F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the foundation of trademark law is that certain words, images, and logos convey meaningful information to the public, including the source, quality, and goodwill of a product or service. Unfortunately, there are those in both commercial and noncommercial settings who would seize upon the popularity of a trademark for their own purposes and at the expense of the rightful owner and the public. Dilution refers to conduct that lessens the distinctiveness and value of a mark. This conduct can debase the value of a famous mark and mislead the consuming public. A 2003 Supreme Court decision, Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc., compelled the House Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property, during the last Congress, to review the Federal Trademark Dilution Act and a committee print to amend it. The contents of the bill before us, H.R. 683, were largely culled from that committee print. H.R. 683 does not establish new precedent or break new ground. Rather, the bill represents a clarification of what Congress meant when it passed the dilution statute a decade ago. Enactment of this bill is necessary because it will eliminate confusion on key dilution issues that have increased litigation and resulted in uncertainty among the regional circuits. The primary components of H.R. 683 include the following: one, subject to the principles of equity, the owner of a famous distinctive mark is entitled to an injunction against any person who commences use in commerce a mark that is likely to cause dilution by blurring or tarnishment. Second, a mark may be ``famous'' only if it is widely recognized by the general consuming public in the United States as a source designation of the goods or services of the mark's owner. Third, in determining whether a mark is famous, a court is permitted to consider ``all relevant factors'' in addition to prescribed conditions set forth in the print, including the duration, extent, and geographic reach of advertising and publicity of the mark. Fourth, H.R. 683 clarifies the definition of dilution by blurring, as well as by tarnishment. Fifth, the bill enumerates specific defenses to a dilution action: comparative commercial advertising or promotion to identify competing goods; all forms of news reporting and news commentary; and traditional fair uses pertaining to parody, criticism, and commentary. Sixth and finally, other than an action based on dilution by blurring, the owner of a famous mark is only entitled to injunctive relief under H.R. 683 if the defendant willfully intended to trade on the famous mark's recognition; or in an action based on dilution by tarnishment, the defendant willfully intended to trade on the famous mark's reputation. In either case, the owner may seek damages, costs, and attorneys' fees as well as the destruction of the infringing articles under separate Lanham Act provisions. In sum, this bill will provide greater guidance for courts when they adjudicate dilution cases and businesses that use trademarks. It is a good complement to the dilution statute that received more than 2 years of subcommittee process. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 683 currently under consideration.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 683) to amend the Trademark Act of 1946 with respect to dilution by blurring or tarnishment, as amended.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, S. 167 includes several intellectual property-related measures that were considered during the previous Congress, but were unable to be acted on by both Houses prior to adjournment. Notably, this legislation addresses the growing desire of parents to be able to control what their children see in the privacy of their own homes. One component of this legislation, the Family Movie Act, clarifies that existing copyright and trademark law cannot be used to prevent a parent from utilizing available technology to skip over portions of a movie they may find objectionable. The legislation also addresses the rampant piracy problem facing our Nation's creative community. New technologies have made theft and duplication of copyrighted works easier than ever before. The number of pirated films continues to increase, causing severe harm to the bottom line of our Nation's copyright holders. Additionally, the theft, duplication and mass distribution of copyrighted works represents a drain on our economy, shrinking the global demand for legitimately acquired works. By setting forth Federal criminal penalties, this legislation addresses the serious problem of individuals using camcorders to record recently released movies that are then copied and sold on the black market. Additionally, this legislation establishes criminal penalties for the distribution of a copyrighted computer program, musical work or motion picture by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public if the person knew, or should have known, that the work was a copyrighted work intended for commercial distribution. Finally, this legislation reauthorizes the Film Preservation Board at the Library of Congress and corrects a technical error in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act that had the unintended effect of limiting the ability of libraries and archives to access older copyrighted works. Mr. Speaker, I urge the Members to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 167) to provide for the protection of intellectual property rights, and for other purposes.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 167, currently under consideration.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1038, the Multidistrict Litigation Restoration Act of 2005, reverses the effect of a 1998 Supreme Court case commonly referred to as ``Lexecon,'' which has hampered the Federal court system from adjudicating complex, multidistrict cases that are related by a common fact situation. Just as importantly, the bill functions as a technical correction to a related ``disaster litigation'' provision that was incorporated in the Department of Justice Authorization Act, which Congress passed in 2002. A little background is in order at this point. During the 107th Congress, I authored legislation to address the Lexecon and disaster litigation problems. As passed under suspension by the House, my bill, H.R. 860, accomplished two goals: First, the bill reversed the effect of the Lexecon case which dealt with the authority of a specially designated U.S. district court to handle complex multidistrict cases consolidated for trial. Pursuant to the decision, the court known as the ``transferee'' court could retain Federal and State cases only for pretrial matters, but not the actual trials themselves. H.R. 860 simply codified existing practice of the preceding 30 years by allowing the transferee court to retain jurisdiction for the purpose of determining liability and punitive damages, or to refer the cases back to those courts in which the cases were originally filed. This feature streamlines adjudication and enables the transferee court to induce the parties to settle. Second, H.R. 860 conferred original jurisdiction on U.S. district courts to adjudicate any civil action arising out of a single accident under prescribed conditions, but would remand the case to the State courts for determination of compensatory damages. This portion of H.R. 860 is commonly referred to as the ``disaster litigation'' part of the bill. The Committee on the Judiciary in the other body took no action on H.R. 860, but the matter was resurrected during House-Senate conference deliberations on the Department of Justice authorization bill. Pursuant to negotiations, the conferees agreed to take half of H.R. 860, the disaster litigation portion, which is currently codified as section 1369 of title 28 of the U.S. Code. Trying to enact a straight Lexecon fix through the bill before us is meritorious in its own right, promoting as it does judicial efficiency, but there is another problem that the bill solves. The currently codified disaster litigation portion of H.R. 860 contemplates that the Lexecon problem is solved. In other words, the new disaster litigation law only creates original jurisdiction for a U.S. district court to accept those cases and qualify as a transferee court under the multidistrict litigation statute; but the transferee court still cannot retain the consolidated cases for determination of liability and punitive damages, which compromises the operation of the statute. In this sense, then, the Lexecon fix, its freestanding merits aside, also functions as a technical correction for the recently enacted disaster litigation measure. H.R. 1038, in tandem with the now-codified disaster litigation provisions, will produce what was originally intended when legislation addressing this issue was first proposed, a fix to the Lexecon problem and a disaster litigation measure that really works. I remind Members that H.R. 1038 is identical to H.R. 1768 from the 108th Congress, which passed the House by a rollcall vote of 418-0. In sum, this legislation speaks to process, fairness and judicial efficiency. It will not interfere with jury verdicts or compensation rates for litigators. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record a letter from the U.S. Judicial Conference stating their strong support for enactment of H.R. 1038. I urge my colleagues to join me in a bipartisan effort to support this bill. Judicial Conference of the United States, Washington, DC, April 18, 2005. Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: The Judicial Conference of the United States strongly supports enactment of H.R. 1038, the ``Multidistrict Litigation Restoration Act of 2005,'' which you introduced on March 2, 2005 and which was reported favorably by the House Judiciary Committee on March 17, 2005. H.R. 1038 will facilitate the resolution of claims by citizens and improve the administration of justice. Currently, section 1407(a) of title 28, United State Code, the multidistrict litigation statute, authorizes the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (the Judicial Panel) to transfer civil actions with common questions of fact that are pending in multiple federal judicial districts ``to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings.'' It also requires the Judicial Panel to remand any such action to the district court in which the action was filed at or before the conclusion of such pretrial proceedings, unless the action is terminated before then in the transferee court. Although the federal courts had for nearly 30 years followed the practice of allowing a transferee court to invoke the venue transfer provision (28 U.S.C. Sec. 1404(a)) and transfer the case to itself for trial purposes, the Supreme Court in Lexecon, Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U.S. 26 (1998), held that such statutory authority did not exist. The Court noted that the proper venue for resolving the desirability of such self-transfer authority is the ``the floor of Congress.'' 523 U.S. at 40. Section 2 of H.R. 1038 responds to the Lexecon decision by amending 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1407 to allow a judge with a transferred case to retain it for trial or to transfer it to another district in the interest of justice and for the convenience of the parties and witnesses. This section also provides that any action transferred for trial must be remanded by the Judicial Panel to the district court from which it was transferred for the determination of compensatory damages, unless the transferee court finds for the convenience of the parties and witnesses and in the interests of justice that the action should be retained for the determined of compensatory damages. As experience has shown, there is wisdom in permitting the judge who is familiar with the facts and parties and pretrial proceedings of a transferred case to retain the case for trial. Also, as with most federal civil actions, multidistrict litigation cases are typically resolved through settlement. Allowing the transferee judge to set a firm trial date promotes the resolution of these cases. H.R. 1038 also seeks to make corrections to the Multiparty, Multiforum Trial Jurisdiction Act of 2002, which was enacted as section 11020 of the ``21st Century Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act'' (Pub. L. No. 107-273, 116 Stat. 1758; now codified in various sections in title 28, United States Code. See 2 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1369, 1391, 1441, 1697, and 1785.) The Judicial Conference appreciates your support of H.R. 1038. If you or your staff have any questions, please contact Mark W. Braswell or Karen Kremer, Counsel, Office of Legislative Affairs (202-502-1700). Sincerely, Leonidas Ralph Mecham, Secretary.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SENSENBRENNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1038, the bill currently under consideration.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1038) to amend title 28, United States Code, to allow a judge to whom a case is transferred to retain jurisdiction over certain multidistrict litigation cases for trial, and for other purposes.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this concurrent resolution commends the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its contribution to the Nation's economy and the DaimlerChrysler Corporation and its employees for their achievement in receiving the 500,000th design patent issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. Mr. Speaker, we all recognize the important role that innovation and invention have played in our Nation's history and economy. We also know that by ensuring protection for our ideas, we provide significant incentive for inventors to continue to come up with new concepts that improve our lives, whether it is a machine that raises productivity or a pharmaceutical drug that cures a life-threatening disease. The efforts of the PTO in aiding such accomplishments are certainly noteworthy. I commend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the Motor City, for introducing this resolution and congratulate DaimlerChrysler as the recipient of this landmark number patent. I urge the House to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 53, currently under consideration.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 53) expressing the sense of the Congress regarding the issuance of the 500,000th design patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I was honored to support H. Res. 190, a resolution passed April 6 that commended the life and achievements of His Holiness Pope John Paul II. Likewise, I am proud to say I was the lead sponsor of legislation that was passed by the House and Senate in 2003, House Concurrent Resolution 313, that urged President Bush to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Pope. Thankfully, President Bush did just that in June of last year. In a time when many leaders look to the polls and test political winds for guidance, Pope John Paul II stood unflinching at the center of the most controversial moral debates of our time, and held firm, always supporting the sanctity and dignity of every human life. His presence will be sorely missed, but his accomplishments will long be relished. Mr. Speaker, as a reminder of the Pope's enduring and historic contributions to world peace, human freedom and to the security and national interests of the United States, I request that the following remarks that I delivered on the House floor on November 18, 2003 be printed in the Record. Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. I rise to pay tribute to His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, who in October marked his 25th year as Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pastor of the Catholic Church. I also wish to offer my sincere appreciation to all my friends and colleagues in the House who have joined together to urge the President to present the Medal of Freedom to Pope John Paul II. The celebration of the Silver Jubilee of Pope John Paul II's pontificate is but the latest in a series of remarkable milestones that have characterized his life and his ministry. From his birth on May 18, 1920, Karol Jozef Wojtyla's life has been intertwined with the fate of his native Poland and synonymous with the struggle for his individual freedom and dignity. In 1978 when then-Cardinal Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Krakow, was elected Pope, the world was a much different place. For the more than 3 decades since Winston Churchill delivered his famous ``Iron Curtain'' speech, people around the world prepared for what many regarded as the inevitable new war that would someday engulf the East and the West. To win the Cold War, geopolitical strategists honed and implemented various policies including the doctrines of containment and mutual-assured destruction. At this pivotal moment in history, when the status quo included the subjugation of half the populations of Europe and the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation, a remarkable and energetic new Pope set foot on the world stage. To many in the West, this new Polish Pope was an unknown entity. While we recognized immediately his energy, courage and leadership, these same qualities were reviewed with suspicion by some in the East, particularly the communist rulers in Poland. Pope John Paul II's commitment to freedom, his affection for his native Poland, and the devotion of his countrymen to him were never more evident than the summer of 1980. That August, the Solidarity Workers Union, which Cardinal Wojtyla had nurtured and protected, organized a peaceful strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk. With the Pope's portrait suddenly appearing everywhere and the admonition from his inaugural sermon, ``Do not be afraid,'' on the lips of the workers, his support and reassurance provided vital sustenance for the strikers and ignited a spiritual spark in their struggle to secure dignity and freedom. Ultimately, that spark would lead to the demise of Soviet communism and the liberation of hundreds of millions in Eastern and Central Europe. History has recorded the remarkable achievement of Pope John Paul II and his relentless advocacy in pursuit of individual dignity, freedom, and peace. The Pope has not confined his efforts solely to the struggle against totalitarianism. He has engaged wherever people are downtrodden and oppressed. Mr. Speaker, the Congress should pass House Concurrent Resolution 313 and urge the President to present the Medal of Freedom, our Nation's highest civilian award, to His Holiness. In authorizing the first Medals of Freedom in 1963, President Kennedy proclaimed that persons who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace or cultural or other significant public or private endeavors should be so recognized. By any measure it is apparent that there is no individual more deserving of this recognition than Pope John Paul II. Two other recipients of the Medal of Freedom, President Ronald Reagan and Lady Margaret Thatcher, shared the Pope's commitment to Solidarity in the 1980s. In my estimation, their leadership changed the course of human history. In 1984, while welcoming the Pope to the United States, President Reagan spoke of the connection between freedom, the founding of our own Nation, and America's debt to His Holiness. President Reagan stated, ``I can assure you, Your Holiness, that the American people seek to act as a force for peace in the world and to further the cause of human freedom and dignity. Indeed, an appreciation for the unalienable rights of every human being is the very concept that gave birth to this Nation. Few have understood better than our Nation's founding fathers that claims of human dignity transcend the claims of any government, and this transcendent right itself has a transcendent source.'' The President went on to state, ``To us, Your Holiness, the Holy See and your pastorate represent one of humanity's greatest moral and spiritual forces,'' and ``your words, your prayers and your example have made you, for those who suffer oppression or the violence of war, a source of solace, inspiration and hope.'' It is no exaggeration to recognize that this remarkable man has brought hope, comfort and faith to literally billions of people around the world during the course of his ministry. Three weeks ago today I was honored to be joined by 30 Members of the House in introducing this resolution. Since that time we have gained additional support for which I am grateful, and I particularly appreciate the work of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and the Committee on Government Reform who reported our resolution to the floor in such a timely manner. As stated previously, our bipartisan resolution calls upon the President on behalf of all the people of the United States, to present the Medal of Freedom to Pope John Paul II as a sign of our gratitude for his significant, enduring, and historic contributions to the causes of freedom, human dignity, and peace. We urge the President to do so without delay. Finally, I include an article by Carl Bernstein entitled ``The Holy Alliance,'' which appeared in the February 24, 1992, edition of Time, as well as an article by Father Robert A. Sirico entitled ``The Cold War's Magnificent Seven; Pope John Paul II; Awakener of the East,'' which was published in the Winter 1992 edition of Policy Review. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would invoke President Reagan once more. When asked his assessment of the Pope before meeting him the first time, the President replied, ``He is an example of what so many people have always said about Christian and Judaic tradition, and that is, that when really needed, God provides a man. And I think in Pope John Paul he did just that.'' Billions around the world are thankful that God has provided such a man. The articles referred to are as follows: [From Time Magazine, Feb. 24, 1992] The Holy Alliance (By Carl Bernstein) Only President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were present in the Vatican Library on Monday, June 7, 1982. It was the first time the two had met, and they talked for 50 minutes. In the same wing of the papal apartments, Agostino Cardinal Casaroli and Archbishop Achille Silvestrini met with Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Judge William Clark, Reagan's National Security Adviser. Most of their discussion focused on Israel's invasion of Lebanon, then in its second day; Haig told them Prime Minister Menachem Begin had assured him that the invasion would not go farther than 25 miles inside Lebanon. But Reagan and the Pope spent only a few minutes reviewing events in the Middle East. Instead they remained focused on a subject much closer to their heart: Poland and the Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe. In that meeting, Reagan and the Pope agreed to undertake a clandestine campaign to hasten the dissolution of the communist empire. Declares Richard Allen, Reagan's first National Security Adviser: ``This was one of the great secret alliances of all time.'' The operation was focused on Poland, the most populous of the Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe and the birthplace of John Paul II. Both the Pope and the President were convinced that Poland could be broken out of the Soviet orbit if the Vatican and the U.S. committed their resources to destabilizing the Polish government and keeping the outlawed Solidarity movement alive after the declaration of martial law in 1981. Until Solidarity's legal status was restored in 1989 it flourished underground, supplied, nurtured and advised largely by the network established under the auspices of Reagan and John Paul II. Tons of equipment--fax machines (the first in Poland), printing presses, transmitters, telephones, shortwave radios, video cameras, photocopiers, telex machines, computers, word processors--were smuggled into Poland via channels established by priests and American agents and representatives of the AFL-CIO and European labor movements. Money for the banned union came from CIA funds, the National Endowment for Democracy, secret accounts in the Vatican and Western trade unions. Lech Walesa and other leaders of Solidarity received strategic advice--often conveyed by priests or American and European labor experts working undercover in Poland--that reflected the thinking of the Vatican and the Reagan Administration. As the effectiveness of the resistance grew, the stream of information to the West about the internal decisions of the Polish government and the contents of Warsaw's communications with Moscow became a flood. The details came not only from priests but also from spies within the Polish government. down with yalta According to aides who shared their leaders' view of the world, Reagan and John Paul II refused to accept a fundamental political fact of their lifetimes: the division of Europe as mandated at Yalta and the communist dominance of Eastern Europe. A free, noncommunist Poland, they were convinced, would be a dagger to the heart of the Soviet empire; and if Poland became democratic, other East European states would follow. ``We both felt that a great mistake had been made at Yalta and something should be done,'' Reagan says today. ``Solidarity was the very weapon for bringing this about, because it was an organization of the laborers of Poland.'' Nothing quite like Solidarity had ever existed in Eastern Europe, Reagan notes, adding that the workers' union ``was contrary to anything the Soviets would want or the communists [in Poland] would want.'' According to Solidarity leaders, Walesa and his lieutenants were aware that both Reagan and John Paul II were committed to Solidarity's survival, but they could only guess at the extent of the collaboration. ``Officially I didn't know the church was working with the U.S.,'' says Wojciech Adamiecki, the organizer and editor of underground Solidarity newspapers and now a counselor at the Polish embassy in Washington. ``We were told the Pope had warned the Soviets that if they entered Poland he would fly to Poland and stay with the Polish people. The church was of primary assistance. It was half open, half secret. Open as far as humanitarian aid-- food, money, medicine, doctors' consultations held in churches, for instance--and secret as far as supporting political activities: distributing printing machines of all kinds, giving us a place for underground meetings, organizing special demonstrations.'' At their first meeting, Reagan and John Paul II discussed something else they had in common: both had survived assassination attempts only six weeks apart in 1981, and both believed God had saved them for a special mission. ``A close friend of Ronald Reagan's told me the President said, `Look how the evil forces were put in our way and how Providence intervened,' '' says Pio Cardinal Laghi, the former apostolic delegate to Washington. According to National Security Adviser Clark, the Pope and Reagan referred to the ``miraculous'' fact that they had survived. Clark said the men shared ``a unity of spiritual view and a unity of vision on the Soviet empire: that right or correctness would ultimately prevail in the divine plan.'' ``Reagan came in with very simple and strongly held views,'' says Admiral Bobby Inman, former deputy director of the CIA. ``It is a valid point of view that he saw the collapse [of communism] coming and he pushed it--hard.'' During the first half of 1982, a five-part strategy emerged that was aimed at bringing about the collapse of the Soviet economy, fraying the ties that bound the U.S.S.R. to its client states in the Warsaw Pact and forcing reform inside the Soviet empire. Elements of that strategy included: The U.S. defense buildup already under way, aimed at making it too costly for the Soviets to compete militarily with the U.S. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative--Star Wars--became a centerpiece of the strategy. Covert operations aimed at encouraging reform movements in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Financial aid to Warsaw Pact nations calibrated to their willingness to protect human rights and undertake political and free-market reforms. Economic isolation of the Soviet Union and the withholding of Western and Japanese technology from Moscow. The Administration focused on denying the U.S.S.R. what it had hoped would be its principal source of hard currency in the 21st century: profits from a transcontinental pipeline to supply natural gas to Western Europe. The 3,600-mile-long pipeline, stretching from Siberia to France, opened on time on Jan. 1, 1984, but on a far smaller scale than the Soviets had hoped. Increased use of Radio Liberty, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe to transmit the Administration's messages to the people of Eastern Europe. Yet in 1982 neither Reagan nor the Pope could anticipate the accession of a Soviet leader like Mikhail Gorbachev, the father of glasnost and perestroika; his efforts at reform unleashed powerful forces that spun out of his control and led to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Washington- Vatican alliance ``didn't cause the fall of communism,'' observes a U.S. official familiar with the details of the plot to keep Solidarity alive. ``Like all great and lucky leaders, the Pope and the President exploited the forces of history to their own ends.'' the crackdown The campaign by Washington and the Vatican to keep Solidarity alive began immediately after General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law on Dec. 13, 1981. In those dark hours, Poland's communications with the noncommunist world were cut; 6,000 leaders of Solidarity were detained; hundreds were charged with treason, subversion and counterrevolution; nine were killed; and the union was banned. But thousands of others went into hiding, many seeking protection in churches, rectories and with priests. Authorities took Walesa into custody and interned him in a remote hunting lodge. Shortly after Polish security forces moved into the streets, Reagan called the Pope for his advice. At a service of meetings over the next few days, Reagan discussed his options. ``We had a massive row in the Cabinet and the National Security Council about putting together a menu of counteractions,'' former Secretary of State Haig recalls. ``They ranged from sanctions that would have been crushing in their impact on Poland to talking so tough that we would have risked creating another situation like Hungary in '56 or Czechoslovakia in '68.'' Haig dispatched Ambassador at Large Vernon Walters, a devout Roman Catholic, to meet with John Paul II. Walters arrived in Rome soon after, and met separately with the Pope and with Cardinal Casaroli, the Vatican secretary of state. Both sides agreed that Solidarity's flame must not be extinguished, that the Soviets must become the focus of an international campaign of isolation, and that the Polish government must be subjected to moral and limited economic pressure. According to U.S. intelligence sources, the Pope had already advised Walcsa through church channels to keep his movement operating underground, and to pass the word to Solidarity's 10 million members not to go into the streets and risk provoking Warsaw Pact intervention or civil war with Polish security forces. Because the communists had cut the direct phone lines between Poland and the Vatican, John Paul II communicated with Jozef Cardinal Glemp in Warsaw via radio. He also dispatched his envoys to Poland to report on the situation. ``The Vatican's information was absolutely better and quicker than ours in every respect,'' says Haig. ``Though we had some excellent sources of our own, our information was taking too long to filter through the intelligence bureaucracy.'' In the first hours of the crisis, Reagan ordered that the Pope receive as quickly as possible relevant American intelligence, including information from a Polish Deputy Minister of Defense who was secretly reporting to the CIA. Washington also handed over to the Vatican reports and analysis from Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, a senior member of the Polish general staff, who was a CIA informant until November 1981, when he had to be smuggled out of Poland after he warned that the Soviets were prepared to invade if the Polish government did not impose martial law. Kuklinski had issued a similar warning about a Soviet military action in late 1980, which led the outgoing Carter Administration to send secret messages to Leonid Brezhnev informing him that among the costs of an invasion would be the sale of sophisticated U.S. weapons to China. This time, Kuklinski reported to Washington, Brezhnev had grown more impatient, and a disastrous harvest at home meant that the Kremlin did not need mechanized army units to help bring in the crops and instead could spare them for an invasion. ``Anything that we knew that we thought the Pope would not be aware of, we certainly brought it to his attention,'' says Reagan. ``Immediately.'' the catholic team The key Administration players were all devout Roman Catholics--CIA chief William Casey, Allen, Clark, Haig, Walters and William Wilson, Reagan's first ambassador to the Vatican. They regarded the U.S.-Vatican relationship as a holy alliance: the moral force of the Pope and the teachings of their church combined with their fierce anticommunism and their notion of American democracy. Yet the mission would have been impossible without the full support of Reagan, who believed fervently in both the benefits and the practical applications of Washington's relationship with the Vatican. One of his earliest goals as President, Reagan says, was to recognize the Vatican as a state ``and make them an ally.'' According to Admiral John Poindexter, the military assistant to the National Security Adviser when martial law was declared in Poland, Reagan was convinced that the communists had made a huge miscalculation: after allowing Solidarity to operate openly for 16 months before the crackdown, the Polish government would only alienate its countrymen by attempting to cripple the labor movement and, most important, would bring the powerful church into direct conflict with the Polish regime. ``I didn't think that this [the decision to impose martial law and crush Solidarity] could stand, because of the history of Poland and the religious aspect and all,'' Reagan says. Says Cardinal Casaroli: ``There was a real coincidence of interests between the U.S. and the Vatican.'' The major decisions on funneling aid to Solidarity and responding to the Polish and Soviet governments were made by Reagan, Casey and Clark, in consultation with John Paul II. ``Reagan understood these things quite well, including the covert side,'' says Richard Pipes, the conservative Polish-born scholar who headed the NSC's Soviet and East- European desks. ``The President talked about the evil of the Soviet system--not its people--and how we had to do everything possible to help these people in Solidarity who were struggling for freedom. People like Haig and Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige and James Baker [White House chief of staff at the time] thought it wasn't realistic. George Bush never said a word. I used to sit behind him, and I never knew what his opinions were. But Reagan really understood what was at stake.'' By most accounts, Casey stepped into the vacuum in the first days after the declaration of martial law in Poland and--as he did in Central America--became the principal policy architect. Meanwhile Pipes and the NSC staff began drafting proposals for sanctions. ``The object was to drain the Soviets and to lay blame for martial law at their doorstep,'' says Pipes. ``The sanctions were coordinated with Special Operations [the CIA division in charge of covert task forces], and the first objective was to keep Solidarity alive by supplying money, communications and equipment.'' ``The church was trying to modulate the whole situation,'' explains one of the NSC officials who directed the effort to curtail the pipeline. ``They [church leaders] were in effect trying to create circumstances that would head off the serious threat of Soviet intervention while allowing us to get tougher and tougher; they were part and parcel of virtually all of our deliberations in terms of how we viewed the evolution of government-sponsored repression in Poland-- whether it was lessening or getting worse, and how we should proceed.'' As for his conversations with Reagan about Poland, Clark says they were usually short. ``I don't think I ever had an in-depth, one-on-one, private conversation that existed for more than three minutes with him--on any subject. That might shock you. We had our own code of communication. I knew where he wanted to go on Poland. And that was to take it to its nth possibilities. The President and Casey and I discussed the situation on the ground in Poland constantly: covert operations; who was doing what, where, why and how; and the chances of success.'' According to Clark, he and Casey directed that the President's daily brief--the PDB, an intelligence summary prepared by the CIA--include a special supplement on secret operations and analysis in Poland. The Pope himself, not only his deputies, met with American officials to assess events in Poland and the effectiveness of American actions and sent back messages--sometimes by letter, sometimes orally--to Reagan. On almost all his trips to Europe and the Middle East, Casey flew first to Rome, so that he could meet with John Paul II and exchange information. But the principal emissary between Washington and Rome remained Walters, a former deputy director of the CIA who worked easily with Casey. Walters met with the Pope perhaps a dozen times, according to Vatican sources. ``Walters was sent to and from the Vatican for the specific purpose of carrying messages between the Pope and the President,'' says former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Wilson. ``It wasn't supposed to be known that Walters was there. It wasn't all specifically geared to Poland; sometimes there were also discussions about Central America or the hostages in Lebanon.'' Often in the Reagan years, American covert operations (including those in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Angola) involved ``lethal assistance'' to insurgent forces: arms, mercenaries, military advisers and explosives. In Poland the Pope, the President and Casey embarked on the opposite path: ``What they had to do was let the natural forces already in place play this out and not get their fingerprints on it,'' explains a analyst. What emerges from the Reagan-Casey collaboration is a carefully calibrated operation whose scope was modest compared with other CIA activities. ``If Casey were around now, he'd be having some smiles,'' observes one of his reluctant admirers. ``In 1991 Reagan and Casey got the reordering of the world that they wanted.'' the secret directive Less than three weeks before his meeting with the Pope in 1982, the President signed a secret national-security- decision directive (NSDD 32) that authorized a range of economic, diplomatic and covert measures to ``neutralize efforts of the U.S.S.R.'' to maintain its hold on Eastern Europe. In practical terms, the most important covert operations undertaken were those inside Poland. The primary purposes of NSDD 32 were to destabilize the Polish government through covert operations involving propaganda and organizational aid to Solidarity; the promotion of human rights, particularly those related to the right of worship and the Catholic Church; economic pressure; and diplomatic isolation of the communist regime. The document, citing the need to defend democratic reform efforts throughout the Soviet empire, also called for increasing propaganda and underground broadcasting operations in Eastern Europe, actions that Reagan's aides and dissidents in Eastern Europe believe were particularly helpful in chipping away at the notion of Soviet invincibility. As Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, a member of the House Intelligence Committee from 1985 to 1990, who was apprised of some of the Administration's covert actions, observes, ``In Poland we did all of the things that are done in countries where you want to destabilize a communist government and strengthen resistance to that. We provided the supplies and technical assistance in terms of clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, propaganda, money, organizational help and advice. And working outward from Poland, the same kind of resistance was organized in the other communist countries of Europe.'' Among those who played a consulting role was Zbigniew Brzezinski, a native of Poland and President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser. ``I got along very well with Casey,'' recalls Brzezinski. ``He was very flexible and very imaginative and not very bureaucratic; if something needed to be done, it was done. To sustain an underground effort takes a lot in terms of supplies, networks, etc., and this is why Solidarity wasn't crushed.'' On military questions, American intelligence was better than the Vatican's, but the church excelled in its evaluations of the political situation. And in understanding the mood of the people and communicating with the Solidarity leadership, the church was in an incomparable position. ``Our information about Poland was very well founded because the bishops were in continual contact with the Holy See and Solidarnosc,'' explains Cardinal Silvestrini, the Vatican's deputy secretary of state at that time. ``They informed us about prisoners, about the activities and needs of Solidarity groups and about the attitude and schisms in the government.'' All this information was communicated to the President or Casey. ``If you study the situation of Solidarity, you see they acted very cleverly, without pressing too much at the crucial moments, because they had guidance from the church,'' says one of the Pope's closest aides. ``Yes, there were times we restrained Solidarnosc. But Poland was a bomb that could explode--in the heart of communism, bordered by the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Too much pressure, and the bomb would go off.'' casey's cappuccino Meanwhile, in Washington a close relationship developed between Casey, Clark and Archbishop Laghi. ``Casey and I dropped into his [Laghi's] residence early mornings during critical times to gather his comments and counsel,'' says Clark. ``We'd have breakfast and coffee and discuss what was being done in Poland. I'd speak to him frequently on the phone, and he would be in touch with the Pope.'' Says Laghi: ``They liked good cappuccino. Occasionally we might talk about Central America or the church position on birth control. But usually the subject was Poland.'' ``Almost everything having to do with Poland was handled outside of normal State Department channels and would go through Casey and Clark,'' says Robert McFarlane, who served as a deputy to both Clark and Haig and later as National Security Adviser to the President. ``I knew that they were meeting with Pio Laghi, and that Pio Laghi had been to see the President, but Clark would never tell me what the substance of the discussions was.'' On at least six occasions Laghi came to the White House and met with Clark or the President; each time, he entered the White House through the southwest gate in order to avoid reports. ``By keeping in such close touch, we did not cross lines,'' says Laghi. ``My role was primarily to facilitate meetings between Walters and the Holy Father. The Holy Father knew his people. It was a very complex situation--how to insist on human rights, on religious freedom, and keep Solidarity alive without provoking the communist authorities further. But I told Vernon, `Listen to the Holy Father. We have 2,000 years' experience at this.' '' Though William Casey has been vilified for aspects of his tenure as CIA chief, there is no criticism of his instincts on Poland. ``Basically, he had a quiet confidence that the communists couldn't hold on, especially in Poland,'' says former Congressman Edward Derwinski, a Polish-speaking expert on Eastern Europe who counseled the Administration and met with Casey frequently. ``He was convinced the system was falling and doomed to collapse one way or another--and Poland was the force that would lead to the dam breaking. He demanded a constant [CIA] focus on Eastern Europe. It wasn't noticed, because other stories were more controversial and were perking at the moment--Nicaragua and Salvador.'' In Poland, Casey conducted the kind of old-style operation that he relished, something he might have done in his days at the Office of Strategic Services during World War II or in the early years of the CIA, when the democracies of Western Europe rose from the ashes of World War II. It was through Casey's contacts, his associates say, that elements of the Socialist International were organized on behalf of Solidarity--just as the Social Democratic parties of Western Europe had been used as an instrument of American policy by the CIA in helping to create anticommunist governments after the war. And this time the objective was akin to creating a Christian Democratic majority in Poland--with the church and the overwhelmingly Catholic membership of Solidarity as the dominant political force in a post communist Poland. Through his contacts with leaders of the Socialist International, including officials of socialist governments in France and Sweden, Casey ensured that tactical assistance was available on the continent and at sea to move goods into Poland. ``This wasn't about spending huge amounts of money,'' says Brzezinski. ``It was about getting the message out and resisting: books, communications equipment, propaganda, ink and printing presses.'' Look for the Union Label In almost every city and town, underground newspapers and mimeographed bulletins appeared, challenging the state- controlled media. The church published its own newspapers. Solidarity missives, photocopied and mimeographed on American-supplied equipment, were tacked to church bulletin boards. Stenciled posters were boldly posted on police stations and government buildings and even on entrances to the state-controlled television center, where army officers broadcast the news. The American embassy in Warsaw became the pivotal CIA station in the communist world and, by all accounts, the most effective. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO, which had been the largest source of American support for Solidarity before martial law, regarded the Reagan Administration's approach as too slow and insufficiently confrontational with the Polish authorities. Nonetheless, according to intelligence sources, AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland and his aide Tom Kahn consulted frequently with Poindexter, Clark and other officials at the State Department and the NSC on such matters as how and when to move goods and supplies into Poland, identifying cities where Solidarity was in particular need of organizing assistance, and examining how Solidarity and the AFL-CIO might collaborate in the preparation of propaganda materials. ``Lane Kirkland deserves special credit,'' observes Derwinski. ``They don't like to admit [it], but they literally were in lockstep [with the Administration]. Also never forget that Bill Clark's wife is Czechoslovak, as is Lane Kirkland's wife. This is one issue where everybody was aboard; there were no turf fights or mavericks or naysayers.'' But AFL-CIO officials were never aware of the extent of clandestine U.S. assistance, or the Administration's reliance on the church for guidance regarding how hard to push Polish and Soviet authorities. Casey was wary of ``contaminating'' the American and European labor movements by giving them too many details of the Administration's efforts. And indeed this was not strictly a CIA operation. Rather, it was a blend of covert and overt, public policy and secret alliances. Casey recognized that in many instances the AFL-CIO was more imaginative than his own operatives in providing organizational assistance to Solidarity and smuggling equipment into the country. According to former deputy CIA director Inman, Casey decided that the American labor movement's relationship with Solidarity was so good that much of what the CIA needed could be financed and obtained through AFL-CIO channels. ``Financial support wasn't what they needed,'' says Inman. ``It was organization, and that was an infinitely better way to help them than through classic covert operations.'' The Solidarity office in Brussels became an international clearinghouse: for representatives of the Vatican, for CIA operatives, for the AFL-CIO, for representatives of the Socialist International, for the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy, which also worked closely with Casey. It was the place where Solidarity told its backers--some of whose real identities were unknown to Solidarity itself--what it needed, where goods and supplies and organizers could be most useful. Priests, couriers, labor organizers and intelligence operatives moved in and out of Poland with requests for aid and with detailed information on the situation inside the government and the underground. Food and clothing and money to pay fines of Solidarity leaders who were brought before Polish courts poured into the country. Inside Poland, a network of priests carried messages back and forth between the churches where many of Solidarity's leaders were in hiding. In the summer of 1984, when the sanctions against Poland seemed to be hurting ordinary Poles and not the communists, Laghi traveled to Santa Barbara to meet with Reagan at the Western White House and urge that some of the sanctions be lifted. The Administration complied. At the same time, the White House, in close consultation with the Vatican, refused to ease its economic pressures on Moscow--denying technology, food and cultural exchanges as the price for continuing oppression in Poland. Much of the equipment destined for Solidarity arrived in Poland by ship--often packed in mismarked containers sent from Denmark and Sweden, then unloaded at Gdansk and other ports by dockers secretly working with Solidarity. According to Administration officials, the socialist government of Sweden--and Swedish labor unions--played a crucial role in arranging the transshipment of goods to Poland. From the Polish docks, equipment moved to its destination in trucks and private cars driven by Solidarity sympathizers who often used churches and priests as their point of contact for deliveries and pickups. ``solidarity lives!'' ``The Administration plugged into the church across the board,'' observes Derwinski, now Secretary of Veterans Affairs. ``Not just through the church hierarchy but through individual churches and bishops. Monsignor Bronislaw Dabrowski, a deputy to Cardinal Glemp, came to use often to tell us what was needed: he would meet with me, with Casey, the NSC and sometimes with Walters.'' John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia, whose father was born in Poland, was the American churchman closest to the Pope. He frequently met with Casey to discuss support for Solidarity and covert operations, according to CIA sources and Derwinski. ``Krol hit it off very well with President Reagan and was a source of constant advice and contact,'' says Derwinski. ``Often he was the one Casey or Clark went to, the one who really understood the situation.'' By 1985 it was apparent that the Polish government's campaign to suppress Solidarity had failed. According to a report by Adrian Karatnycky, who helped organize the AFL- CIO's assistance to Solidarity, there were more than 400 underground periodicals appearing in Poland, some with a circulation that exceeded 30,000. Books and pamphlets challenging the authority of the communist government were printed by the thousands. Comic books for children recast Polish fables and legends, with Jaruzelski pictured as the villain, communism as the red dragon and Walesa as the heroic knight. In church basements and homes, millions of viewers watched documentary videos produced and screened on the equipment smuggled into the country. With clandestine broadcasting equipment supplied by the CIA and the AFL-CIO, Solidarity regularly broke into the government's radio programming, often with the message ``Solidarity lives!'' or ``Resist!'' Armed with a transmitter supplied by the CIA through church channels, Solidarity interrupted television programming with both audio and visual messages, including calls for strikes and demonstrations. ``There was a great moment at the half time of the national soccer championship,'' says a Vatican official. ``Just as the whistle sounded for the half, a Solidarity Lives! banner went up on the screen and a tape came on calling for resistance. What was particularly ingenious was waiting for the half-time break; had the interruption come during actual soccer play, it could have alienated people.'' As Brzezinski sums it up, ``This was the first time that communist police suppression didn't succeed.'' ``Nobody believed the collapse of communism would happen this fast or on this timetable,'' says a cardinal who is one of the Pope's closest aides. ``But in their first meeting, the holy Father and the President committed themselves and the institutions of the church and America to such a goal. And from that day, the focus was to bring it about in Poland.'' Step by reluctant step, the Soviets and the communist government of Poland bowed to the moral, economic and political pressure imposed by the Pope and the President. Jails were emptied, Walesa's trial on charges of slandering state officials was abandoned, the Polish communist party turned fratricidal, and the country's economy collapsed in a haze of strikes and demonstrations and sanctions. On Feb. 19, 1987, after Warsaw had pledged to open a dialogue with the church, Reagan lifted U.S. sanctions. Four months later, Pope John Paul II was cheered by millions of his countrymen as he traveled across Poland demanding human rights and praising Solidarity. In July 1988, Gorbachev visited Warsaw and signaled Moscow's recognition that the government could not rule without Solidarity's cooperation. On April 5, 1989, the two sides signed agreements legalizing Solidarity and calling for open parliamentary elections in June. In December 1990, nine years after he was arrested and his labor union banned, Lech Walesa became President of Poland. [Correction (Apr. 27, 1992): A short article accompanying our report on the cooperative effort of President Reagan and Pope John Paul II to assist Poland's Solidarity movement [Cover, Feb. 24] incorrectly stated the U.S. position on financial aid for family planning in foreign countries. The U.S. announced in 1984 that it would withhold funds for abortion or coerced birth control--but not for all family planning.]

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 211, I call up the Senate bill (S. 256) to amend title 11 of the United States Code, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw for now the motion to table.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker. Is the material asked to be inserted covered under the General Leave that was requested at the beginning of the debate by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey)?