Were they saying it would not be defended and it would not be given the inherent right of self-defense? Turkey, a NATO member was at that conference. The possibility of these events leading to a general encounter between Islamic forces in Europe and in the region just beyond in Asia Minor is not to be discounted, sir. The possibility of it spreading across the vast Islamic areas of the former Soviet Union is not to be discounted. Those who discount it could well ask, how did we get into this situation we are now in? It has been made clear this is a situation that this present administration inherited from its predecessor. But in both cases, they have acted in the same way, declining to seek an elemental legal principle and, if you wish, a moral imperative as well. It seems to me that we should recognize the standards we brought to the world. That conference took place in San Francisco. The announcement of the agreement that produced what would become article 51, was made by the American Secretary of State, Mr. Stettinius. These are our standards. If we will not uphold them, we will have hugely diminished our position in the world, and the world will become a vastly more dangerous place. I simply would like to express my appreciation to the Republican leader for having seen this from the beginning. I thank him particularly for showing me a letter sent just this day to him and to his distinguished cosponsor, the Honorable Joseph Lieberman, from the Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I will read a few sentences, Mr. President, if we cannot hear these things, we are not equipped for this time. The Prime Minister notes that: Yesterday, a Bangladeshi UNPROFOR battalion in Bihac requested airstrikes to deter and stop the Serb attacks on Bihac. The Bangladeshi request was ignored. I asked myself if this same request would be ignored if it were requested by a British battalion. ``I asked myself if this request would be ignored if it were requested by a British battalion.'' Mr. President, it is all there to see. People who cannot see that ought to stay away from this work. We have heard not very helpful comments from the Secretary General about such matters. But this ethnic dimension is not local; it is not Balkan; it is worldwide. And if we cannot act in response to its potential for worldwide crisis, we shall one day wonder how could we have been so blind.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I will be happy to.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I absolutely agree.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I will put it this way: It would not be the intention of anybody involved. But the perception might be very different, sir. We put NATO in jeopardy by letting it assist in a mission at which it cannot succeed.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise simply for the purpose of expressing the appreciation of this Senator--and I think I can speak for the Joint Committee on the Library--that the proposal pending by the distinguished senior Senator from South Carolina will not affect the Library of Congress. It has taken very severe budget cuts and budget freezes over the years. Its world function, its national role, and its indispensable service to the U.S. Congress would be in jeopardy were more to take place. Our distinguished Librarian, Dr. James Billington, has made this clear in forceful, in cogent, and in concise terms. His argument has clearly prevailed. I want to express my appreciation to the Senator for this purpose, and to state just incidentally my agreement--I am sure most of us will also agree that the Office of Technology Assessment has an important role. It has been here a quarter century. It was established for a role and it ought to continue. I simply want to make those comments. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, after 6 years of unjust detention by the Burmese military, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is free. While this is cause for celebration and great relief from those of us who have long called for her release, one cannot fail to stress that there is also great outrage that she was incarcerated in the first instance. The State Law and Order Restoration Council [SLORC], the military Junta in Burma, has sought to thwart democracy at every turn. Led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy [NLD] party won a democratic election in 1990, while she was under house arrest, yet the SLORC has never allowed the elected leaders of Burma to take office. Instead they have forced these leaders to flee their country to escape arrest and death. The United States Senate has often spoken in support of those brave Burmese democracy leaders. We have withheld aid and weapons to the military regime, and have provided some, albeit modest amounts, of assistance to the Burmese refugees who have fled the ruthless SLORC. Pro-democracy demonstrators were particularly vulnerable, yet having fled the country they found themselves denied political asylum by Western governments. In 1989, Senator Kennedy and I rose in support of the demonstrators and won passage of an amendment to the Immigration Act of 1990 requiring the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to clearly define the immigration policy of the United States toward Burmese pro-democracy demonstrators. Congress acted again on the Customs and Trade Act of 1990 to adopt a provision I introduced requiring the President to impose appropriate economic sanctions on Burma. The Bush administration utilized this provision to sanction Burmese textiles. Unfortunately these powers have never been exercised by the current administration. The SLORC regime had to be denounced. The Senate continued to press for stronger actions. On March 12, 1992, the Foreign Relations Committee unanimously voted to adopt a report submitted by myself and Senator McConnell detailing specific actions that should be taken before the nomination of a United States Ambassador to Burma would be considered in the Senate. Last year the State Department Authorization Act for 1994-95 contained a provision I introduced placing Burma on the list of international outlaw states such as Libya, North Korea, and Iraq, an indication that the United States Congress considers the SLORC regime to be one of the very worst in the world. The Senate also unanimously adopted S. 234 on July 15, 1994, calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and for increased international pressure on the SLORC to achieve the transfer of power to the winners of the 1990 democratic election. Thankfully, Aung San Suu Kyi has now been released. But the struggle in Burma is not over. The SLORC continues to wage war against its own people. Illegal heroin continues to be produced with their complicity. And the SLORC continues to thwart the transfer to democracy in Burma. The New York Times concludes appropriately: The end of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's detention must be followed by other steps toward democracy before Myanmar is deemed eligible for loans from multilateral institutions or closer ties with the United States. It is too soon to welcome Yangon back into the democratic community. We in the Senate must rededicate ourselves to the strong support of those in Burma working to overcome this tyranny. I congratulate Aung San Suu Kyi on her extraordinary bravery and determination, and celebrate with her family the news of her release. I ask that the July 13, 1995, editorial be printed in the Record. The editorial follows: [The New York Times, July 13, 1995] New Hope for Burmese Democracy The release of the political prisoner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, is good news. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, had been under house arrest for nearly six years. The next test for the regime, which changed the name of the country from Burma to Myanmar, will be to follow Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's freedom with a return to some form of political pluralism and with other improvements in human rights. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won elections under her leadership in 1990. The military refused to recognize the results, imprisoning and intimidating many of the newly elected legislators. Burmese expatriates say torture is still routinely used in prisons and by the military in its repression of ethnic minorities. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's release has rekindled the hopes of many Burmese for a return to democracy. At her first public appearance, she stuck a conciliatory note, saying she wanted to promote dialogue with the military junta. She acted properly in cautioning against unrealistic expectations. Nevertheless, hundreds of people have made the pilgrimage to her home in Yangon since her release, demonstrating the deep loyalty of her followers. But Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi is re-entering a society in which her own name has been a forbidden word, where personal freedoms are severely restricted and political life brutally curtailed. She refused to make any deals with the authorities to gain her freedom, and she has made it clear that she intends to pursue her democratic goals. Myanmar is eager to break its isolation and join the region's economic boom. Japan, which covets its rich natural resources, is already preparing to warm up relations with Yangon. But Myanmar will need substantial help from agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to join the international economy. The end of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's detention must be followed by other steps toward democracy before Myanmar is deemed eligible for loans from multilateral institutions or closer ties with the United States. It is too soon to welcome Yangon back into the democratic community.

Mr. MOYNIHAN

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Will the distinguished Senator from Maine yield for a question?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Surely the Senator would agree that it is time the U.S. Senate made its views known.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank my colleague. Ms. SNOWE addressed the Chair.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. May I congratulate the Senator from Maine on a carefully balanced, reasoned, and documented statement. I particularly appreciate the reference to Richard Perle's article this morning. The right of self-defense is an innate right under international law. It was what the U.N. Charter was all about. Fifty years ago this June the charter was adopted, with a very specific decision by President Roosevelt and the United Kingdom, after much debate, that article 51 would be included. She is so right, I believe. Had we only understood that when the original embargo was placed on Yugoslavia, the Yugoslavian Government in Belgrade--the Serbian Government, in effect--in Belgrade asked for it, knowing it controlled the armaments of Yugoslavia itself and not wishing to have any weapons go to successor states. But when Bosnia and Herzegovina, as with Croatia, as with Slovania, became independent Members of the United Nations, they had a right to arms, a right to defend themselves. You can make the clearest case, in my view--the Senator may not agree--that the present embargo is illegal and contrary to the charter. So I thank her, and I hope she is widely attended.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, the Senate continues consideration today of the Bosnian arms embargo with the Dole-Lieberman substitute, of which I am a cosponsor and which I rise to support. I rise, sir, in the context of the ceremonies that took place in San Francisco on June 26 where our revered senior Senator from Rhode Island was present, having been present at the creation of the San Francisco Conference, in 1945. He was there 50 years later. And he was then carrying, as he invariably does, his U.N. Charter. And to say, sir, that the issue that confronts us in the Balkans and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and in surrounding areas is the elemental issue which the charter of the United Nations was designed to address. The charter is above all a treaty about the use of force in international affairs. It arose out of the Second World War, which in so many ways was a continuation of the First World War, which began in the setting of territorial aggression, the armed forces of one nation crossing the borders of another for purposes of annexation. It is a great irony that the First World War began on a street corner in Sarajevo, with the assassination of the Archduke by a young Serb nationalist named Princip. I stood on that street corner Thanksgiving 1992 with bullets from an AK-47 coming across the Princip Bridge. I thought, ``My God, this is where the 20th century began and now it is going to end, here.'' After all we have been through. The idea of collective security was put in place in San Francisco. We had hoped to do so in the League of Nations, which had failed partly because the United States had not joined but partly because the lessons had not yet been learned and had not yet been absorbed. Here we are 50 years later and it turns out they still have not been absorbed. The charter provides first of all under article 24 that the Security Council will be responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf. Mr. President, I served as our representative at the United Nations under President Ford. I have been President of the Security Council. And I cannot express how painful it is to see this first test of the charter following the end of the cold war, which paralyzed the United Nations for reasons we understood for so long, but now, in this first test, this clear bright line test, to see us failing. Failing in a manner that history will judge contemptible. We have not yet failed. But we are failing. Security Council Resolution 836 of June 4, 1993, declared that acting under chapter 7 of the charter, the Security Council decides ``To deter attacks against the safe areas.'' It goes on to authorize UNPROFOR ``to take the necessary measures, including the use of force, in reply to bombardments against the safe areas by any of the parties or to an armed incursion into them or in the event of any deliberate obstruction in or around those areas to the freedom of movement of UNPROFOR or of protected humanitarian convoys.'' That has been the Security Council proposition for the last 2 years. And we are seeing it being shredded, being treated with contempt, and being made a nullity. We do so, sir, at the risk not just of the independence and the integrity of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but of the whole world order we had hoped to put in place in San Francisco, with the Second World War still under way in Asia--Japan was to surrender almost 2 months later. As I remarked earlier to the Senator from Maine, in November 1992 I traveled to Sarajevo and I reported back a long memorandum to the President-elect saying that this would be the central foreign policy issue that would be awaiting him on his inauguration. The trip into Sarajevo was not what it should have been. I was then a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. I was traveling on official business. We informed the NATO command and the United States Air Force that we would be coming, myself and now-Ambassador Galbraith, the Ambassador in Zagreb; that we would be in Frankfurt and hoped to go to Sarajevo. This was sent by cable. It was fully understood we were coming and meant to go down in that part of the world. We arrived and the base commander knew nothing of our trip. I said I would like to go to Sarajevo, and he piled us into a station wagon and roared across the tarmac and there was a C-130 manned by the West Virginia Air National Guard, propellers just beginning to turn, with a cargo of meals ready to eat for Sarajevo. We got on board, and off we went. Halfway across Austrian airspace, because countries were opening up their airspace for this purpose, we received a message that said ``Members of Congress are not allowed into Sarajevo.'' I simply said, ``Signal back that if the West Virginia Air National Guard could take the risk, so could I and that I had no intention of being diverted.'' Silence. Then a half hour later a signal came that the airport at Sarajevo had closed, which certainly could have been the case. Sarajevo is in a bowl. The lid of fog goes up and down, up and down. We landed, diverted to Zagreb, and got off. The American Charge d'Affaires was there at the airport, which was not far from downtown. I apologized for parachuting in thus, explaining that the airport was closed. He said, ``What do you mean it is closed? Two C-130's just took off.'' The airport was indeed open. Which it is not always, and when it is one knows. I was lied to, which is not a good practice. It took me a year to get the Air Force to sort out what happened. The word came from Washington. They did not want us to know what was [[Page S 10288]] going on in Sarajevo. As the junior Senator from Maine has said, this is a matter that has crossed two administrations. We are not here on a partisan issue. We are here in response to an international emergency which we have helped create. The Canadians got me in to Sarajevo the next day. The British got me out the day after that. We arrived in Sarajevo and went through hellish small arms fire in a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier. If you have ever been in a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier, you would have a better understanding how they prevailed over the Wehrmacht. If you can live in those, you can live in anything. We went directly to the UNPROFOR headquarters and met with General Morillon. He was very open. When asked should we not lift the embargo on Bosnia--clearly an illegal embargo as Article 51 gives the absolute right to self-defense-- Morillon said, ``Do so if you want, but give me 2 days to get my people out.'' They were already hostages. We allowed that to happen by injecting them into a situation where there was no peace to keep. There was just the aggressor and the member state aggressed against. That is the fundamental fact that Senator Dole and Senator Lieberman bring before us today. You cannot have seen those UNPROFOR forces without admiring them. I will cite Anthony Lewis in this matter when he referred to General Morillon's recent statement that we have to declare war on General Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb forces, or get out. Anthony Lewis went on to say: General Morillon's words pithily summed up one lesson of Bosnia for the Western alliance: To intervene in a conflict and pretend there is no difference between the aggressors and the victims is not only dishonorable but ineffective. He say further that the UNPROFOR forces deserve the greatest admiration, but they have been given an impossible task. A year ago on this floor, I put the same proposition. I said the forces ``deserve our utmost support. But if we are to refrain from helping the Bosnians out of concern for their welfare, let us at least be candid and call the members of UNPROFOR what they have become: hostages.'' This was a year ago on this floor. I said, if we are going to refrain from helping the Bosnians out of concern for the welfare of those troops, ``let us at least be candid and call the members of UNPROFOR what they have become: hostages.'' Now this has taken on a miserable, contemptible mode. We are told that--as I read this morning--if Bosnian Serbs see one NATO plane in the sky, they will cut the throats of the Dutch soldiers they have taken hostage. That is what we are dealing with. At the very minimum, we can understand that the grotesque fact of this whole horror has been our denial to the Bosnian Government of its innate right of self-defense. We have put an embargo on the capacity of the member country aggressed against to defend themselves. Remember that one of the central purposes of the original embargo against Yugoslavia itself was the fact that Belgrade had control of all of the armed forces and the material of the Yugoslav Government. It did not want any successor states to get it, and the Bosnians had none. That they are still there 2\1/2\ years later is hard to contemplate. But they are still there. They have begun to arm themselves. They have begun to train, and they have not been overrun. Now all we are asking is to grant them what is their right at law, which is the right of self-defense. The issue has been raised, if we act in what we are doing and the United States proceeds unilaterally, will this put in jeopardy the authority of U.N. sanctions in other areas of the world? When we debated this last year, I addressed the question as follows: First, we are asked, if we lift this embargo how will we resist other nations lifting embargoes on Iraq, Serbia and Libya? How, that is, shall we distinguish between lambs and lions, between victims and aggressors? By looking at the facts. Iraq was an aggressor, not the victim of ``an armed attack'' giving rise to Article 51 rights. Serbia is not subject to an armed attack. Nor is Libya. Each of these states is as clearly an aggressor or violator of international law as Bosnia is clearly a victim. To be clear: lifting the embargo on Bosnia creates no legal or factual precedent for ignoring valid enforcement action taken against an aggressor state. Article 51 applies solely to the victim of an act of aggression. This right to self defense was so obvious and fundamental that the United States delegation to the San Francisco Conference at first opposed including language on the right of self defense in the charter for fear that such a provision might be used to limit the right of self defense. In a dispatch to the New York Times from the San Francisco Conference, James Reston described the breakthrough which produced article 51: San Francisco, May 15 [1945].--President Truman broke the deadlock today between the Big Five and the Latin American nations over the relations between the American and world security systems. After over a week of negotiating, during which American foreign policy was being made and remade by a bi-partisan conference delegation, the President gave to the Latin American nations the reassurance which they wanted before accepting the supremacy of the World Security Council in dealing with disputes in the Western Hemisphere. . . . This assurance was announced late tonight by Secretary Stettinius, who said that an amendment to the Dumbarton Oaks proposals would be proposed reading substantially as follows: ``Nothing in this charter impairs the inherent right of self defense, either individual, or collective, in the event that the Security Council does not maintain international peace and security and an armed attack against a member state occurs. . . .'' Mr. President, we have been here before. That charter was in so many ways written in response to the failure of the collective security arrangements of the League of Nations, of which the most conspicuous was the civil war, so-called, in Spain. A group was put together, called the Lyon Conference, where representatives of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy agreed in 1936 to stem the flow of supplies to both sides. France and Britain complied with the agreement. Germany and Italy ignored it, and in a very little while, the world was at war at large. I would like to end these remarks by quoting two citations from the New Republic. Both are addressed to the President of the United States: [We] urge you to act at once in raising the unneutral embargo which is helping to turn Spain over to the friend of Hitler and Mussolini . . . Is the course of this country determined by the wishes of . . . Great Britain? . . . Perhaps you believe that it is too late to do anything. But you probably believed that last spring . . . Mr. President, we urge you not to hesitate or delay. We can imagine no valid reason for you to do so. You have spoken bravely--in some cases, we believe, so bravely as to be foolhardy. But here is something that you can safely do--and do now. Why not make your acts correspond with your words? This Telegram to the President was dated February 1, 1939. We did nothing. In no time at all, we were attacked and the war became a world war. And now, more recently, Mr. President, from the New Republic of May 9, 1994: The administration does not grasp that moral principles are also analytically useful. Consider its most frequently stated explanation for its timidity in the Balkans. It is reluctant, it says to ``take sides'' in the conflict. It aspires to neutrality, in other words, between the Serbs and the Bosnians, between the conqueror and the conquered, between the raper and the raped. This is a kind of blindness, alas, that no major diplomatic initiative will cure. I think we have all been impressed with the candor of the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, who called the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina ``the greatest collective failure of the west since the 1930's.'' That a U.N. declared safe area could be allowed to be taken is shameful. That one week later no measurable response from the United Nations has been recorded is potentially fatal. The analogies to the confusion of the 1930's--the undoing of the League of Nations--are not idle. Our actions, or lack of action, in Bosnia will be defining. It will indicate whether or not we are committed to abiding by the legal structures put in place at San Francisco a half century ago in the wake of two world wars, and now, at long last, tested in a clearest possible setting--a setting in which those wars began, Sarajevo, 1914. If what we constructed in the wake of two world wars in an effort to prevent the third is not adhered to, the alternative is chaos. It will spread much more rapidly than we think. We will [[Page S 10289]] have lost the central legal, moral principle of world order we undertook to set in place--which we defended at enormous costs through 50 years of cold war. Now to see it trivialized and lost in the Balkans is an act for which we will no more be forgiven than were the leaders of Europe that let the war in Spain lead on to their own--the Second World War, from which they have never yet recovered. Mr. President, it is not too late, although it is very late indeed. The Republican leader and Senator Lieberman are very much to be congratulated. I very much hope the Senate will support them and that the administration will get the message, as well as the rest of the world. They have been listening to us with great care and attention, as well they ought, after the contributions we have made to the rest of the world these past 75 years. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. (Mr. COATS assumed the chair.)

Mr. MOYNIHAN. I know my colleague from Maine has been patiently waiting to address the Senate. I just want to first thank the senior Senator from Maine for what he has said; the very tone, the clarity, and the openness to the complexity that we face. In November 1992 I made my way into Sarajevo and met, at UNPROFOR headquarters, with General Morillon, who was then the commander. Even as the evening mortars were beginning to descend on the neighborhood and he was heading off for a roadblock, I asked him what would be the possibility of lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia. And he made no comment as such, but said, ``By all means, if that is what you want to do, but give me 48 hours to get my people out of here.'' It was already clear that, had we enforced the sanctions on Serbia that were voted on May 30, 1992, had we cut off the oil--three-quarters of the oil used in Serbia is imported--if we just stopped it on the Danube, and had we just bombed every bridge in Belgrade, and more, we might have made our point. We did not. And the UNPROFOR forces were hostages then; they are hostages now. But the Senator is aware that the same General Morillon is now part of the chiefs of staff in the French Government, in Paris. He said just a week ago, ``We have to declare war on General Mladic''-- that is the commander of the Bosnian Serb forces--``or get out.'' It is possible the French now are of that view. It may be that this is a real option. But it seems to me--I will ask the Senator if he does not agree--that it in no way precludes our responsibility under the U.N. Charter, under article 51. It reads so very clearly. It is unambiguous. It is emphatic: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations. That is the Charter. If we cannot abide by that and allow the Bosnian Government to defend itself, then what has the last half-century been for? Would he not agree?

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Or on first sight of a NATO plane, they will cut the throats of eight Dutch hostages.