Chris Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago I introduced H. Con. Res. 218 which already has more than 70 bipartisan cosponsors, including the chairman of the full committee the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman); the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi); the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf); the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos); the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown); the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) and many others, condemning the crackdown of the Falun Gong spiritual movement by the government of the People's Republic of China. As we all know by now, the Chinese dictatorship has long been brutal in its suppression of religious practice that is not state-controlled. Tibetan Buddhists, Catholics loyal to the Pope, Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang Province and Protestant House Church members have all borne the brunt of a systematic and brutal persecution by the Chinese government which often includes torture. In recent months, the Chinese government has embarked on a new campaign, an attempt, in its own words, to smash Falun Gong, a peaceful and nonviolent form of spiritual practice. A meditative spirituality that blends elements of Buddhism and Taoism, Falun Gong has millions of adherents in China and elsewhere. Since the group was banned in July of this year, thousands of ordinary citizens from all over China have been jailed for refusing to give up their practice. There have been many credible reports of torture and inhumane treatment of detained practitioners, including a report that a 42-year-old woman was tortured to death by Chinese thugs. Numerous practitioners, Mr. Speaker, have been sentenced to labor camps without trial and thousands have lost their jobs or have been expelled from schools. The Chinese government has also enacted laws criminalizing Falun Gong. This past Friday after a single, 7-hour closed hearing, China handed down the first sentences against Falun Gong practitioners. Three men and one woman received sentences ranging from 2 to 12 years for ``using an evil cult to obstruct the law.'' It is feared that those were only the first of what will become many trials aimed at stamping out the practice of Falun Gong. According to press reports, China will begin a new series of approximately 300 trials starting on Sunday with the trial of a 63-year-old retired schoolteacher kicking that off. This is an absolute outrage. Thankfully the House, I hope, will soon go on record condemning it. The fact that this rash of trials follows so closely on the heels of the Beijing visit of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan demonstrates the failure of his visit to advance the cause of human rights in China. I could not believe my eyes, Mr. Speaker, reading yesterday's press reports of the Secretary-General's remarks on Tuesday. Mr. Annan stated that the Chinese foreign minister had given him ``a better understanding of some of the issues involved'' in the Falun Gong crackdown. He also parroted the Chinese official line, stating that, and I quote, ``In dealing with this issue, the fundamental rights of citizens will be respected, and some of the actions they are taking are for the protection of individuals.'' Certainly Mr. Annan cannot be ignorant of the credible reports to the contrary that have been pouring out of China in recent weeks. I fear that the Secretary-General's failure to empathize with and to speak out on behalf of these oppressed people and his willingness to give the Chinese oppressors the benefit of an unjustified doubt has only emboldened them in their efforts to crush Falun Gong. The suppression of Falun Gong in China has been brutal, it has been systematic, and it continues as we meet here tonight. Two days ago, during the Secretary-General's visit, the authorities arrested 20 more people who were practitioners of Falun Gong who were meditating in Tiananmen Square. The police used force against the group, reportedly kicking and jumping on the peaceful protesters before removing them from the square in a van. In response to this further suppression of fundamental human rights by the Beijing dictatorship, H. Con. Res. 218 expresses the sense of the Congress that the government of the PRC should stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners and other religious believers and expresses our belief that the U.S. Government should use every appropriate forum to urge the PRC to release all detained Falun Gong practitioners; allow those practitioners to pursue their beliefs in accordance with the Chinese constitution; and to abide by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Given this Chamber's commitment to freedom of conscience and the undisguised severity of the persecution against Falun Gong, I strongly urge support of this resolution.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, addressing the abortion compromise on Monday in Ankara, Turkey, our distinguished Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright said, and I quote, ``we do believe it will have a minimal effect on family planning.'' She went on to say ``the compromise will allow the President to carry out U.S. family planning policy around the world.'' I agree wholeheartedly with the Secretary of State. In fact, the pro- life side has always argued that the Mexico City Policy has no effect on those family planning organizations that divest themselves from the grisly business of abortion. The compromise provides that at least 96 percent of all the money used for population purposes--that is about $370 million--will be subjected to the Mexico City safeguards that prohibit foreign nongovernmental organizations from performing abortions in foreign countries, from violating abortion laws of those countries, or from engaging in activities in efforts to change or alter those laws. If the President chooses, he can waive the restrictions for up to $15 million in that account. I am very pleased, Mr. Speaker, that H.R. 3427 is also enacted by this Act. It is the product of our Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. It is in essence, a bill passed by both Houses. Mr. Speaker, addressing the abortion compromise on Monday in Ankara, Turkey, our distinguished Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, said, ``We do believe'' it will have a ``minimal effect on family planning'' and that it, the compromise, ``will allow the president to carry out-- U.S. family planning policy around the world.'' I agree wholeheartedly with Secretary Albright. In fact, the pro-life side has always argued that the Mexico City policy has no effect on those family planning organizations who divest themselves from the grisly business of abortion. Abortion is violence against children. Abortion dismembers or chemically poisons innocent children. It is not family planning. The compromise language before us today narrowly focuses on those organizations that advertise themselves as family planning groups, but promote and/or perform abortions in other countries. Let me reiterate in the strongest terms possible, this controversy has been, and is, all about the performance and promotion of abortion overseas, and not about family planning per se. The compromise provides that at least 96% of all the money used for population purpose--that's about $370 million--will be subject to the Mexico City safeguards that prohibit foreign non-governmental organizations from performing abortions in foreign countries, from violating the abortion laws of these countries, or from engaging in activities or efforts to change these laws. If the President chooses, he can waive the restrictions on up to $15 million in the account (4%). The abortion compromise language is far from perfect, it is a compromise but it is significant. The effect of the waiver is that up to $15 million would then be able to go to foreign organizations that did not make the Mexico City certifications with respect to performing abortions, violating abortion laws, and engaging in activities or efforts to change abortion laws. But this option comes with a consequence--$12.5 million will be transferred from the population account to the Child Survival fund for activities that have measurable, direct, and high impact on saving the lives of children in the Third World. On the negotiations with the White House, there was give and take-- the compromise is the result of a good faith effort to resolve difficult and complex issues. Neither side got everything it wanted. On balance, however, this bill represents a major step forward for the protection of unborn children around the world--without endangering genuine family planning activities. Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased that this bill enacts by reference the provisions of H.R. 3427, the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 200-2001, which I introduced along with Representatives Cynthia McKinney, Ben Gilman, and Sam Gejdenson. I insert at this point in the Record an agreed statement of the legislative history of H.R. 3427. Legislative History of H.R. 3427, the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2000-2001 Mr. Smith of New Jersey: Mr. Speaker, the conference report on H.R. 3194, the District of Columbia Appropriations Act, Fiscal Year 2000, incorporates and enacts by reference H.R. 3427, the Admiral James W. Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Act, Fiscal Years 2000-2001, which I introduced yesterday, November 17, 1999, along with Representatives Cynthia McKinney, Ben Gilman, and Sam Gejdenson. Let me state for the record that H.R. 3427 is a compromise between H.R. 2415, the American Embassy Security Act, as passed by the House, and the Senate amendment to H.R. 2415, which incorporates the provisions of S. 886, the James W. Nance Foreign Relations Authorization Act. H.R. 3427 is a substitute for a conference report or an amendment between the Houses to resolve the differences between the House and the Senate versions of the bill. The text and the Statement of Managers of H.R. 3427 (which appears in the explanatory statement to the conference report on H.R. 3194) were agreed upon by Mr. Gilman and Mr. Gejdenson, as well as by myself and Ms. McKinney--the Chairman and Ranking Minority Members, respectively, of the committee and subcommittee with jurisdiction over the bill in the House. In the Senate, the Statement of Managers of H.R. 3427 has the concurrence of a majority of the conferees appointed by the Senate for H.R. 2415. The original Senate version of H.R. 2415, S. 886, was reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations on April 28, 1999 (S. Rept. 106-43) and passed the Senate, amended, on June 22, 1999 by a vote of 97-2. H.R. 2415 passed the House, amended, on July 21, 1999. It was not reported by our Committee but was sent directly to the floor by action of the House pursuant to the special Rule. H.R. 2415 was a successor to H.R. 1211. H.R. 1211 was reported by the Committee on International Relations on March 29, 1999 (H. Rept. 106-122). The legislative history of H.R. 3427 in the House is the legislative history of H.R. 2415 and H.R. 1211 in the House as far as is applicable. Similarly, in the Senate the legislative history of H.R. 3427 is the legislative history of S. 886. The Foreign Relations Authorizations Act contains important provisions relating to the security of United States embassies and overseas employees, to human rights, to refugees, and to the activities of the States Department. I am particularly proud that the bill provides $12 million for the Bureau of Human Rights, Democracy, and Labor. It is scandalous that the State Department currently spends more on its public relations bureau than on the human rights bureau, and this legislation will put an end to that scandal. The bill also authorizes $750 million for refugee protection--unfortunately, far more than the Administration requested or than has been appropriated for FY 2000--but we will work to get the request and appropriations for FY 2001 up to the mark in the Authorization Act. Mr. Speaker, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (H.R. 3427) also contains important United Nations reforms--standards to which the United Nations must live up in order to receive the amounts provided in the settlement of the dispute over arrearages. It authorizes $4.5 billion over five years for Embassy construction and improvement so as to reduce dramatically the vulnerability of our overseas facilities to terrorism, and provides strict conditions to make sure the State Department really spends the money on security instead of any other preferences it might have. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3427 ensures that as the United States Information Agency is folded into the State Department, the international information programs of USIA will not be converted into domestic press offices or propaganda organs. It requires that U.S. educational and cultural exchange programs provide safeguards against the inclusion of thugs and spies from dictatorial regimes and to increase the opportunities for human rights and democracy advocates to participate in these programs. (One of the requirements is that we conduct no further police training programs for members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary until we have in place vetting procedures to exclude participation by RUC officers who participated in or condoned serious human rights violations, such as the murders of defense attorneys Patrick Finucane and Rosemary Nelson.) Mr. Speaker, this bill makes clear that Congress expects important reforms in our Vietnamese refugee programs for allied combat veterans, former U.S. government employees, and their families. It continues a requirement of current law that the programs the United Nations Development Program conducts in Burma be conducted in consultation with the legitimately elected pro-democracy authorities in that country, and that these programs not serve the interests of the brutal military dictatorship that currently holds power in Burma. The bill also provides funding for UNICEF, the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, the World Food Program, for the Tibet, Burma, East Timor, and South Pacific Scholarships, and for other programs which will promote American interests and American values around the world.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring to the attention of my colleagues recent positive developments on religious freedom in Azerbaijan. Members of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which I chair, raised last week our concern over the raids of the Baptist and Lutheran churches in Baku, the threatened deportation of foreigners associated with these churches, and the firing of a number of Jehovah's Witnesses from their jobs because of their religious affiliation. In a letter to President Haidar Aliev on November 3, referencing Azerbaijan's OSCE commitments to religious liberty, we raised the recent incidents that violate religious liberty and asked Azerbaijan to register religious groups that have not been able to gain legal status. On Monday, November 8, in a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Stanley Escudero, President Aliev publicly reaffirmed Azerbaijan's commitment to religious freedom, pledged to redress recent problems faced by minority religious groups, and gave assurances there would be no further religious liberty violations in Azerbaijan. In a statement that was carried by the government-controlled media, President Aliev said, ``I have vigorously warned administrative bodies of the fact that arbitrariness on such issues is inconceivable. One cannot restrict freedom of conscience and creed.'' Our Embassy in Baku reports that the courts have set aside the deportation orders for the foreign Christians, and the Garadag Gas Plant has reinstated the jobs of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Mr. Speaker, I commend Ambassador Stanley Escudero for persistently raising these issues with Azeri authorities. I also commend the work of Political Officer Michael Speckhard who has been a tireless advocate for religious freedom. I am hopeful that President Aliev's remarks signal a new dawn in Azerbaijan and that his country will become the region's beacon for religious freedom. The prompt response of President Aliev to these recent events is encouraging, and I am hopeful that religious group that previously have not been able to obtain legal status will now be registered and will be free to practice their faith.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) the chairman of the full committee and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for their eloquent remarks today. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support of H. Con. Res. 206. This resolution addresses an issue of utmost urgency, the war in Chechnya and the plight of innocent people caught in the Russian military onslaught. In August and September of this year, Islamic extremists based in Chechnya, independent of the government of Chechnya, twice staged armed incursions into the neighboring Russian Federation Republic of Dagestan with the intent of creating a separate political entity within Dagestan. In response, the Russian government has sent its army to reoccupy Chechnya, an area that had won de facto independence from Russia as a result of a very bloody war from 1994 to 1996. The Russian government is justified in rebuffing armed aggression against its territorial integrity. Moreover, one can certainly sympathize with Russia's frustration when unsolved bombings kill almost 300 persons in Russia. But this does not justify reactivating a war against a civilian population in Chechnya. Several news reports have, in detail, described the air raids and the artillery shelling of noncombatant villages, homes, and farms. The November 6 edition of the Guardian, for example, in Great Britain said, and I quote, missiles smash into a crowded marketplace, killing and maiming hundreds. A tank shell explodes among a group of village boys playing football; seven die, others lose legs or eyes. Orphans of an earlier war shake and sob with terror as warplanes on bombing runs boom low over their outdoor camp. Mr. Speaker, the death toll is in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, and the number of internally displaced persons is now put at around 200,000. This figure, of course, does not include those persons trapped in the besieged Chechen capital of Grozny. Many of these are elderly ethnic Russians with absolutely nowhere to flee. The government of Chechnya has not been entirely blameless as my friend from California pointed out earlier in this situation. Since achieving de facto independence from Russia in 1994, Chechnya has degenerated into a morass of lawlessness and violence with a government powerless to establish law and order and an economy unable to recover from the devastation of war. Mr. Speaker, specifically H. Con. Res. 206 urges the government of the Russian Federation and all parties to cease the indiscriminate use of force against the civilian population in Chechnya. The government of Russia and all parties are urged to enter into negotiations and to avail themselves to the capabilities of the OSCE which helped broker the end of the war in 1996. Additionally, this resolution calls upon Chechen authorities to make every effort to deny bases to radical elements committed to violent actions in the North Caucasus and urges Chechen authorities to create a rule of law environment with legal norms based on internationally accepted standards. Finally, H. Con. Res. 206 calls upon our own government to express to all parties the necessity of resolving the conflict peacefully and to express the willingness of the U.S. to extend appropriate assistance toward such resolution, including humanitarian assistance as needed. Mr. Speaker, I commend to the reading of my colleague an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal, an op-ed piece by Zbigniew Brzenski who, as we all know, was National Security Advisor and a very prominent and insightfull leader is in international affairs. He points out that unlike the earlier war, this time the Russians have no intention of engaging in costly street fighting against the entrenched and determined Chechens. Instead, their plan is to use new weapons to launch devastating attacks from a safe distance. Using a combination of explosives and chemical agents, they will aim to wipe out the thousands of Chechen fighters squeezed by Russian pressure into compressed urban ruins. There have been reports that gas masks have already been distributed to the Russian troops. Among the new weapons will be so-called fuel air explosives which blanket targeted terrain with a flammable vapor cover and following a massive explosion precipitate a lethal vacuum. Even deeply dug-in Chechens will be exterminated. The cumulative result of this tragedy will be the killing of most fighting-age Chechen males. Mr. Brzenski goes on to state and I quote, so far the Clinton administration has been callously passive while international reaction has been muted even though a Russian success in the war would have wide and negative consequences. Then he goes on to further develop that case. Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize that this resolution is not anti- Russian or pro-Chechen. Many observers who wish to see a prosperous and democratic Russia have been deeply disturbed by the present campaign in Chechnya. Recently, the chairperson of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Ludmilla Alexeeva, and Dr. Elena Bonner and several other prominent human rights activists in Russia issued an appeal in which they condemned the Russian government for having chosen full scale war in Chechnya as the means to fight terrorism. The appeal states, and I quote, ``We believe that authorities' actions will not solve the problem in Chechnya. The most that they will accomplish will be a long-term occupation of Chechnya which will deform Russian democratic institutions and will once and for all transform Russia into a police state,'' close quote. Mr. Speaker, last week the State Department accused Moscow of failing to meet human rights standards set out in both the Geneva Conventions and the codes of conduct of the OSCE, a very welcome statement on behalf of our government. Unfortunately, when Attorney General Janet Reno visited Moscow last month, her evasive comments about the war in Chechnya prompted the October 23, 1999, edition of the Moscow Times to conclude that, and I quote, ``Reno's Quiet Gave War a Green Light.'' Hopefully, the administration will continue, as it has begun now, to speak with one voice in the future and to avoid any such mixed messages. Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, criticism of Russia's actions in Chechnya is mounting throughout the world. From the European Union and the Council of Europe to the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada; the government of Bahrain is reportedly taking steps to have the humanitarian situation in Chechnya considered by the U.N. Security Council. The proposal to win IMF funding for Russia while it continues its bloody outrage in Chechnya is an excellent idea, and I would hope that the Congress would consider it when the next session opens in January. Finally, in an editorial entitled ``No Funds for Russia's War,'' this past Sunday, the Washington Post called for an end to IMF funding for Russia and wrote, and I quote: ``Few would oppose a Russian campaign to eliminate terrorism, the stated purpose of the military campaign. But Russia's violence against Chechen civilians has become so indiscriminate and massive that no one can take seriously any longer the official justifications. Just on Friday, a Russian prime minister flatly stated that ``Chechnya's capital will be destroyed.'' I urge support for the resolution.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of H. Res. 325, a resolution expressing the will of the House that the Federal Government has an important responsibility to appropriately fund vital life-saving and life-affirming research to treat and cure diabetes. As a co-sponsor of this resolution, and as a member of the Congressional Diabetes Caucus, I believe the goal of understanding the causes of diabetes, and thereby discovering a cure, is both attainable and appropriate for our nation. Diabetes affects 16 million Americans and is one of the leading causes of blindness, amputations, kidney disease, and heart disease. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), at our hospitals and medical centers, and at our nation's research-based pharmaceutical companies, are all working hard to find a cure for diabetes. But they need the full support of Congress, because the problem is simply too big for any one segment of our society to conquer on its own. Through this resolution, Congress is putting itself on record advocating the funding level of $827 million dollars recommended by the Diabetes Research Working Group. This is the amount of NIH funding deemed to be necessary to wage a full-fledged war on diabetes. I hope the National Institutes of Health (NIH) takes a careful look at this vote on H. Res. 325 as they compile their research priorities in the coming years. In the U.S., there are currently 123,000 persons under age 20--most of them children--suffering from diabetes. We know these children because they live in every community in America. One such child is Charlie Coates, a precocious young boy from Highstown, New Jersey, who visited my office in Washington, D.C., along with his father, David Coates. Charlie has diabetes, and Charlie's future, and the futures of thousands of children just like him, depend in part on the decisions made here in Congress and in Bethesda, Maryland, the headquarters of the NIH. Diabetes affects virtually every tissue and organ in Charlie's body, and it can create serious medical complications for him. His mother and father have to be constantly vigilant to make sure Charlie's diabetes is kept under control with insulin. Right now, the average life expectancy of a person with diabetes is 15 to 20 years less than for those without the disease. Indeed, the stakes for children like Charlie are very high in this fight. Children like him need a medical breakthrough, and they need it now. We are at a crucial decision point in the war on diabetes. Will we try to wage this war on the cheap, with proverbial sticks and rocks? For the sake of 16 million Americans, I sure hope not. Or will we use the full array of life-affirming and life-saving technology at our nation's disposal, and fund the fight at the level recommended by the Diabetes Research Working Group? As a nation, we need to refocus and rededicate ourselves to finding the cure for diabetes. Despite great progress to date at the NIH, we are still not designating diabetes among our top priorities. For instance, from FY 1980 through 1999, NIH-funded diabetes research as a percentage of the total NIH budget has never exceeded 4.1 percent, despite the fact that diabetes-related illnesses during the same period represented 12 to 14 percent of the health care expenses in the United States. Right now, only $30 per year in federal research is spent per person affected with diabetes. That is less than a family might spend for a movie and a pizza! Affected persons need more care and relief than $30 per person per year can buy. Diabetes costs our nation an estimated $105 billion annually in health care costs. In addition, seniors are also at a great risk for diabetes. Fully one out of every four Medicare dollars is spent on caring for diabetes, totaling about $28.6 billion per year and making diabetes and its related complications Medicare's single largest expense. And the human costs of diabetes are simply incalculable. Diabetes is not a discriminatory disease. It is a lifelong condition that affects people of every age, race, income level, and nationality. The number of Americans with diabetes has increased nearly 700 percent in the past 40 years, leading the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to call it the ``epidemic of our time.'' Nearly 123,000 children and persons under 20 suffer from some form of diabetes. The cost would most likely be lower if diabetes were detected earlier. Too frequently this epidemic goes undiagnosed: 5.4 million Americans have the disease but do not know it. About 197,000 Americans die each year from the complications of diabetes, and there are approximately 800,000 newly diagnosed cases each year. But there is hope, if only Congress will set aside the necessary resources to track down promising leads and research proposals. Early detection and preventive medicine is crucial in assisting Americans become better aware and educated about diabetes. If we can teach patients to know the warning signs and symptoms of diabetes, we can lower the risks of further infection an complications. With the information technology revolution upon us, I believe a cure is in sight. I voice my enthusiastic support for H. Res. 325, and urge every one of my colleagues to do the same. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the full committee, my good friend, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), and all who have done so much on this important piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker, this is a great day for our veterans. This legislation is comprehensive. Its name certainly is indicative of what it is, a very forward-thinking bill, the Veterans Millennium Health Care Act. This legislation positions us for the challenges ahead. I just want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) for including two provisions that I have been working on, one for over 10 years. One of the widows of a former serviceman, a Navy officer in my state, for years had been denied, denied compensation for his very, very untimely death. He suffered from a very rare disease, a lung cancer that usually is the result of plutonium exposure. He was one of those who was on the U.S.S. McKinley during an atomic test--code named operation wigwam. The Record shows that Tom McCarthy was bathed in an atomic aerosol that more than likely contained plutonium, and then suffered the onset of cancer and a premature death. Bronchiolo alveolar carcinoma, the malady Tom was infected with is a nonsmoking disease that is usually induced by exposure to plutonium. Unfortunately, his widow, Joan McCarthy, was denied year after year after year when she would put in claims to the VA. That is a profound injustice that my provision sets right. This legislation finally, belatedly recognizes that her claim is legitimate, authentic, and ought to be paid. It seems to me, this is the very least our action can do. As a matter of fact, we owe Joan an apology for our collective indifference for her loss. Again, I want to thank the chairman, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) throughout two decades, and Mr. Montgomery when he was here was always very supportive of this legislation when he was chairman. We have finally succeeded in righting, to some extent, a terrible wrong which will now help this widow and other widows who have suffered. I also want to thank the chairman, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) for their support of the respite care provisions. Respite care is one of those very often unrecognized needs. The caregivers who spend on average about 10\1/2\ hours a day helping disabled loved ones, usually their family members. And in this case we are talking about veterans, many of whom are World War II veterans. My legislation, which is now a provision and tax bill, will provide contract care, the ability, the authority for the VA to contract so that that respite care can be given. Under current law, in order to receive respite care benefits, the caregiver has to put the loved one into a VA or State nursing home. That is so onerous and unworkable that in 1998, only 232 cases of respite care was provided by the VA; and we know that the need exceeds that. This new VA authority vests the VA with the ability to contract out for respite care. Mr. Speaker, I again want to thank all of those who were involved in writing this legislation. Our staff has been extraordinarily effective. We had a very challenging conference with the Senate. But, thankfully, there was a meeting of the minds. Prudent compromises were agreed to. So I salute the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) for their extraordinary leadership. They are great friends of the veteran. This is an outstanding bill. I urge support for it.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 222, condemning the assassination of Armenian Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsian and other Armenian Government officials. A total of nine people were killed--in addition to the Prime Minister, Speaker of Parliament Karen Demirchian was shot, as were two deputy speakers of parliament. Indeed, it seemed as if much of Armenia's political elite, except for President Robert Kocharian, had been removed in one surreal afternoon. The horrifying events of October 27 were all the more shocking considering that Armenia appeared to have established a framework for political stability and efficient government. After the May 1999 parliamentary elections, President Kocharian, Prime Minister Sargsian and Speaker Demirchian constituted the legs of a troika uniting the three most influential politicians in Armenia. They had practically reached agreement on the budget, one of the most pressing problems facing Armenia. Perhaps most important, President Kocharian apparently had the support of his Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament, as well as other Armenian political leaders, in his bilateral negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliev. Those talks, which began this spring, have been the most promising development in the long road to resolving the conflict. In short, there was reason for cautious optimism on any number of fronts in the South Caucasus. Alas, the murder of the Prime Minister, the Speaker and others has set back the talks on Nagorno-Karabakh. Judging by public statements in Baku and Yerevan last week, instead of an agreement, which many had been hoping for, only a general statement of principles might be signed this week at the OSCE Summit in Istanbul. But, Mr. Speaker, I trust that despite the tragedy of October 27, Presidents Kocharian and Aliev will continue their efforts to find a solution to this knottiest of problems. There is some consolation, at this time of sober reflection and mourning, in that these two leaders obviously understand that peace is in the best interest of their peoples. Mr. Speaker, the perpetrators are in custody and the investigation into the events of October 27 continues. Many questions remain unanswered about their motives and the possible involvement of other conspirators. In the last week, Armenian authorities have arrested several more people, including a member of parliament. It is imperative to get to the bottom of this matter, and the United States should offer any assistance Yerevan may request to accelerate and facilitate the inquiry. It is important to show the Armenian public, Armenia's neighbors, and all the world that despite the tragedy of October 27, Armenia is a stable country--able and willing to address its problems, to pursue peace with its neighbors and to take its rightful place in the international community.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Helsinki Commission, I watched for several years as the human rights situation in Slovakia deteriorated under the leadership of former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar. I saw how the fledgling democratic institutions of that new country were undermined, how parliamentary and constitutional processes were threatened, and how the rule of law was slowly but surely choked. I, joined by colleagues from the Commission, raised these issues time and again with Slovak officials, as did other officials of the U.S. Government. Unfortunately, Mr. Meciar was not very receptive to our arguments. As it happened, however, the fate of the democratic process in Slovakia was not left to the tender mercies of Vladimir Meciar. A year ago, the people of Slovakia took matters into their own hands. In an election carefully monitored by the OSCE, voters returned to office a coalition government that ended Meciar's increasingly authoritarian rule. Initially, this broadly based--some might even say weak--coalition seemed to stand only for one thing: it was against Meciar. But in the year that has passed, we can not say that this government is not simply united in its opposition against the former regime, it is united in its commitment for democracy, for the rule of law, for a free market economy, for a transparent privatization process that is accountable to the people, and for a community of democracies dedicated to the protection of their common security. Mr. Speaker, the process of transition that Slovakia struggles with today is not an easy one. In fact, many of the commemorations held this month to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism have focused on just how difficult this transition has been, including for Slovakia's closest neighbors. In spite of this, the Slovak Government has proceeded to make some very tough decisions this year. I am particularly impressed by the willingness of Prime Minister Dzurinda to make decisions that, while necessary for the long term, economic well-being of his country, may be very politically unpopular in the short term. That takes courage. I know, of course, that Slovakia still has a lot of work ahead. As in most other European countries, there is much that should be done in Slovakia to improve respect for the human rights of the Romani minority. But there is much that Slovakia has accomplished in the past year and--especially as someone who has been critical of Slovakia in the past--I want to acknowledge and commend those achievements. Mr. Speaker, I hope others will join me in sending this message and will support H. Con. Res. 165.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that the House schedule did not permit consideration of my resolution, H. Con. Res. 204, which has been co-sponsored by Representative Hoyer, Representative Forbes and Representative McKinney. The resolution voices concern about serious violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in most states of Central Asia, in particular, substantial noncompliance with OSCE commitments on democratization and the holding of free and fair elections. Among the countries of the former Soviet Union, only in Ukraine and Moldova have sitting presidents lost an election and peacefully left office. We will yet see what happens in Russia, where President Yeltsin has launched another war in Chechnya. It may be too much, given the historical differences between our respective societies, to hope the post-Soviet states could find among their political leaders a George Washington, who could have been king but chose not to be, and who chose to leave office after two terms. But it is not too much to hope that other post-Soviet leaders might emulate Ukraine's former President Leonid Kravchuk or Moldova's former President Mircea Snegur, not to mention Lithuania's Algirdas Brazauskas, who all allowed a peaceful transfer of power. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, Central Asian leaders give every indication of intending to remain in office for life. Their desire for unlimited and permanent power means that they cannot implement all OSCE commitments on democracy, the rule of law and human rights, as doing so would create a level playing field for challengers and allow the media to shine the light on presidential misdeeds and high-level corruption. The result has been an entire region in the OSCE space where fundamental OSCE freedoms are ignored while leaders entrench themselves and their families in power and wealth. To give credit where it is due, the situation is least bad in Kyrgyzstan. President Akaev, a physicist, is the only Central Asian leader who was not previously the head of his republic's Communist Party. One can actually meet members of parliament who strongly criticize President Akaev and the legislature itself is not a rubber stamp body. Moreover, print media--though under serious pressure from the executive branch--exhibit diversity of views and opposition parties function. Still, in 1995, two contenders in the presidential election were disqualified before the vote. Parliamentary and presidential elections are approaching in 2000. Kyrgyzstan's OSCE partners will be watching carefully to see whether they are free and fair. Until the mid-1990s, Kazakstan seemed a relatively reformist country, where various political parties could function and the media enjoyed some freedom. But President Nazarbaev dissolved two parliaments and singlemindedly sought to accumulate sole power. In the last few years, the regime has become ever more authoritarian. President Nazarbaev has concentrated all power in his hands, subordinating to himself all other branches and institutions of government. A constitutional amendment passed in October 1999 conveniently removed the age limit of 65 to be president. The OSCE judged last January's presidential elections, from which a leading opposition contender was barred as far short of OSCE standards. Last month's parliamentary election, according to the OSCE, was ``severely marred by widespread, pervasive and illegal interference by executive authorities in the electoral process.'' In response, President Nazarbaev has attacked the OSCE, comparing it to the Soviet Communist Party's Politburo for trying to ``tell Kazakstan what to do.'' Tajikistan has suffered the saddest fate of all the Central Asian countries; a civil war that killed scores of thousands. In 1997, the warring sides finally ceased hostilities and reached agreement about power-sharing, which permitted a bit of hopefulness about prospects for normal development and democratization. It seems, however, that the accord will not ensure stability. Tajikistan's Central Election Commission refused to register two opposition candidates for the November 6 presidential election. The sole alternative candidate registered has refused to accept the results of the election, which, according to official figures, current President Emomaly Rakhmonov won with 97 percent of the vote, in a 98 percent turnout. Those numbers, Mr. Speaker, say it all. The OSCE properly declined to send observers. Benighted Turkmenistan practically beggars description. This country, which as been blessed with large quantities of natural gas, has a political system that combines the worst traits of Soviet communism with a personality cult seen today in countries like Iraq or North Korea. No dissidence of any kind is permitted and the population enjoys no human rights. While his impoverished people barely manage to get by, President Niyazov builds garish presidential palaces and monuments to himself. The only registered political party in Turkmenistan is the Democratic Party--headed by President Niyazov. In late October he said the people of his country would not be ready for the stresses and choices of a democratic society until 2010, adding that independent media are ``disruptive.'' On December 12, Turkmenistan is holding parliamentary ``elections,'' which the OSCE will not bother to observe. Finally, we come to Uzbekistan. The Helsinki Commission, which I chair, held hearings on democratization and human rights in Uzbekistan on October 18. Despite the best efforts of Uzbekistan's Ambassador Safaev to convince us that democratization is proceeding apace in his country, the testimony of all the other witnesses confirmed the widely held view that after Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan is the most repressive country in Central Asia. No opposition political activity is allowed and media present only the government's point of view. Christian denominations have faced official harassment. Since 1997, a massive government campaign has been underway against independent Muslim believers. In February of this year, explosions rocked Tashkent, which the government described as an assassination attempt by Islamic radicals allied with an exiled opposition leader. Apart from elections, a key indicator of progress towards democratization is the state of media freedom. On October 25-27, an International Conference on Mass Media in Central Asia took place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Not surprisingly, Turkmenistan did not allow anyone to attend. The other participants adopted a declaration noting that democratization has slowed in almost all Central Asian states, while authoritarian regimes have grown stronger, limiting the scope for genuine media freedom as governments influence the media through economic means. I strongly agree with these sentiments. The concentration of media outlets in pro-regime hands, the ongoing assault on independent and opposition media and the circumscription of the media's legally- sanctioned subject matter pose a great danger to the development of democracy in Central Asia. Official statistics about how many media outlets have been privatized cover up an alarming tendency towards government monopolization of information sources. This effectively makes it impossible for citizens to receive unbiased information, which is vital if people are to hold their governments accountable. Mr. Speaker, it is clear that in Central Asia, the overall level of democratization and human rights observance is poor. Central Asian leaders make decisions in a region far from Western Europe, close to China, Iran and Afghanistan, and they often assert that ``human rights are only for the West'' or the building democracy ``takes time.'' But delaying steps towards democracy is very risky in the multi-ethnic, multi-religious region of Central Asia, where many people are highly educated and have expectations of faster change. If it does not come, tensions and conflicts could emerge that could endanger security for everyone. To lessen these risks, continuous pressure will be needed on these countries to move faster on democracy. Even as the United States pursues other interests, we should give top priority to democracy and respect for human rights, or we may live to regret not doing so.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support of H. Res. 350 and urge swift and extensive oversight into the question of trafficking in the bodies of unborn babies killed by abortion. Mr. Speaker, the House has not addressed this issue since 1993, when the NIH Revitalization Act was passed by this body. At that time, many of us were deeply concerned, and expressed it on this floor, that research using the shattered bodies of aborted babies could quickly lead to a greater number of abortions, particularly if the demand for their body parts grew among researchers. Those concerns appear to have been well founded. I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) for offering this resolution and, as he pointed out earlier, it was a pro- life organization in Texas that compiled numerous documents about the horrific business of trafficking in baby body parts. The companies involved provide price lists for the individual parts. Let me read just some of those that are listed: Liver, $150, but a 30 percent discount if significantly fragmented. Pancreas, under 8 weeks, $100. Ears, under 8 weeks, $75. Brain, under 8 weeks, $999, 30 percent discount if significantly fragmented. Intact trunk, with or without limbs, $500. Spinal column, $150. Skin, $100. Mr. Speaker, this is almost too grotesque to imagine. Yet this is a real business and these are real babies, innocent children who have been deprived of their lives. It is routine, Mr. Speaker, for pregnant women who are planning to abort their babies to be told that their children are nothing more than collections of cells or blobs of tissue. Yet these lists clearly give lie to that myth. Babies younger than 8 weeks have, as they point out on their price list, identifiable brains, livers, spleens, ears, and eyes, and they, as well as older babies, are being taken apart piece by piece, limb by limb, even skinned. Worst of all, there are profiteers waiting in the wings to make money from this tragedy by collecting and selling the pieces. Among the questions that Congress must investigate, Mr. Speaker, is whether these private businesses are operating inside or outside the scope even of our current infirm law, and whether Federal law has the gaping loopholes that we suggested back in 1993 which allow these companies to claim significant payments for body parts as, quote, reasonable compensation for obtaining them. We may also have to look at the clinics' financial interest, particularly where federally funded research is involved. When taxpayer funding of research using baby body parts was being defended 6 or more years ago, one thing that was said repeatedly was that these babies are already dead. The truth is, however, that they are not dead when a woman is asked to donate, and it may not even be true that the woman has decided to abort when she is presented with the prospect of handing over her baby's body parts for research purposes. And as we pointed out then, that may, among other factors, help tip the scale. Mr. Speaker, many women are ambivalent about abortion, and the studies show that many are undecided even as they walk into the clinic doors. They hope to get objective counseling about their options, but abortion clinic employees, as we have known, are far from objective. Currently there is nothing in Federal law or regulations, and almost certainly nothing in the private sector, to prevent a so-called counselor from telling a woman who is undecided about abortion that if she decides to abort, some good can result if she donates her dead baby to research. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Colorado has pointed out to all of us, and again I want to salute him for bringing this to our attention, a woman who used to work for these middlemen has come forward to talk about their business arrangements with abortion clinics. She has recounted that the abortion clinic would give her information on the women in the waiting room so that she could pick out the best candidates to fill their requests for organs and tissues, based on the women's medical history and stage or pregnancy. How far- fetched is it to imagine that these women in particular were approached to get permission to dissect their babies bodies? The so-called safeguards in current law for federally funded research are inadequate in this area and need to be re-examined. Mr. Speaker, the prospect of economic gain causes can poison even those practices established with the most benevolent intentions. Just yesterday there was a news story about concerns that have been raised over trafficking in human organs internationally for profit. A university professor who founded a group, Organs Watch, to investigate this, said ``In the organs trade business, abuses creep in before you know it.'' The same abuses should be expected in the baby parts business. I would be astounded if any Member of this body objected to this resolution. If the laws we have, and the enforcement of them, are so great, then hearings will bring that out. But if they are inadequate or are being ignored, then Congress should be made aware of that as well. Mr. Speaker, the barest minimum that we can do is to have a full scale investigation into this and go wherever the leads may take us to try to stop this heinous practice. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on this important resolution. Let's let some light shine on this grisly business.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, in a matter of days President Clinton and the leaders of the OSCE participating States will gather in Istanbul, Turkey for the final summit of the century. Among the important issues to be discussed will be a charter on European security. As the leaders of our countries assemble on the banks of the Bosphorus, few are likely to realize that the torturers continue to ply their trade--crushing the lives of countless men, women, and even children. In recent days I have received disturbing reports that highlight the fact that torture continues in Turkey despite Ankara's stated zero tolerance policy. Once again, we see that those who attempt to heal the physical and emotion scars of victims of torture are themselves often victimized by the so-called ``Anti-Terror Police.'' A case in point involves Dr. Zeki Uzun, a medical professional volunteering his services to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey's Izmir Treatment and Rehabilitation Center. Dr. Uzun was reportedly forced from his clinic by Anti-Terror Police and held for interrogation about past patients he had treated. During the interrogation, he was apparently subjected to various kinds of torture, including having a plastic bag placed over his head to stop his breathing. Dr. Uzun was held by the police for a period of six days during which time he was repeatedly abused. In March I chaired a Helsinki Commission hearing on human rights in Turkey in anticipation of the OSCE Summit that will be held in Istanbul, November 17-18. Experts testified to the continued widespread use of torture in Turkey, including the increasing use of electric shock. The gripping testimony included the case of torture against a two-year-old child. Mr. Speaker, I urge President Clinton to place the issue of prevention of torture at the top of his agenda when he meets with Prime Minister Ecevit and include this longstanding concerns in his address before the Turkish Grand National Assembly. If the Government of Turkey is serious about ending the practice of torture, it must publicly condemn such gross violations of human rights, adopt and implement effective procedural safeguards against torture, and vigorously prosecute those who practice torture. Instead of treating individuals like Dr. Uzun as enemies, Ankara should direct its resources to rooting out those elements of the security apparatus responsible for torture.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 2260 because the bill encourages sound medical practice in the relief of pain and suffering of the chronically and terminally ill patients. This bill would add a provision to the Controlled Substances Act, acknowledging the legitimate use of narcotics for the management of serious pain and discomfort, even if their use increases the risk of death for the patient. In the Hyde-Stupak bill, the goal is to make the patient as comfortable as possible during that person's terminal or chronic illness. Relief of pain is the contemplated result. This is not physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, either in substance or intent. Physicians are not actively and intentionally seeking to end the life of the patient. But powerful drugs that relieve pain have serious secondary effects. They can cause loss of cognition, depressed respiration, retained secretions, and increased dehydration by depressing voluntary nutrition. The secondary, or unintended effect, may therefore hasten death, through death is not a directly intended purpose. Organized medicine has recognized the principle of this ``double effect'' as the potential consequence of the legitimate and necessary use of controlled substances for pain management. The AMA calls this principle ``a vital element in creating a legal environment in which physicians may administer appropriate pain care for patients and we appreciate its inclusion.'' The AMA further expands its position as follows. ``Physicians have an obligation to relieve pain and suffering and to promote the dignity and autonomy of dying patients in their care. This includes providing effective palliative treatment, even though it may foreseeably hasten death.'' The bill will promote the training of health professionals to use these drugs appropriately while providing palliative care. This will dovetail with the newly inaugurated AMA program--``Education for Physicians on End of Life Care.'' This program is designed to educate physicians more fully in pain management and to deal more holistically with the patient. I oppose the Johnson-Rothman-Hooley substitute because it does nothing to prevent or restrict assisted suicide and it does nothing to train physicians and nurses in pain management, which the Hyde bill accomplishes. Johnson-Rothman-Hooley continues to authorize the use of federally regulated drugs to assist suicides whenever a state law permits this deadly practice. Finally, the substitute never clearly distinguishes pain control from deliberate killing or assisted suicide. There appears to be much confusion in the debate as to the scope of this proposal and how it might affect individual states. Supervision of controlled substances is a federal prerogative--it always has been. There are no new penalties suggested. Nothing is new. Rather, Hyde- Stupak heightens and reinforces current federal policy. While the bill will not technically ``overturn'' current Oregon law in this general matter, it will abrogate its use. Since physicians will be unable to legally prescribe intentionally lethal doses of federally controlled substances, the doctors will be encouraged to offer better pain control and not offer death to the seriously ill patient. Relief of pain with moderate or even substantial doses of drugs is good medical practice. Purposely and intentionally ending human life is inappropriate and antithetical to the role of the physician as healer. H.R. 2260 clarifies and enables physicians to pursue their legitimate role as healers. Easing pain at the time of the patient's final passage is one of medicine's most noble callings. I urge your support for this important bill.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, in the name of combating terrorism, Russia has again launched a war against Chechnya. It is employing indiscriminate use of force against civilians, and another humanitarian tragedy is unfolding. In August and September of this year, Islamic extremists based in Chechnya--independent of the government of Chechnya--twice staged armed incursions into the neighboring Russian Federation Republic of Dagestan. In response, the Russian Government has sent its army to reoccupy Chechnya, a region that had won de facto independence from the rest of Russia as a result of a bloody war from 1994-96 invaded. Now the United States Government recognizes, as a standard of international law, the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, and Moscow has the legal right to bring to justice those responsible for committing crimes in the incursion into Dagestan. One should also sympathize with the victims of the recent unsolved bombings that killed almost 300 persons in Russia. But neither this terrorism nor the incursions into Dagestan, as reprehensible as they were, justify the use of indiscriminate force against the civilian population of Chechnya and causing the carnage that we are seeing now. Last week, Russian rockets struck the Chechnen capital of Grozny, hitting a marketplace and killing scores of civilians. This was preceded by air raids and artillery shelling of non-combatant villages, homes and farms in the northern part of Chechnya. The Russian Federation Migration Service states that more than 170,000 internally displaced persons have fled Chechnya, mostly to the neighboring region of Ingushetia. Mr. Speaker, I, along with Mr. Wolf and Mr. Forbes, am introducing today a concurrent resolution calling upon the Government of the Russian Federation to cease unprovoked military attacks on the civilian population of Chechnya and to seek a negotiated solution to the conflict, using the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which helped broker an agreement to end the 1994-96 war. The United States Government should take a stronger stand in support of these goals, as the European Union has done. Not that the government of Chechnya has been entirely blameless. Since achieving de facto independence from Russia in 1996, Chechnya has degenerated into a morass of lawlessness and violence, with a government powerless to establish law and order. The economy, which was devastated by the war, has been sustained heavily by criminal activity. Moreover, rampant kidnapings of Russians and foreigners for ransom have caused Chechnya to lose much sympathy and support in Russia and the West. Russia is entirely justified in using appropriate methods to combat terrorism, but not in launching a war against innocent civilians. Russia is a participating State of the OSCE, and has agreed to certain standards regarding the protection of civilians when addressing internal security matters. Yes, Chechnya is recognized by the international community as a part of Russia, but this is not merely an ``internal matter.'' The 1991 Moscow Document of the OSCE clearly states that commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the OSCE are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating States and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concerned. Moreover, Moscow's current policy is likely to lengthen and widen the conflict, perhaps into Russia and beyond, and it may well jeopardize democracy in Russia if Russian leaders attempt to use ``emergency'' measures as part of its war policy. Our resolution also calls upon the Chechen government to make every appropriate effort to deny bases or other support to radical elements committed to violent actions in the North Caucasus. Furthermore, the resolution urges our own government to emphasize to all parties the necessity of resolving the conflict peacefully, under OSCE auspices, and to express the willingness to extend appropriate assistance toward such resolution, including humanitarian assistance, as needed. Mr. Speaker, I wish to emphasize that this resolution is not ``anti- Russian'' or ``pro-Chechen.'' Many observers who wish to see a prosperous and democratic Russia have been deeply disturbed by the present campaign in Chechnya. The chairperson of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Ludmila Alexeyeva, has stated that: ``Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, a real war is being waged against Chechnya, with tragic consequences for the civilian population. In several cities in Russia, under the same pretext, the authorities are conducting a genuine campaign of ethnic cleansing. These events are no less dangerous for European security than the Kosova crisis caused by the Milosevic regime last spring. In and around Chechnya we are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe which is alarming, insofar as the international community is paying very little attention.'' In a recent statement, Deputy Secretary of State Talbott called upon Russia to use restraint, ``taking action against real terrorists, but not using indiscriminate force that endangers innocents, or resuming the disastrous 1994-96 war in Chechnya.'' President Clinton should back these good words with stronger steps. If Russia does not act with restraint and pursue dialogue, then Chechnya should become the main issue at the OSCE Summit in Istanbul on November 18 and 19. I hope that the Congress would go on record as supporting these calls, and I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this resolution.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, in the decade since multi-party elections first began to be held in what were the one-party states of East-Central Europe, the political leaders and societies of many of these states have committed themselves to building democratic institutions, respecting the rule of law and tolerating social diversity. Some have done well; others have not. One country which should have done well, but so far has not, is Croatia. I ask, ``Why?'' Many will assert, with considerable credibility, that Croatia faced until 1995 the added burdens of Yugoslavia's violent demise, bringing months of conflict in 1991, and the occupation of considerable territory by Serb militants. We should not minimize the sense of victimization felt by the people of Croatia at that time. Indeed, I was in Vukovar in 1991, when it was still under siege, and personally saw the awful things that were happening to the people there. Similarly, we cannot ignore the effect in Croatia of the continued presence of Croats from Bosnia-Herzegovina who still cannot safely return to their homes in what is now the entity of Republika Srpska. However much one may want to give Croatia the benefit of the doubt, in the eight years since the tragic events following the assertion of statehood, and four years since the occupied territories were either retaken or set for subsequent reintegration, Croatia has become accustomed to its newfound independence. Its people have increasingly seemed desirous of becoming a more united part of European affairs, including through the development of ties with the European Union and NATO. They are part of a sophisticated, well-educated society, feel more secure within their borders, and want greater freedom and prosperity for themselves and their children. Analysts have, for at least two years, viewed the country as being in a stage of real transition. Unfortunately, as this transition moves forward, it meets greater resistance from those who have become entrenched in, and enriched by, the power they hold. This resistance manifests itself in two ways, the gross manipulation of the political system to the advantage of the ruling party, and the continued reliance on nationalist passions. Regarding political manipulations, elections must be held within the next three months, yet there is no date, no new election law that provides a free and fair standard, no loosening of the grip on the media. More specifically, there continues to be a so-called ``diaspora'' representation, which effectively is the same as giving almost ten percent of parliamentary seats to the ruling party up front. Moreover, for some time the authorities considered scheduling the elections within a few days of Christmas, a rather blatant attempt to manipulate popular sentiment and voter turnout. The ruling party is maintaining its control over Croatia's broadcast media. Defamation laws have resulted in hundreds of prosecutions, both criminal and civil, of journalists and publishers for critical comments deemed ``criminal'' for allegedly insulting the honor or dignity of high officials. In Croatia, it seems that alleged criminal activity by officials uncovered by independent journalists can be protected under a broad definition of ``state secrets.'' On the nationalist front, Serbs (who once represented over ten percent of Croatia's population) still have difficulty returning home-- many fled in 1991 and 1995--and those who have returned face difficulties in getting their property back or obtaining government assistance. Statements by officials often create an environment which make individuals believe they can get away with more direct, physical harassment of the Serbs. While many Serbs may not be able even to participate in the voting for the upcoming elections, Croatian authorities are considering the reduction from three seats to one seat for Serb representation in the Croatian Parliament, or Sabor. Meanwhile, the ``diaspora'' vote sways the loyalties of Bosnia's indigenous Croat population, and Croatian President Tudjman recently resurrected notions of a Croat entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina. While Croatia's citizenship law still makes it difficult for members of the Serb and sometimes other minority communities to get citizenship, voting rights are extended to ethnic Croats abroad on the discredited basis of blood ties alone. Tudjman further claimed this last week that Croatian generals cannot be held accountable for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. His resistance to cooperation with the International Tribunal in The Hague is reprehensible, and, if it continues, warrants a strong response by this Congress. Mr. Speaker, Croatian courts recently convicted Dinko Sakic, a commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia during World War II. The trial and its outcome say something positive not only about Croatia's courts; the attention in Croatia given to this case indicates an ability to acknowledge a horrible period in the past. More broadly, Croats realize they must seek justice for the past and move forward so that they do not sink their personal futures in the pit of extreme nationalist aspirations. I hope, Mr. Speaker, the leaders of Croatia today will come to their senses, and abide by the wish of the people to live in full freedom, true justice and greater prosperity. Signs of this would be: (1) holding an election which, from the campaign period to the vote count, is free and fair according to both international observers and domestic ones who should be permitted to observe; (2) cessation of the relegation of ethnic Serbs to the status of second-class citizens whose presence, at best, will be tolerated; and (3) surrendering to The Hague all indicted persons, including Mladen Naletilic (aka ``Tuta'') now that Croatia's own courts have cleared the way, and the information and documents which the Tribunal may request. Only with progress in these areas can Croatia take its proper place in Europe and the world. Mr. Speaker, I ask Croatia's leaders, when that will be?

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a resolution on the disturbing state of democratization and human rights in Central Asia. As is evident from many sources, including the State Department's annual reports on human rights, non-governmental organizations, both in the region and the West, and the work of the Helsinki Commission, which I chair, Central Asia has become the ``black hole'' of human rights in the OSCE space. True, not all Central Asia countries are equal offenders. Kyrgyzstan has not joined its neighbors in eliminating all opposition, tightly censoring the media and concentrating all power in the hands of the president, though there are tendencies in that direction, and upcoming elections in 2000 may bring out the worst in President Akaev. But elsewhere, the promise of the early 1990's, when the five Central Asian countries along with all former Soviet republics were admitted to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, has not been realized. Throughout the region, super-presidents pay lip service to OSCE commitments and to their own constitutional provisions on separation of powers, while dominating the legislative and judicial branches, crushing or thwarting any opposition challenges to their factual monopoly of power, and along with their families and favored few, enjoying the benefits of their countries' wealth. Indeed, though some see the main problem of Central Asia through the prism of real or alleged Islamic fundamentalism, the Soviet legacy, or poverty, I am convinced that the essence of the problem is more simple and depressing: presidents determined to remain in office for life must necessarily develop repressive political systems. To justify their campaign to control society, Central Asian leaders constantly point to their own national traditions and argue that democracy must be built slowly. Some Western analysts, I am sorry to say, have bought this idea--in some cases, quite literally, by acting as highly paid consultants to oil companies and other business concerns. But, Mr. Speaker, building democracy is an act of political will above all. You have to want to do it. If you don't, all the excuses in the world and all the state institutions formed in Central Asia ostensibly to promote human rights will remain simply window dressing. Moreover, the much-vaunted stability offered by such systems is shaky. The refusal of leaders to allow turnover at the top or newcomers to enter the game means that outsiders have no stake in the political process and can imagine coming to power or merely sharing in the wealth only be extra-constitutional methods. For some of those facing the prospect of permanent exclusion, especially as living standards continue to fall, the temptation to resort to any means possible to change the rules of the game, may be overwhelming. Most people, however, will simply opt out of the political system in disillusionment and despair. Against this general context, without doubt, the most repressive countries are Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan's President Niyazov, in particular, has created a virtual North Korea in post- Soviet space, complete with his own bizarre cult of personality. Turkmenistan is the only country in the former Soviet bloc that remains a one-party state. Uzbekistan, on the other hand, has five parties but all of them are government-created and controlled. Under President Islam Karimov, no opposition parties or movements have been allowed to function since 1992. In both countries, communist-era controls on the media remain in place. The state, like its Soviet predecessor, prevents society from influencing policy or expressing its views and keeps the population intimidated through omnipresent secret police forces. Neither country observes the most fundamental human rights, including freedom of religion, or permits any electoral challenges to its all- powerful president. Kazakstan's President Nursultan Nazarbaev has played a more clever game. Pressed by the OSCE and Western capitals, he has formally permitted opposition parties to function, and they did take part in the October 10 parliamentary election. But once again, a major opposition figure was not able to participate, and OSCE/ODIHR monitors, citing many shortcomings, have criticized the election as flawed. In general, the ability of opposition and society to influence policymaking is marginal at best. At the same time, independent and opposition media have been bought, coopted or intimidated out of existence or into cooperation with the authorities, and those few that remain are under severe pressure. Tajikistan suffered a devastating civil war in the early 1990's. In 1997, war-weariness and a military stalemate led the disputants to a peace accord and a power-sharing agreement. But though the arrangement had promise, it now seems to be falling apart, as opposition contenders for the presidency have been excluded from the race and the major opposition organization has decided to suspend participation in the work of the National Reconciliation Commission. Mr. Speaker, along with large-scale ethnic conflicts like Kosovo or Bosnia, and unresolved low-level conflicts like Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia, I believe the systemic flouting of OSCE commitments on democratization and human rights in Central Asia is the single greatest problem facing the OSCE. For that reason, I am introducing this resolution expressing concern about the general trends in the region, to show Central Asian presidents that we are not taken in by their facade, and to encourage the disheartened people of Central Asia that the United States stands for democracy. The resolution calls on Central Asian countries to come into compliance with OSCE commitments on democracy and human rights, and encourages the Administration to raise with other OSCE states the implications for OSCE participation of countries that engage in gross and uncorrected violation of freely accepted commitments on human rights. Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me, Mr. Hoyer, and Mr. Forbes in this effort and we welcome their support.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend the chairman from New York for yielding me this time and thank the ranking member from Pennsylvania for his very kind remarks about all of those great individuals being honored today but also and especially for Mayor Rafferty from Hamilton Township. Mr. Speaker, as a member of Congress for the past 19 years, I believe there is no one in the entire State of New Jersey more deserving of recognition and praise than Jack Rafferty, a dedicated mayor, community leader, humanitarian and family man. Thus, Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to recommend passage of H.R. 1374, cosponsored, as the gentleman pointed out, by the entire New Jersey delegation, a bill to designate the U.S. postal building located at 680 U.S. Highway 130 in Hamilton Township, New Jersey as the ``John K. Rafferty Hamilton Post Office Building.'' Mayor Rafferty, who will be retiring from office in the next few months, has served the people of Hamilton with extraordinary distinction and honor as their mayor since 1976, and for 6 years prior to that time, he served on the Township Committee. Additionally, in 1986 and in 1987, Jack Rafferty served in the New Jersey State Assembly from the 14th District. It is worth noting, Mr. Speaker, that in 1996, Jack Rafferty was inducted into the New Jersey Mayors' Hall of Fame. In 1997, the next year, the New Jersey Conference of Mayors selected him as the Mayor of the Year, another well-deserved accolade and honor. During his 30 years of dedicated public service, Mayor Rafferty has always been committed to the residents of Hamilton Township for whom he has worked tirelessly and effectively. His caring and commitment to the people of Hamilton never wavered during that service. Mr. Speaker, Hamilton is a very large community. It is comprised of approximately 90,000 people, covering 39 square miles. Amazingly, Jack knows just about everybody in town and, significantly, he has always treated everyone, friend, acquaintance, stranger, even political opponents, with respect and dignity. He has always had a kind word for everybody and nobody has a better sense of humor than Jack Rafferty. Mr. Speaker, as Hamilton's first full-time mayor, Jack has blazed a trail unsurpassed in accomplishment while he significantly improved the quality of life in the township, making it an example for other communities in New Jersey and around the country. And he always did it with style, good humor and class. Jack Rafferty was a mayor ahead of his time. In fact he was forging ahead with action items like preserving open space years before other politicians discovered the benefit of this enlightened initiative. Almost everywhere you look in Hamilton Township, you will recognize Jack Rafferty's legacy and handiwork. From Hamilton's 310-acre Veterans Park, which Mayor Rafferty made a reality soon after being elected, to the botanical beauty of Sayen Gardens, Hamilton today is an oasis in New Jersey, a place set apart, a wonderful community to live and to raise a family. Mr. Speaker, like other lawmakers at the County, State, and Federal level, I have worked very closely with Mayor Rafferty for years on joint Federal and local project initiatives to improve Hamilton's enviable quality of life. These initiatives include his determined effort to establish a single postal identity for his community to unite its various neighborhoods. In 1992, Mayor Rafferty accomplished this goal when the U.S. Postal Service finally recognized Hamilton as the name to be used when addressing letters to people and businesses. Mr. Speaker, that is why it is so fitting to name this postal facility on Route 130 in Hamilton after the mayor, if it were not for Jack, this postal identity, like scores of other things, would never have become a reality. Most recently, Jack worked to bring a Northeast Corridor line train station to Hamilton. During the dedication ceremony for the station, Mayor Rafferty spoke with pride about meeting the needs of the growing number of commuters who live in our area, not just in Hamilton but in surrounding communities as well, and he also talked about the big landscaped hedge sign along the Northeast Corridor route that lets people know that they are in Hamilton Township. Quite literally, he put Hamilton on the map. Mayor Rafferty worked hard, effectively and with a can-do type of vision to develop Hamilton's infrastructure, including its award- winning water pollution control system which has attracted ecology students and teachers from universities along with officials from other municipalities. He knows that a well-built, forward-thinking and properly maintained infrastructure is the key to balancing development, environmental protection and local prosperity. While Mayor Rafferty realized the importance of roads, highways, and mass transit, he never forgot the life-enhancing advantages that open space and recreation bring to a community. Hamilton now operates several major parks, along with 25 baseball fields, 19 soccer fields, 38 tennis courts, 41 basketball courts and 39 neighborhood playgrounds to serve its residents. Veterans Park itself contains the State's largest municipal playground and the largest public tennis facility and it is the site of the annual SeptemberFest celebration to which over 100,000 people a year visit to enjoy the community of Hamilton. These things do not happen by accident. They are the result of careful planning and careful execution. We have our mayor to thank for it. Keeping Hamilton beautiful, bursting with trees, shrubs and flowers and fostering a high standard of living has been another Jack Rafferty hallmark. Hamilton has planted 4,000 shade trees since Mayor Rafferty took office and the township continues to plant about 300 per year. Overall, Hamilton now has 3,500 acres of parkland. The infrastructure and open space improvements made by Mayor Rafferty have sparked important nonpolluting commercial growth and provide for a diverse and stable economy in Hamilton. Along with serving as Hamilton's mayor, Jack has always found the time to be active in numerous civic associations as well, the township's VFW post, the Knights of Columbus, the YMCA, and the Grange Society. Mayor Rafferty also served as president of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors from 1984 to 1986, and as I indicated earlier, was the conference Mayor of the Year in 1997. Mayor Rafferty received more awards than time permits me to mention on the floor today during his service to Hamilton, but just to name a few: the Young Mens Christian Association Man of the Year in 1992, the Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen Award in 1996, and Project Freedom's Angel Award in 1998. Mr. Speaker, finally just let me say that I have known Jack Rafferty and his wife Doris and their children, Megan and Daniel, for many years. They have been and are today a great first family. They are caring people. They epitomize what is good and honorable about public service, and they are class personified. As mayor, Jack will be missed, but always appreciated. I believe that designating the post office on Route 130 as the John K. Rafferty Hamilton Post Office is the least that our citizens can do to say ``thank you'' to someone who has done so much for so many.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce the introduction of the Netizens Protection Act of 1999. This legislation is carefully tailored to protect consumers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from the costs and inconvenience of unsolicited e- mail. My bill allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to take legal action against someone who uses their equipment or facilities--without their permission--to initiate the bulk transmission of unsolicited electronic messages. Equally important, it would also permit consumers to take action against someone who sent them unsolicited e-mail, so-called spam. The bill is based on a simple principle of fairness: consumers should not have to pay for unwanted messages and neither should their ISP. Spam is not just a nuisance that can be cured by the judicious use of the delete key. Spam literally forces you to pay for the costs of some other person's advertisement--it is like getting a piece of junk mail and then having to pay for the cost of the stamp. Spam exposes you to dangerous viruses that can damage files or harm computer hardware. Spam often consists of illegal pyramid schemes and frequently contains illegal child pornography. Moreover, even if an Internet user is not paying for the additional time online to retrieve unwanted mail, they are still being charged a higher rate by their ISP for filter services and larger band-widths to combat ``junk e-mail.'' Unwanted e-mail is costly to both the provider and consumer. The problem is that unlike regular junk mail, where the sender pays for the costs, spam shifts the costs from the sender to the recipient. My legislation would require anyone sending an unsolicited electronic message to provide a name, a physical mailing address, and the electronic mail address of the person who initiated the message, along with a method by which the recipient of the message could contact the transmitter of the electronic mail to request that no further messages be sent. If someone was sent unsolicited e-mail from someone they contacted to request no further mail be sent, they could pursue legal action to recover treble damages. Along with empowering the consumer to take action against spam, my bill also allows ISP's to seek legal remedies if someone violates their policies against unsolicited electronic mail messaging. Additionally, ISP's would be required to explain their unsolicited e-mail policies in simple terms so spammers could be forewarned and users could make an informed decision about what ISP to use, as well as whether they wanted unsolicited e-mail blocked. Consumers would and should be able to decide whether they want to receive unsolicited e-mail. My bill does that. Furthermore, the consumer would be able to take legal action if a spammer did not respect their wishes under the Netizens Protection Act. The Netizens Protection Act is directed at the big spammers who tie- up networks with thousands upon thousands of messages. It would not go after someone who just sent a few messages either inadvertently or even intentionally. Language in my bill would allow someone to send up to 50 identical or substantially similar messages to recipients within a seven day period. My legislation would also not interfere with or affect direct e-mail advertising or marketing. All avenues of legitimate direct marketing would remain. If any previous business relationship existed between the e-mailer and the e-mail recipient, my legislation would not affect the e-mail transaction. For example, if someone made a purchase at a retail store, a business relationship would exist, so that retailer could send e-mail updates to that customer and still maintain compliance with the Netizens Protection Act. Indeed, I believe that unless legislation is enacted to protect consumers from spam, it will discourage the expansion of Internet business and commerce.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, just to point out during markup, and this was extraordinary, at least four Members came forward to speak as the gentleman from Texas just pointed out, his father-in- law, the gentleman from Mississippi, his dad, and so many others. Few battles have touched more people than the Battle of the Bulge. The gentleman from Arizona's uncle also fought. He is a combat veteran himself, but his uncle fought at the Battle of the Bulge, was there. And Joe McNulty, one of our key staffers on the majority side, he just came up and whispered to me that his father got the purple heart, was wounded in both legs. There are few battles that have touched more people and few battles that have done more to save freedom and liberty than the Battle of the Bulge. It is amazing how many people in this Chamber have relatives and close relatives and perhaps themselves actually fought in that very, very famous battle.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), the chairman of our full committee, for yielding me this time and for being a cosponsor and also extend my thanks to my good friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) as well for cosponsoring and for the bipartisanship that he brings to the committee. I also want to thank a number of other Members. There are 42 cosponsors of this resolution, including the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), and several other Members who are deeply committed to remembering all veterans, but in particular those who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Mr. Speaker, today the House will rightly honor the Americans and allied forces who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. As the son of a World War II combat infantryman who fought in the other major theatre in World War II, he fought in New Guinea, the Philippines, and several islands in the Pacific, I urge all Members to enthusiastically support House Joint Resolution 65, which was introduced to recognize the 55th anniversary of the largest battle in the history of U.S. modern warfare, the Battle of the Bulge. H.J. Res. 65, as amended, was marked up in the Committee on Veterans' Affairs as well as the Committee on International Relations, and, hopefully, will get the unanimous support of this body. Let me also thank the veterans of the Battle of the Bulge Association, an organization that was formed back in 1981. They now have about 10,000 members. And the idea behind it is to perpetuate the memory of the sacrifices involved during the battle, to preserve historical data and sites relating to the battle, and to foster international peace and good will, and to promote friendship among the battle survivors as well as their descendants. I also want to thank Stan Wojtuski, the National Vice President of Military Affairs for the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge for his work on this resolution, and Mrs. Edith Nowels, a constituent of mine living in Brielle, New Jersey. She has worked very closely in crafting this resolution, and I am very grateful for that. I think it is very important to point out that Edith Nowels' brother, Bud Thorne, was killed in action during the battle, and was awarded the Medal of Honor along with 17 others who received that highest of medals for their valor and bravery. There were also 86 servicemen who were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for their valor during this vital battle. According to the citation presented to his family, Corporal Thorne single-handedly destroyed a German tank. And in the words of the citation, ``Displayed heroic initiative and intrepid fighting qualities, inflicted costly casualties on the enemy and insured the success of his patrol's mission by the sacrifice of his life.'' I would like to take just a very brief moment, Mr. Speaker, to provide a brief overview of the battle so that my colleagues will gain a better understanding as to why this chapter in World War II deserves special recognition today. One of the most decisive battles in the war in Europe, the Battle of the Bulge began on December 16, 1944, when the German Army, in an effort to trap the allied forces in Belgium and Luxembourg, launched an attack against what were perceived as a weak line of American and allied troops. Their goal was to submit the allied forces in Belgium and Luxembourg and race to the coast towards Antwerp. Adolf Hitler and his generals knew the German Air Force could not maintain regional air superiority, so they were banking on bad weather and relatively green and a fatigued American troops, who were greatly outnumbered. At the outset of the battle, the German troops, forming three armies, numbered approximately 200,000 versus 83,000 Americans. Their goal was to capture bridges over the Meuse River in the first 48 hours of the attack and then press on to Antwerp. At the time of their initial attack, the Germans had more than 13 infantry and 7 panzer divisions, with nearly 1,000 tanks and almost 2,000 larger guns deployed along the front of about 60 miles. Five more divisions were soon to follow, with at least 450 more tanks. Although the Americans were caught by surprise, they tenaciously fought back in those early days of the attack in December, holding the line in the north while the Nazis pushed through in the middle of the bulge towards the Meuse River. One incident which particularly hardened the Americans and allied forces as to the intent of the German Army was the Malmedy Massacre. Eighty-six American POWs were murdered by the Nazis as they moved towards the capture of the Meuse River. The same German unit which was responsible for this infamous massacre eventually killed at least 300 American POWs and over 100 unarmed Belgium civilians. News of these horrific events outraged and further galvanized the will of American forces to prevail. Recognizing what they were up against, General Eisenhower transferred the command of all American troops north of the bulge to British General Montgomery. Those south of the bulge were under the command of General Bradley. Meanwhile, the Germans were being slowed down by the dogged defense of the town at St. Vith by Brigadier General Hasbrouck. St. Vith was strategically important due to the number of key roads which met in the town and were essential to the German drive towards Antwerp. General Patton's Third Army, under the command of General Bradley, was proceeding north to cut through the southern flank of the German bulge in the lines and provide relief to Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, whose refusal to surrender to his German counterparts at Bastogne on December 22 is forever known in history with that famous phrase, when he just said back to the Germans, ``Nuts.'' He would not surrender. He just said nuts to them, and they wondered what that meant. He was not going to give in. As more American reinforcements arrived, eventually totaling 600,000 troops, they assisted in holding up the northern and southern flanks of the Nazi advances. Hitler's generals found that they were running out of fuel and that their hope of seizing allied fuel supplies was becoming a pipe dream and their race to the Meuse river slowed down to a crawl. While Adolph Hitler insisted on pressing with air strikes against advancing allied reinforcements, his generals knew that they had been beaten, and he eventually authorized the retreat of his armies at the end of January. Mr. Speaker, the cost in lives from this engagement is astronomical and absolutely staggering. The American armies had more than 81,000 casualties; and of these, 19,000 men were killed in action. The British had 1,400 casualties with 200 killed. Both sides lost as many as 800 tanks each, and the Germans lost 1,000 planes. All told, it was one of the largest pitched battles in history with more than three times the number of troops from both the North and the South that engaged in the Battle of Gettysburg. Three times the size of Gettysburg. In the words of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and I quote, in addressing the House of Commons, he said, ``This is undoubtedly the greatest battle of the war and will I believe be regarded as an ever-famous American victory.'' Mr. Speaker, I hope all Members will support this resolution. The veterans of the Battle of the Bulge every year travel to Europe and reacquaint themselves with those with whom they fought side by side and those that they liberated. They will be meeting again soon in both Luxembourg and Belgium. I hope we will go on record supporting their efforts, their valor and this resolution puts all of us on record in that regard. Mr. Speaker, I include a list of Medal of Honor recipients for the Record, as follows: Recipients of the Medal of Honor--Ardennes Campaign Arthur O. Beyer Melvin E. Biddle Paul L. Bolden Richard E. Cowan Francis S. Currey Peter J. Dalessondro Archer T. Gammon James R. Hendrix Truman Kimbro Jose M. Lopez Vernon McGarity Curtis F. Shoup William A. Soderman Horace M. Thorne Day G. Turner Henry G. Turner Henry F. Warner Paul J. Wiedorfer Mr. Speaker, I include the following brochure regarding the Ardennes- Alsace Campaign for the Record: Ardennes-Alsace Introduction World War II was the largest and most violent armed conflict in the history of mankind. However, the half century that now separates us from that conflict has exacted its toll on our collective knowledge. While World War II continues to absorb the interest of military scholars and historians, as well as its veterans, a generation of Americans has grown to maturity largely unaware of the political, social, and military implications of a war that, more than any other, united us as a people with a common purpose. Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not only about the profession of arms, but also about military preparedness, global strategy, and combined operations in the coalition war against fascism. During the next several years, the U.S. Army will participate in the nation's 50th anniversary commemoration of World War II. The commemoration will include the publication of various materials to help educate Americans about that war. The works produced will provide great opportunities to learn about and renew pride in an Army that fought so magnificently in what has been called ``the mighty endeavor.'' World War II was waged on land, on sea, and in the air over several diverse theaters of operation for approximately six years. The following essay is one of a series of campaign studies highlighting those struggles that, with their accompanying suggestions for further reading, are designed to introduce you to one of the Army's significant military feats from that war. This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History by Roger Cirillo. I hope this absorbing account of that period will enhance your appreciation of American achievements during World War II. Gordon R. Sullivan, General, United States Army Chief of Staff. Ardennes-Alsace 16 December 1944-25 January 1945 In his political testament Mein Kampf (``My Struggle'') Adolf Hitler wrote, ``Strength lies not in defense but in attack.'' Throughout World War II, attempts to gain or regain the initiative had characterized Hitler's influence on military operations. Thus, when the military situation in late 1944 looked darkest on the Western Front, an enemy offensive to redress the balance of the battlefield--and thereby cripple or delay the Allied advance--should have come as no surprise. Hitler's great gamble began during the nights of 13, 14, and 15 December, when the initial assault force of German armor, artillery, and infantry gradually staged forward to attack positions along the Belgian-German-Luxembourg border. This mustered force, with more than 200,000 men in thirteen infantry and seven panzer divisions and with nearly 1,000 tanks and almost 2,000 guns, deployed along a front of 60 miles--its operational armor holdings equaling that on the entire Eastern Front. Five more divisions moved forward in a second wave, while still others, equipped with at least 450 more tanks, followed in reserve. On the Allied side the threatened American sector appeared quiet. The 15 December daily situation report for the VIII Corps, which lay in the path of two of Hitler's armies, noted: ``There is nothing to report.'' This illusion would soon be shattered. Strategic Setting In August 1944, while his armies were being destroyed in Normandy, Hitler secretly put in motion actions to build a large reserve force, forbidding its use to bolster Germany's beleaguered defenses. To provide the needed manpower, he trimmed existing military forces and conscripted youths, the unfit, and old men previously untouched for military service. Panzer divisions were rebuilt with the cadre of survivors from units in Normandy or on the Eastern Front, while newly created Volksgrenadier (``people's infantry'') divisions were staffed with veteran commanders and noncommissioned officers and the new conscripts. By increasing the number of automatic weapons and the number of supporting assault gun and rocket battalions in each division, Hitler hoped to make up for hurried training and the lack of fighting fitness. Despite the massive Allied air bombardment of Germany and the constant need to replace destroyed divisions on both the Eastern and Western Fronts, where heavy fighting continued, forces were gathered for use in what Hitler was now calling Operation Wacht am Rhine (``Watch on the Rhine''). In September Hitler named the post of Antwerp, Belgium, as the objective. Selecting the Eifel region as a staging area, Hitler intended to mass twenty-five divisions for an attack through the thinly held Ardennes Forest area of southern Belgium and Luxembourg. Once the Meuse River was reached and crossed, these forces would swing northwest some 60 miles to envelop the port of Antwerp. The maneuver was designed to sever the already stretched Allied supply lines in the north and to encircle and destroy a third of the Allies' ground forces. If successful, Hitler believed that the offensive could smash the Allied coalition, or at least greatly cripple its ground combat capabilities, leaving him free to focus on the Russians at his back door. Timing was crucial. Allied air power ruled the skies during the day, making any open concentrations of German military strength on the ground extremely risky. Hitler, therefore, scheduled the offensive to take place when inclement weather would ground Allied planes, or at least limit their attacks on his advancing columns. Because the requisite forces and supplies had to be assembled, he postponed the starting date from November until mid-December. This additional preparation time, however, did not ease the minds of the few German generals and staff officers entrusted with planning Wacht am Rhine. Both the nominal Commander-in-Chief West Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt and Army Group B commander Field Marshal Walter Model, who had primary responsibility for Wacht am Rhine, questioned the scope of the offensive. Both argued for a more limited attack, to pinch out the American-held salient north of the Ardennes around Aachen. Borrowing a bridge-players term, they referred to Hitler's larger objectives as the grand slam, or big solution, but proposed instead a small solution more compatible with the limited force being raised. Rundstedt and Model believed that Hitler's legions were incapable of conducting a blitzkrieg, or lightning war, campaign. The twin swords that had dominated the field during the 1940 drive across France, tanks and air power, no longer existed in the numbers necessary to strike a decisive blow, nor was the hastily conscripted infantry, even when led by experienced officers and sergeants, up to the early war standards. Supply columns, too, would be prone to interdiction or breakdown on the Eifel's limited roads. To Hitler's generals, the grand slam was simply asking for too much to be done with too little at hand. The determining factor was the terrain itself. The Ardennes consists of a series of parallel ridges and valleys generally running from northeast to southwest, as did its few good roads in 1944. About a third of the region is coniferous forest, with swamps and marshes in the northlands and deep defiles and gorges where numerous rivers and streams cut the ridges. Dirt secondary roads existed, making north-south movement possible, with the road centers--Bastogne and Houffalize in the south, and Malmedy and St. Vith in the north--crucial for military operations. After the winter's first freeze, tanks could move cross-country in much of the central sector. Fall 1944, however, brought the promise of mud, because of rain, and the advancing days of December, the promise of snow. Either could limit the quick advance needed by Wacht am Rhine. Once the Meuse River, west of the Ardennes, was gained, the wide river itself and cliffs on the east bank presented a significant obstacle if the bridges were not captured intact. Since the roads and terrain leading to Antwerp thereafter were good, the German planners focused on the initial breakthrough and the run west to the Meuse. The terrain, which made so little sense as an attack avenue northwestward, guaranteed the surprise needed. Previous offensives through the Ardennes in World War I and early in World War II had followed the major roads southwestward, and had been made in good weather. The defenses then had always been light screens, easily pushed away. In 1940 the weakly opposed German armor needed three days to traverse the easier terrain in the southern Ardennes in good weather, on dry roads. For Wacht am Rhine, the American line had to be broken and crushed immediately to open paths for the attacking panzers; otherwise, the offensive might bog down into a series of fights for roads and the numerous villages on the way to the Meuse. Precious fuel would be used to deploy tanks to fight across fields. More importantly, time would be lost giving the defenders the opportunity to position blocking forces or to attack enemy flanks. Only surprise, sheer weight of numbers, and minimal hard fighting could guarantee a chance at success. If the Americans fought long and well, the same terrain that guaranteed surprise would become a trap. The Ardennes held little fascination for the Allies, either as a staging area for their own counterattacks or as a weak spot in their lines. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, had concentrated forces north and south of the area where the terrain was better suited for operations into Germany. Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery's 21 Army Group to the north began preparations for the planned crossing of the Rhine in early 1945. Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley's 12th Army Group to the south and Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers' 6th Army Group in the Alsace region would also launch attacks and additional Rhine crossings from their sectors. Located in the center of Bradley's sector, the Ardennes had been quiet since mid-September. Referred to as a ``ghost front,'' one company commander described the sector as a ``nursery and old folk's home. . . .'' The 12th Army Group's dispositions reflected Bradley's operational plans. Lt. Gen. William H. Simpson's Ninth Army and most of Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges' First Army occupied a 40-mile area north of the Ardennes, concentrating for an attack into the Ruhr industrial region of Germany. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.'s Third Army was in a 100-mile sector south of the forest, preparing a thrust into the vital Saar mining region. In between, the First Army hold 88 miles of the front with only four divisions, two ``green'' units occupying ground to gain experience and two veteran units licking wounds and absorbing replacements; an armored infantry battalion; and two mechanized cavalry squadrons. Behind this thin screen was one green armored division, whose two uncommitted combat commands straddled two separate corps, as well as a cavalry squadron and an assortment of artillery, engineer, and service units. Bradley judged his decision to keep the Ardennes front thinly occupied to be ``a calculated risk.'' Nor was he alone in not seeing danger. Probability, not capability, dominated Allied thinking about the Wehrmacht's next moves on the Western Front in mid-December 1944. Commanders and intelligence officers (G-2) at every level--from the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), to the divisions holding the line--judged that the Germans were too weak to attempt regaining the initiative by a large-scale offensive. Despite their awareness that enemy units were refitting and concentrating across the line, they concluded exactly what Hitler had intended them to conclude. Knowing that the Germans were concerned with major threats to both the Ruhr and the Saar, Eisenhower's G-2 believed that they probably would use the uncommitted Sixth Panzer Army, suspected to be in the northern Eifel, to bolster their weakening northern defenses, or at least to cripple the impending Allied push toward the Ruhr. Both Hodges' and Patton's G-2s viewed the enemy as a reflection of their own operational plans and thus assessed the German buildup as no more than preparations to counterattack the First and Third Armies' assaults. With only enough troops in the Ardennes to hold a series of strongpoints loosely connected by intermittent patrols, the Americans extended no ground reconnaissance into the German sector. Poor weather had masked areas from aerial photography, and the Germans enforced radio silence and strict countersecurity measures. Equally important, the Allies' top secret communications interception and decryption effort, code-named Ultra, offered clues but no definitive statement of Hitler's intentions. Yet Wacht am Rhine's best security was the continued Allied belief that the Germans would not attack, a belief held up to zero hour on 16 December--designated by the Germans as Null-tag (``Zero-Day''). Battle Plans Field Marshal Model's attack plan, called Herbstnebel (``Autumn Fog''), assigned Lt. Gen. Josef ``Sepp'' Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army the main effort. Dietrich would attack Hodges' First Army along the boundary separating Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow's V Corps in the north from Maj. Gen. Troy H. Middleton's VIII Corps to the south, brushing aside or overrunning the V Corps' 99th Infantry Division and a cavalry squadron of the VIII Corps' 14th Cavalry Group before driving for the Meuse and Antwerp. South of the Sixth Panzer Army, Lt. Gen. Hasso von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army would hit the VIII Corps' 106th Infantry Division and part of its 28th Infantry Division, tearing open Middleton's thin front and adding a secondary effort. Farther south, Lt. Gen. Erich Brandenberger's Seventh Army would attack the remainder of the 28th as well as the VIII Corps' 4th Infantry Division and then cover the advance of the panzers as far as the Meuse River. An airborne drop and infiltration by small teams disguised in American uniforms were added to create havoc in the American rear. North of the Sixth Panzer Army, the six divisions of Lt. Gen. Gustav von Zangen's Fifteenth Army had a dual role. In addition to fighting and thereby holding American divisions in the crucial Aachen sector, Zangen would attack southward on order after Dietrich's panzers had broken the American line, a variation of the pincers attack originally preferred by Hitler's generals. The Sixth Panzer Army was to attack in two waves. The first would consist of the LXVII Corps, with the newly organized 272d and 326th Volksgrenadier Divisions, and the I SS Panzer Corps, with the 1st and 12th SS Panzer, the 12th and 277th Volksgrenadier, and the 3d Parachute Divisions. The 150th Special Brigade and a parachute contingent would seize terrain and bridges ahead of the main body after the two corps broke through the American defenses. Dietrich planned to commit his third corps, the II SS Panzer Corps, with the 2d and 9th SS Panzer Divisions, in the second wave. The Sixth Panzer Army's 1,000-plus artillery pieces and 90 Tiger tanks made it the strongest force deployed. Although Dietrich's initial sector frontage was only 23 miles, his assault concentrated on less than half that ground. Relying on at least a 6:1 troop superiority at the breakthrough points, he expected to overwhelm the Americans and reach the Meuse River by nightfall of the third day. According to Dietrich's plan, the LXVII Corps would secure the Sixth Panzer Army's northern flank. By sidestepping Monschau to seize the poorly roaded, forested hills and upland moors of the Hohe Venn, the LXVII's two divisions would block the main roads leading into the breakthrough area from the north and east. Simultaneously, the I SS Panzer Corps to the south would use its three infantry divisions to punch holes in the American line and swing northwesterly to join the left flank of the LXVII Corps. Together, the five divisions would form a solid shoulder, behind which the panzers of the I and II SS Panzer Corps would advance along the Sixth Panzer Army's routes leading west and northwest. Three terrain features were critical to Dietrich's panzer thrust: the Elsenborn ridge, the Losheim Gap, and the Schnee Eifel ridge. The Elsenborn ridge, a complex series of fingers and spurs of the southern Hohe Venn, controlled access to two of the westerly panzer routes; a third passed just to the south. The 277th Volksgrenadier Division would attack into the east defenses of the ridge, and to the south the 12th SS Panzer Division would debouch from its forest trail approaches into the hard roads running through and south of the ridge. Further to the south the Losheim Gap appears as open rolling ground between the Elsenborn ridge to the northwest and the long, heavily wooded Schnee Eifel ridge to the southeast. Measuring about 5 miles wide at the German border and narrowing throughout its roughly 14-mile length as it runs from northeast to southwest, the gap is an unlikely military avenue, subdivided by lesser ridges, twists, and hills. Its roads, however, were well built and crucial for the German advance. Over its two major routes Dietrich intended to pass most of his armor. The Sixth Panzer Army shared the Losheim Gap as an avenue with its southern neighbor, the Fifth Panzer Army. Their boundary reflected Hitler's obsession with a concentrated attack to ensure a breakthrough, but the common corridor added a potential for confusion. The Sixth Panzer Army was to attack with the 12th Volksgrenadier and the 3d Parachute Divisions through the northern portion of the gap, while the Fifth Panzer Army's northern corps, the LXVI, would open its southern portions. Additionally, the LXVI Corps had to eliminate the American forces holding the Schnee Eifel on the southern flank of the gap and seize the crucial road interchange at St. Vith about 10 miles further west. Manteuffel wanted part of the 18th Volksgrenadier Division to push through the southern part of the gap and hook into the rear of the Schnee Eifel, the remainder of the division to complete the encirclement to the south of the ridge, and the 62d Volksgrenadier Division to anchor the LXVI's flank with a drive toward St. Vith. To the south of the Losheim Gap--Schnee Eifel area, along the north-south flowing Our River, the Fifth Panzer Army's major thrusts devolved to its LVIII and XLVII Panzer Corps, aligned north to south with four of their five divisions in the assault wave. Each panzer corps had one designated route, but the Fifth Panzer Army commander did not plan to wait for infantry to clear them. Manteuffel intended to commit his armor early rather than in tandem with the infantry, expecting to break through the extended American line quickly and expedite his advance to the west. The LVIII's 116th Panzer and 560th Volksgrenadier Divisions were to penetrate the area astride the Our River, tying the 106th and 28th Divisions together, and to capture the three tank-capable bridges in the sector before driving west to the Meuse. To the south the XLVII's 2d Panzer and 26th Volksgrenadier Divisions were to seize crossings on the Our and head toward the key Bastogne road interchange 19 miles to the west. The Panzer Lehr Division would follow, adding depth to the corps attack. Covering the Fifth Panzer Army's southern flank were the LXXXV and LXXX Corps of Brandenberger's Seventh Army. The LXXXV's 5th Parachute and 352d Volksgrenadier Divisions were to seize crossings on the Our River, and the LXXX's 276th and 212th Volksgrenadier Divisions, feinting toward the city of Luxembourg, were to draw American strength away from Manteuffel's main attack. The 276th would attack south of the confluence of the Our and Sauer Rivers, enveloping the 3-mile defensive sector held by an American armored infantry battalion, and to the south the 212th, after crossing at Echternach, would push back the large concentration of American artillery in the sector and anchor Army Group B's southern flank. The Germans had a fairly good idea of the American forces opposing them. Facing Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army was the V Corps' 99th Infantry Division. Newly arrived, the 99th occupied a series of forward positions along 19 miles of the wooded Belgian-German border, its 395th, 393d, and 394th Infantry regiments on line from north to south, with one battalion behind the division's deep right flank available as a reserve. Gerow, the V Corps commander, was focused at the time on a planned attack by his 2d Infantry Division toward the Roer River dams to the north and had given less attention to the defensive dispositions of the 99th. This small operation had already begun on 13 December, with the 2d Division passing through the area held by the 99th Division's northernmost regiment. Two battalions of the 395th Infantry joined the action. Slowed by pillboxes and heavy defenses in the woods, the 2d's attacks were still ongoing when the enemy offensive begin on the sixteenth. To the south of the 99th Division the First Army had split responsibilities for the Elsenborn ridge--Losheim Gap area between Gerow's V Corps and Middleton's VIII Corps, with the corps boundary running just north of the village of Losheim. Middleton's major worry was the Losheim Gap, which potentially exposed the Schnee Eifel, the latter held by five battalions of the newly arrived 106th Division. When Bradley refused his request to withdraw to a shorter, unexposed line, the VIII Corps commander positioned eight battalions of his corps artillery to support the forces holding the Losheim Gap--Schnee Eifel region. South of the corps boundary the 18th Cavalry Squadron, belonging to the recently attached 14th Cavalry Group, outposted the 9,000-yard Losheim Gap. Reinforced by a company of 3-inch towed tank destroyers, the 18th occupied eight positions that gave good coverage in fair weather but could be easily bypassed in the fog or dark. To remedy this, Middleton had assigned an additional cavalry squadron to reinforce the gap's thin line under the 14th group. The cavalry force itself was attached to the 106th Division, but with the 106th slowly settling into its positions, a coordinated defense between the two had yet to be decided. As a result, the reinforcing squadron was quartered 20 miles to the rear, waiting to be ordered forward. South of the Schnee Eifel Middleton's forces followed the Our River with the 106th Division's 424th infantry and, to the south, the 28th Division. After suffering more than 6,000 casualties in the Huertgen Forest battles in November, the 28th was resting and training replacements in a 30-mile area along the Our. Its three regiments--the 112th, 110th, and 109th Infantry--were on line from north to south. Two battalions of the 100th Infantry held 10 miles of the front and the division's center while their sister battalion was kept as part of the division reserve. The 110th had six company-sized strongpoints manned by infantry and engineers along the ridge between the Our and Clerf Rivers to the west, which the troops called ``Skyline Drive.'' Through the center of this sector ran the crucial road to Bastogne. South of the 28th Division the sector was held by part of Combat Command A of the newly arrived 9th Armored Division and by the 4th Infantry Division, another veteran unit resting from previous battles. These forces, with the 4th's northern regiment, the 12th Infantry, positioned as the southernmost unit in the path of the German offensive, held the line of the Sauer River covering the approaches to the city of Luxembourg. Behind this thinly stretched defensive line of new units and battered veterans, Middleton had few reserves and even fewer options available for dealing with enemy threats. opening attacks, 16-18 december At 0530 on 16 December the Sixth Panzer Army's artillery commenced preparation fires. These fires, which ended at 0700, were duplicated in every sector of the three attacking German armies. At first the American defenders believed the fires were only a demonstration. Simultaneously, German infantry moved unseen through the dark and morning fog, guided by searchlight beams overhead. Yet, despite local surprise, Dietrich's attack did not achieve the quick breakthrough planned. The LXVII Corps' attack north and south of Monschau failed immediately. One division arrived too late to attack; the other had its assault broken by determined resistance. The 277th Volksgrenadier Division's infiltrating attacks followed the preparation fires closely. The Germans overran some of the 99th Division's forest outposts, but they were repulsed attempting to cross open fields near their objectives, the twin villages of Krinkelt-Rocherath. By nightfall the Americans still contested the woods to the north and east of the villages. The 99th's southern flank, however, was in great peril. The 12th Volksgrenadier Division had successfully cleared the 1st SS Panzer Division's main assault avenue, taking the village of Losheim in the early morning and moving on to separate the VIII Corp's cavalry from its connection with the 99th. South of the American corps boundary the Germans were more successful. Poor communications had further strained the loosely coordinated defense of the 106th Division and the 14th Cavalry Group in the Losheim Gap. The German predawn preparation fires had targeted road junctions, destroying most of the pole-mounted communications wire interchanges. With their major wire command nets silenced, the American defenders had to rely on radio relay via artillery nets, which the mountainous terrain made unreliable. The attack in the Losheim Gap, in fact, was the offensive's greatest overmatch. The 3d Parachute Division ran up against only one cavalry troop and a tank destroyer company holding over half the sector, and its southern neighbors, the two reinforced regiments of the 18th Volksgrenadier Division, hit four platoons of cavalry. Although some American positions had been bypassed in the dark, the attacking Germans had generally cleared the area by late morning. Poor communications and general confusion limited defensive fire support to one armored field artillery battalion. More importantly, the cavalry's porous front opened the American rear to German infantry; by dawn some of the defenders' artillery and support units behind the Schnee Eifel encountered the enemy. Subsequently, many guns were lost, while others hastily clogged the roads to find safer ground. The uncoordinated defense of the 106th Division and 14th Cavalry Group now led to tragedy. The cavalry commander quickly realized that his outposts could neither hold nor survive. After launching one abortive counterattack northward against 3d Parachute Division elements with his reserve squadron, he secured permission to withdraw before his road- bound force was trapped against the wooded heights to his rear. This opened the V and VII Corps boundary and separated the cavalry, Middleton's key information source on his northern flank, from the Schnee Eifel battle. Throughout the day of 16 December the 3d pushed north, ultimately overrunning the cavalry's remaining outposts and capturing a small force of the 99th Division. But all of these scattered forces fought valiantly so that by dark the Sixth Panzer Army's route was still clogged by units mopping up bypassed Americans and their own supply and support rains. To the south the 18th Volksgrenadier Division's attack in the Losheim Gap had slid by the cavalry, but failed to clear the open ridge behind the Schnee Eifel. South of the Schnee Eifel the rest of the 18th was unable to push through the defenders to catch the 106th's units on top of the Schnee Eifel in a pincer. Further south the 106th's 42th Infantry had blocked the path of the 62d Volksgrenadier Division across the Our River. By dark the 106th had thus lost little ground. It had committed its reserve to block the enemy threat to its south and was expecting Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division, shifting from V Corps reserve, to conduct a relieving attach via St. Vith toward the Schnee Eifel. But while the defenders moved to restore their positions, the 18th, by searchlight and flare, continued to press south from the gap. South of the 106th Division, the 28th Division fended off the Fifth Panzer Army's thrusts. In the north the 112th Infantry held back the LVIII Panzer Corps' two divisions, while the 110th Infantry blocked the paths of the XLVII Panzer Corp's three in the center. The 110th's strong points, which received some tank reinforcement from the division reserve, held firm throughout the sixteenth, blocking the route westward. By dark, although German infantry had crossed the Our and started infiltrating, American roadblocks still prevented any armor movement toward Bastogne. South of the fifth Panzer Army, Brandenberger's Seventh Army also failed to break through the American line. The 28th Division's 109th Infantry managed to hold on to its 9-mile front. Although the LXXXV Corps' two divisions had seized crossings on the Our and achieved some penetrations between the regiment's company strong-points, they failed to advance further. Similarly, the Germans' southernmost attack was held by the 4th Division's 12th Infantry. The LXXX Corps' divisions met with heavy resistance, and by nightfall the Americans still held their positions all along the Seventh Army front, despite some infiltration between company strongpoints. Hitler responded to the first day's reports with unbridled optimism. Rundstedt, however, was less sanguine. The needed breakthrough had not been achieved, no major armored units had been committed, and the key panzer routes were still blocked. In fact, the first day of battle set the tone for the entire American defense. In every engagement the Americans had been outnumbered, in some sectors facing down tanks and assault guns with only infantry weapons. Darkness, fog, and intermittent drizzle snow had favored the infiltrating attackers; but, despite inroads made around the defenses, the Germans had been forced to attack American positions frontally to gain access to the vital roads. Time had been lost and more would be spent to achieve a complete breakthrough. In that sense, the grand slam was already in danger. American senior commanders were puzzled by the situation. The Germans apparently had attacked along a 60-mile front with strong forces, including many new units not identified in the enemy order or battle. Yet no substantial ground had been lost. With many communications links destroyed by the bombardment and the relative isolation of most defensive positions, the generals were presented with a panorama of numerous small-unit battles without a clear larger picture. Nevertheless, command action was forthcoming. By nightfall of the sixteenth, although response at both the First Army and 12th Army Group headquarters was guarded, Eisenhower had personally ordered the 7th Armored Division from the Ninth Army and the 10th Armored Division from the third Army to reinforce Middleton's hard-pressed VIII Corps. In addition, shortly after midnight, Hodges' First Army began moving forces south from the Aachen sector, while the Third Army headquarters, on Patton's initiative, began detailed planning to deal with the German offensive. Within the battle area the two corps commanders struggled to respond effectively to the offensive, having only incomplete and fragmentary reports from the field. Gerow, the V Corps commander in the north, requested that the 2d Division's Roer River dams attack be canceled; however, Hodges, who viewed the German action against the 99th Division as a spoiling operation, initially refused. Middleton, the VIII Corps commander in the south, changed his plans for the 9th Armored division's Combat Command B, ordering it to reinforce the southern flank of the 106th Division. The newly promised 7th Armored Division would assume the CCB's original mission of relieving troops on the Schnee Eifel via St. Vith. Thereafter, mixed signals between the VIII Corps and the 106th Division led to disaster. Whether by poor communications or misunderstanding, Middleton believed that the 106th was pulling its men off the Schnee Eifel and withdrawing to a less exposed position; the 106th's commander believed that Middleton wanted him to hold until relieved and thus left the two defending regiments in place. By the early morning hours of 17 December Middleton, whose troops faced multiple enemy threats, had selected the dispositions that would foreshadow the entire American response. Already ordered by Hodges to defend in place, the VIII Corps commander determined that his defense would focus on denying the Germans use of the Ardennes roadnet. Using the forces at hand, he intended to block access to four key road junctions: St. Vith, Houffalize, Bastogne, and the city of Luxembourg. If he could stop or slow the German advance west, he knew that the 12th Army Group would follow with massive flanking attacks from the north and south. That same morning Hodges finally agreed to cancel the V Corps' Roer dams attack. Gerow, in turn, moved the 2d Division south to strengthen the 99th Division's southern flank, with reinforcements from the 1st Infantry Division soon to follow. The First Army commander now realized that Gerow's V Corps units held the critical northern shoulder of the enemy penetration and began to reinforce them, trusting that Middleton's armor reinforcements would restore the center of the VIII Corps line. While these shifts took place, the battle raged. During the night of 16-17 December the Sixth Panzer Army continued to move armor forward in the hopes of gaining the breakthrough that the infantry had failed to achieve. The Germans again mounted attacks near Monschau and again were repulsed. Meanwhile, south of Monschau, the 12th SS Panzer Division, committed from muddy logging trails, overwhelmed 99th Division soldiers still holding out against the 277th and 12th Volksgrenadier Divisions. Outnumbered and facing superior weapons, many U.S. soldiers fought to the bitter end, the survivors surrendering only when their munitions had run out and escape was impossible. Individual heroism was common. During the Krinkelt battle, for example, T. Sgt. Vernon McGarity of the 393d Infantry, 99th Division, after being treated for wounds, returned to lead his squad, rescuing wounded under fire and single- handedly destroying an advancing enemy machine-gun section. After two days of fighting, his men were captured after firing their last bullets. McGarity received the Medal of Honor for his actions. His was the first of thirty-two such awards during the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign. Ordered to withdraw under the 2d Division's control, the 99th Division, whose ranks had been thinned by nearly 3,000 casualties, pulled back to the northern portion of a horseshoe-shaped line that blocked two of the I SS Panzer Corps' routes. Although the line was anchored on the Elsenborn ridge, fighting raged westward as the Germans pushed to outflank the extended American defense. During the night of the seventeenth the Germans unveiled additional surprises. They attempted to parachute a 1,000-man force onto the Hohe Venn's high point at Baraque Michel. Although less than half actually landed in the area, the scattered drop occupied the attention of critical U.S. armored and infantry reserves in the north for several days. A companion special operation, led by the legendary Lt. Col. Otto Skorzeny, used small teams of English-speaking soldiers disguised in American uniforms. Neither the drop nor the operation gained any appreciable military advantage for the German panzers. The Americans, with their resistance increasing along the Elsenborn ridge and elsewhere, were undaunted by such threats to their rear. Further south, however, along the V and VIII Corps boundary, the Sixth Panzer Army achieved its breakthrough. In the Losheim Gap the advanced detachment of the 1st SS Panzer Division, Kampfgruppe Peiper, moved forward through the attacking German infantry during the early hours of the seventeenth. Commanded by Col. Joachim Peiper, the unit would spearhead the main armored assault heading for the Meuse River crossings south of Liege at Huy. With over 100 tanks and approximately 5,000 men, Kampfgruppe Peiper had instructions to ignore its own flanks, to overrun or bypass opposition, and to move day and night. Traversing the woods south of the main panzer route, it entered the town of Buellingen, about 3 miles behind the American line. After fueling their tanks on captured stocks, Peiper's men murdered at least 50 American POWs. Then shortly after noon, they ran head on into a 7th Armored Division field artillery observation battery southeast of Malmedy, murdering more than 80 men. Peiper's men eventually killed at least 300 American prisoners and over 100 unarmed Belgian civilians in a dozen separate locations. Word of the Malmedy Massacre spread, and within hours units across the front realized that the Germans were prosecuting the offensive with a special grimness. American resistance stiffened. Following a twisted course along the Ambleve River valley, Kampfgruppe Peiper had completed barely half of its drive to the Meuse before encountering a unit from 9th Armored Division and then being stopped by an engineer squad at the Stavelot bridge. Unknown to Peiper, his column had passed within 15 miles of the First Army headquarters and was close to its huge reserve fuel dumps. But the Peiper advance was only part of the large jolt to the American command that day. To the south the 1st SS Panzer Division had also broken loose, moving just north of St. Vith. As Kampfgruppe Peiper lunged deep into the First Army's rear, further south the VIII Corps front was rapidly being fragmented. The 18th Volksgrenadier Division completed its southern swing, encircling the two regiments of the 106th Division on the Schnee Eifel. While a single troop of the 14th Cavalry Group continued to resist the German spearheads, the 106th's engineers dug in to block the crucial Schoenberg road 2 miles east of St. Vith, a last ditch defense, hoping to hold out until the 7th Armored Division arrived. St. Vith's road junctions merited the priority Middleton had assigned them. Although the I SS Panzer Corps had planned to pass north of the town and the LVIII Panzer Corps to its south, the crossroad town became more important after the German failure to make a breakthrough in the north on 16-17 December. There, the successful defense of the Elsenborn ridge had blocked three of the Sixth Panzer Army's routes, pushing Dietrich's reserve and supply routes southward and jamming Manteuffel's Losheim route. South of the Losheim Gap the American occupation of St. Vith and the Schnee Eifel represented a double obstacle, which neither Dietrich nor Manteuffel could afford. With thousands of American soldiers still holding desperately along the Schnee Eifel and its western slope village, the Germans found vital roads still threatened. Further west, the possibility of American counterattacks from the St. Vith roadnet threatened Dietrich's narrow panzer flow westward as well as Manteuffel's own western advance. And from St. Vith, the Americans could not only choke the projected German supply arteries but also reinforce the now isolated Schnee Eifel regiments. For the 106th Division's men holding the Schnee Eifel, time was running out. The 7th Armored Division's transfer south from the Ninth Army had been slowed both by coordination problems and roads clogged by withdrawing elements. Led by Combat Command B, the 7th's first elements arrived at St. Vith in midafternoon of 17 December, with the division taking command of the local defense immediately. That night both sides jockeyed in the dark. While the 18th Volksgrenadier Division tried to make up lost time to mount an attack on the town from the northeast and east, the 7th, whose units had closed around St. Vith in fading daylight, established a northerly facing defensive arc in preparation for its attack toward the Schnee Eifel the next day. South of St. Vith the 106th Division's southernmost regiment, the 424th Infantry, and Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division, had joined up behind the Our River. From the high-ground positions there they were able to continue blocking the 62d Volksgrenadier Division, thereby securing the southern approaches to St. Vith. But unknown to them, the 28th Division's 112th Infantry was also folding rearward and eventually joined the 424th and the 7th Armored Division, completing a defensive perimeter around the town. During the night of 17 December, with these forces combining, Middleton and the commanders in St. Vith believed that the VIII Corps' northern flank would be restored and the 106th trapped regiments relieve. On 18 December Middleton's hopes of launching a counterattack toward the Schnee Eifel faded as elements of three German divisions converged around St. Vith. Although situation maps continued to mark the last-known positions of the 106gh Division's 422d and 423d Infantry on the Schnee Eifel, the massive weight of German numbers ended any rescue attempts. Communicating through a tenuous artillery radio net, both regiments believed that help was on the way and that their orders were to break out to the high ground behind the Our River, a distance of between 3 and 4 miles over difficult enemy-held terrain. The following day, 19 December, brought tragedy for the 106th Division. The two stranded regiments, now behind the Schnee Eifel, were pounded by artillery throughout the day as the Germans drew their circle tighter. With casualties mounting and ammunition dwindling, the 423d's commander chose to surrender his regiment to prevent its annihilation. The 422d had some of its troop overrun; others, who were both segmented and surrounded, surrendered. By 1600 most of the two regiments and their attached support has thus been captured. Nevertheless, one battalion-sized group evaded captivity until the twenty-first, and about 150 soldiers from the 422d ultimately escaped to safety. The confused nature of the final battles made specific casualty accounting impossible, but over 7,000 men were captured. The tragedy of the Schnee Eifel was soon eclipsed by the triumph of St. Vith. Every senior German commander saw the ``road octopus''--the omnidirectional junction of six roads in the town's eastern end--as vital for a massive breakthrough, freeing up the Sixth Panzer Army's advance. For the Americans, holding St. Vith would keep the V and VIII Corps within a reasonable distance of each other; without the town the enemy's spearheads would widen into a huge salient, folding back toward Bastogne further south. With intermittent communications, the St. Vith defenders thus operated with only one order from Middleton: ``Hold at all costs.'' Despite a ``goose-egg'' position extending 12 miles from east to west on tactical maps, the St. Vith defense literally had no depth. Designed to fight on the move in more favorable terrain, the four combat commands of the 7th and 9th Armored Divisions found themselves moored to muddy, steep sloped hills, heavily wooded and laced with mud trails. The first action defined the defense's pattern. Unengaged commands sent tanks and halftracks racing laterally across the perimeter to deal with penetrations and infiltrators, with the engaged tanks and infantry holding their overextended lines as best they could. After two days of sporadic attacks, the German commanders attempted to concentrate forces to crush the defense. But with clogged roads German preparations for a coordinated assault encountered continuous delays. Although the VIII Corps' northern flank had been at least temporarily anchored at St. Vith, its center was in great danger. There, the 28th Division's 110th Infantry was being torn to bits. After failing repeatedly to seize crossing on the Our, Manteuffel had passed some of the 116th Panzer Division's armor through the 2d Panzer Division to move up the Skyline Drive ridgeline and enter its panzer route. Thus by 17 December the 110th had elements of five divisions bull- dozing through its strongpoints along the ridge, forcing back the 28th's northern and southern regiments that were attempting to maintain a cohesive defense. The 2d entered Clervaux, in the 110th's center, by a side road and rolled on westward toward Bastogne; holdouts in Clervaux continued to fight from within an ancient castle in the town's eastern end. To the south some survivors of the ridge battle had fallen back to join engineers defending Wiltz, about 4 miles to the rear, and the southern approach to Bastogne. Even though the 110th has suffered over 80 percent casualties, its stand had delayed the XLVII Panzer Corps for a crucial forty- eight hours. The southern shoulder provided VIII Corps' only clear success. The 4th Division has absorbed the folded back defenses of the 109th Infantry and the 9th Armored Division's Combat Command A, thus effectively jamming the Seventh Army's attack. With the arrival of the 10th Armored Division, a provisional corps was temporarily formed to block any advance toward the city of Luxembourg. The events of 17 December finally demonstrated the gravity of the German offensive to the Allied command. Eisenhower committed the theater reserve, the XVIII Airborne Corps, and ordered three American divisions training in England to move immediately to north-eastern France. Hodges' First Army moved the 30th Infantry and 3d Armored Divisions south to extend the northern shoulder of the penetration to the west. Although Bradley remained the least concerned, he and Patton explored moving a three-division corps from the Third Army to attack the German southern flank. Allied intelligence now began to discern German strength objectives with some clarity. The enemy's success apparently was tied to gaining the Meuse quickly and then turning north; however, most of the attacking divisions were trapped in clogged columns, attempting to push through the narrow Losheim Gap and enter the two panzer routes then open. The area, still controlled by the VIII Corps, seemed to provide the key to stabilizing the defensive effort. Somehow the VIII Corps, whose center had now been destroyed, would have to slow down the German drive west, giving the Americans time to strengthen the shoulders north and south of the salient and to prepare one or more major counterattacks. Middleton committed his only reserves, Combat Command R of the 9th Armored Division and seven battalions of corps and army engineers, positioning the units at critical road junctions. Teams formed from tank, armored infantry, and engineer units soon met the 2d Panzer Division's lead elements. Outgunned in a frontal fight and disadvantaged by the wide-tracked German tanks' cross-country capability in the drizzle-soaked fields, Middleton's armored forces were soon overwhelmed, even though the fighting continued well into the night. By dawn on the eighteenth no recognizable line existed as the XLVII Panzer Corps' three divisions bore down on Bastogne. Late on 17 December Hodges had requested the commitment of SHAEF reserves, the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions. Promised to Middleton by the morning of the nineteenth, the VIII Corps commander intended to use them at Houffalize, 17 miles south of St. Vith, and at Bastogne, 10 miles further south, as a solid block against the German advance to the Meuse. But until the airborne divisions arrived, the VIII Corps had to hold its sector with the remnants of its own forces, mainly engineers, and with an armored combat command from the 10th Armored Division, which was beginning to enter the battle for the corps' center. Middleton's engineer ``barrier line'' in front of Bastogne slowed the German advance and bought critical time, but the arrival of Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division, at Bastogne was crucial. As it moved forward, Middleton dispatched three armored teams to the north and east during the night of the eighteenth to cover the road junctions leading to Bastogne. A key fight took place at Longvilly, just a few miles east of Bastogne, where the remnants of the 9th Armored Division's Combat Command R and the 10th's Team Cherry tried to block the Germans. Three enemy divisions converged there, trapping the CCR force west of the town and annihilating it and then surrounding Team Cherry. But even as this occurred, the lead elements of the 101st Airborne Division passed through Bastogne to defensive positions along the villages and low hills just to the east of the town. Joining with the CCB's three armor teams and the two battalions of engineers from the barrier line, the 101st formed a crescent-shaped defense, blocking the five roads entering Bastogne from the north, east, and south. The enemy responded quickly. The German commanders wanted to avoid being enmeshed in any costly sieges. So when Manteuffel saw a hole opening between the American defenses at St. Vith and Bastogne, he ordered his panzer divisions to bypass both towns and move immediately toward their planned Meuse crossing sites some 30 miles to the northwest, leaving the infantry to reduce Bastogne's defenses. Although Middleton had planned to use the 82d Airborne Division to fill the gap between Bastogne and St. Vith, Hodges had been forced to divert it northwest of St. Vith to block the Sixth Panzer Army's advance. Thus only the few engineers and support troops defending the road junctions and crossings along the narrow Ourthe River west of Bastogne lay in the path of Manteuffel's panzers. command decisions, 19-20 december Wacht am Rhine's timetable had placed Dietrich's and Manteuffel's panzers at the Meuse four days after the attack began. The stubborn American defense made this impossible. The Sixth Panzer Army, the designated main effort, had been checked; its attacks to open the Hohe Venn's roads by direct assault and airborne envelopment had failed, and Kampfgruppe Peiper's narrow armored spearhead had been isolated. To the south the Fifth Panzer Army's northern corps had been blocked at St. Vith; its center corps had advanced nearly 25 miles into the American center but was still meeting resistance; and its southern corps had been unable to break the Bastogne roadblock. The southern flank was in no better straits. Neither the Seventh Army's feint toward the city of Luxembourg nor its efforts to cover Manteuffel's flank had gained much ground. Hitler's key requirement that an overwhelming force achieve a quick breakthrough had not occurred. Six divisions had held twenty, and now the American forces, either on or en route to the battlefield, had doubled. Nevertheless, the Sixth Panzer Army's II SS Panzer Corps had yet to be committed, and additional divisions and armor existed in the German High Command reserve. The unspoken belief among Hitler's generals now was that with luck and continued poor weather, the more limited objectives of their small solution might still be possible. Eisenhower's actions had also undermined Hitler's assumption that the Allied response would come too late. When ``Ike'' committed two armored divisions to Middleton on the first day of fighting and the theater reserve on the next, a lightning German advance to the Meuse became nearly impossible. Meeting with his commanders at Verdun on 19 December, Eisenhower, who had received the latest Ultra intelligence on enemy objectives, outlined his overall operational response. Hodges' First Army would break the German advance; along the southern flank of the German penetration Patton's Third Army would attack north, assuming control of Middleton's VIII Corps from the First Army; and Middleton's Bastogne positions would now be the anvil for Third Army's hammer. Patton, content that his staff had finalized operational planning, promised a full corps attack in seventy-two hours, to begin after a nearly 100-mile move. Devers' 6th Army Group would take up the slack, relieving two of Patton's corps of their frontage. In the north Montgomery had already begun moving the British 30 Corps to backstop the First Army and assume defensive positions behind the Meuse astride the crossings from Liege to Namur. Eisenhower began his Verdun conference saying, ``The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not disaster.'' That opportunity, as his generals knew, hung not on their own operational plans but on the soldiers on the battlefield, defending the vital St. Vith and Bastogne road junctions, holding on to the Elsenborn ridge, and blocking the approaches to the city of Luxembourg, as well as on the soldiers in numerous ``blocks'' and positions unlocated on any command post map. These men knew nothing of Allied operational plans or even the extent of the German offensive, but in the next days, on their shoulders, victory or disaster rested. One unavoidable decision on overall battlefield coordination remained. Not one to move a command post to the rear, General Bradley had kept his 12th Army Group headquarters in the city of Luxembourg, just south of the German attack. Maj. Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg's Ninth Air Force headquarters, which supported Bradley's armies, stayed there also, unwilling to sever its direct ties with the ground forces. But three German armies now separated Bradley's headquarters from both Hodges' First Army and Simpson's Ninth Army in the north, making it difficult for Bradley to supervise a defense in the north while coordinating an attack from the south. Nor would communications for the thousands of messages and orders needed to control and logistically support Bradley's two northern armies and Vandenberg's two northern air commands be guaranteed. Eisenhower, therefore, divided the battlefield. At noon on 20 December ground command north of the line from Givet on the Meuse to the high ground roughly 5 miles south of St. Vith devolved to Montgomery's 21 Army Group, which temporarily assumed operational control of both the U.S. Ninth and First Armies. Shifting the ground command raised a furor, given the strained relations Montgomery had with senior American commanders. Montgomery had been successful in attacking and occupying ``ground of his own choosing'' and then drawing in enemy armored reserves where they could be destroyed by superior artillery and air power. He now intended to repeat these tactics, planning to hold his own counterattacks until the enemy's reserves had been spent or a decisive advantage gained. The American generals, however, favored an immediate counteroffensive to first halt and then turn back the German drive. Equally disconcerting to them was Montgomery's persistence in debating command and strategy, a frequent occurrence in all coalitions, but one that by virtue of his personal approach added to the strains within the Allied command. The British 2d Tactical Air Force similarly took control of the IX and XXIX Tactical Air Commands from Vandenberg's Ninth Air Force. Because the British air commander, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur ``Maori'' Coningham, had long established close personal relations with the concerned American air commanders, the shift of air commands passed uneventfully. first army battles, 20-27 december Eisenhower and Montgomery agreed that the First Army would establish a cohesive defensive line, yielding terrain if necessary. Montgomery also intended to create a corps-sized reserve for a counterattack, which he sought to keep from being committed during the defensive battle. The First Army's hasty defense had been one of hole-plugging, last stands, and counterattacks to buy time. Although successful, these tactics had created organizational havoc within Hodges' forces as divisional units had been committed piecemeal and badly jumbled. Complicating the situation even further was the fact that the First Army still held the north-south front, north of Monschau to Elsenborn, while fighting Dietrich's panzers along a nearly east-west axis in the Ardennes. Blessed with excellent defensive ground and a limited lateral roadnet in front of V Corps positions, Gerow had been able to roll with the German punch and Hodges to feed in reserves to extend the First Army line westward. Much of the Sixth Panzer Army's strength was thus tied up in road jams of long columns of vehicles. But American success was still far from certain. The V Corps was holding four panzer divisions along the northern shoulder, an elbow-shaped 25-mile line, with only parts of four U.S. divisions. To the west of the V Corps the 30th Infantry Division, now under Maj. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps, marched south to block Kampfgruppe Peiper at Malmedy and, along the Ambleve River, at Stavelot, Stoumont, and La Gleize. To the south of Peiper the XVIII's other units, the 82d Airborne and 3d Armored Divisions, moved forward to the area between the Salm and Ourthe Rivers, northwest of St. Vith, which was still in danger of being isolated. By 20 December the Peiper force was almost out of fuel and surrounded. During the night of the twenty-third Peiper and his men destroyed their equipment, abandoned their vehicles, and walked out to escape capture. Dietrich's spearhead was broken. North of St. Vith the I SS Panzer Corps pushed west. Part of the LVIII Panzer Corps had already bypassed the defenders' southern flank. Standing in the way of Dietrich's panzers was a 6-mile line along the Salm River, manned by the 82d Airborne Division. Throughout the twenty-first German armor attacked St. Vith's northwestern perimeter and infantry hit the entire eastern circumference of the line. Although the afternoon assault was beaten back, the fighting was renewed after dark. To prevent being trapped from the rear, the 7th Armored Division began pulling out of its advanced positions around 2130. The other American units around the town conformed, folding into a tighter perimeter west of the town. Ridgway wanted St. Vith's defenders to stay east of the Salm, but Montgomery ruled otherwise. The 7th Armored Division, its ammunition and fuel in short supply and perhaps two-thirds of its tanks destroyed, and the battered elements of the 9th Armored, 106th, and 28th Divisions could not hold the extended perimeter in the rolling and wooded terrain. Meanwhile, Dietrich's second wave of tanks entered the fray. The II SS Panzer Corps immediately threatened the Salm River line north and west of St. Vith, as did the LVIII Panzer Corps circling to the south, adding the 2d SS Panzer Division to its drive. Ordering the St. Vith defenders to withdraw through the 82d Airborne Division line to prevent another Schnee Eifel disaster, Montgomery signaled them that ``they come back with all honor.'' Mud threatened to trap much of the force, but nature intervened with a ``Russian High,'' a cold snap and snowstorm that turned the trails from slurry to hard ground. While the Germans seemed temporarily powerless to act, the St. Vith defenders on 23 December, in daylight, withdrew across the Salm to reform behind the XVIII Airborne Corps front. Ridgway estimated that the successful withdrawal added at least 100 tanks and two infantry regiments to his corps. The St. Vith defense purchased five critical days, but the situation remained grave. Model's Army Group B now had twelve full divisions attacking along roughly 25 miles of the northern shoulder's east-west front. Hodges' army was holding with thirteen divisions, four of which had suffered heavy casualties and three of which were forming in reserve. Montgomery had designated Maj. Gen. J. Lawton ``Lightning Joe'' Collins' VII Corps as the First Army's counterattack force, positioning its incoming divisions northwest of Hodges' open flank, hoping to keep them out of the defensive battle. He intended both to blunt the enemy's assault and wear down its divisions by withdrawing the XVIII Airborne Corps to a shorter, defendable line, thus knitting together the First Army's fragmented defense. Above all, before launching a major counterstroke, Montgomery wanted to cripple the German panzers with artillery and with constant air attacks against their lines of supply. The Russian High that blanketed the battlefield brought the Allies one tremendous advantage--good flying weather. The week of inclement weather promised to Hitler by his meteorologists had run out--and with it the ability to move in daylight safe from air attack. The Allied air forces rose to the occasion. Night bombers of the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command had been attacking those rail yards supporting the German offensive since 17 December. In the five days of good weather following the Russian High, American day bombers entered the interdiction effort. As Allied fighter bombers patrolled the roads throughout the Ardennes and the Eifel, the Ninth Air Force's medium bombers attacked targets west of the Rhine and the Eighth Air Force's heavy bombers hit rail yards deeper into Germany. Flying an average of 3,000 sorties daily during good weather, the combined air forces dropped more than 31,000 tons of bombs during the first ten days of interdiction attacks. The effects on the ground battle were dramatic. The sluggish movement of fuel and vehicles over the Ardennes' few roads had already slowed German operations. The added strain on resupply from the bombing and strafing now caused halts up and down the German line, making coordinated attacks more difficult. Still, panzer and infantry units continued to press forward. From Christmas Eve to the twenty-seventh, battles raged along the First Army's entire front. The heaviest fighting swirled around the positions held by Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps and Collins' VII Corps, the latter having been piecemealed forward to extend the First Army line westward. While the XVIII Corps battled the Sixth Panzer Army's last attempts to achieve a northern breakthrough, the VII Corps' 3d Armored and 84th Infantry Divisions held the line's western end against the LVIII and XLVII Panzer Corps. These units had become Model's new main effort, swinging wide of Dietrich's stalled attack, and they now had elements about 5 miles from the Meuse. Upon finding the 2d Panzer Division out of gas at the German salient's tip, Collins on Christmas Day sent 2d Armored Division, with heavy air support, to encircle and destroy the enemy force. The First Army's desperate defense between the Salm and Meuse Rivers had stopped the Sixth and Fifth Panzer Armies, including six panzer divisions. The fierce battles--at places as Baraque de Fraiture, Manhay, Hotton, and Marche--were epics of valor and determination. Hitler's drive for Antwerp was over. third army battles, 20-27 december The 20 December boundary shift transferred Middleton's VIII Corps and its Bastogne garrison to Patton's Third Army, which was now moving forces from as far away as 10 miles to attack positions south of the German salient. Bastogne had become an armed camp with four airborne regiments, seven battalions of artillery, a self-propelled tank destroyer battalion, and the surviving tanks, infantry, and engineers from two armored combat commands--all under the 101st Airborne Division's command. Manteuffel had ordered the Panzer Lehr and the 2d Panzer Divisions to bypass Bastogne and speed toward the Meuse, thus isolating the defenders. As the 26th Volksgrenadier Division and the XLVII Paner Corps' artillery closed in for the kill on 22 December, the corps commander's emissary arrived at the 101st Division's command post, demanding surrender or threatening annihilation. The acting division commander, Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, replied ``Nuts,'' initially confounding the Germans but not Bastogne's defenders. The defense held. For four days bitter fighting raged in a clockwise rotation around Bastogne's southern and western perimeter, further constricting the defense within the low hills and patches of woods surrounding the town. The infantry held ground, with the armor scurrying to seal penetrations or to support local counterattacks. Once the overcast weather had broke, the defenders received both air support and aerial resupply, making it imperative for Manteuffel to turn some of his precious armor back to quickly crush the American defense, a large deadly threat along his southern flank. Meanwhile, as Bastogne held, Patton's Third Army units streamed northward. Maj. Gen. John B. Millikin's newly arrived III Corps headquarters took command of the 4th Armored and 26th and 80th Infantry Divisions, in a move quickly discovered and monitored by the Germans' effective radio intercept units. In response, Brandenberger's Seventh Army, charged with the crucial flank guard mission in Hitler's offensive, rushed its lagging infantry divisions forward to block the expected American counterattack. Jumping off as promised on 22 December some 12 to 15 miles south of Bastogne, III Corps divisions achieved neither the surprise nor momentum that Bradley and Patton had hoped. No longer a lunge into an exposed flank, the attack became a frontal assault along a 30-mile front against infantry holding good defensive terrain. With Bastogne's garrison totally surrounded, only a quick Third Army breakthrough could prevent the brilliant holding action there from becoming a costly disaster. But how long Bastogne's defenders could hold out was a question mark. To the east, as Millikin's III Corps moved against hardening enemy resistance along the Sure River, Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy's XII Corps attacked northward on a front almost as wide as the III Corps'. Taking control of the 4th Infantry and 10th Armored Divisions and elements of the 9th Armored Division, all units of Middleton's former southern wing, Eddy met greater difficulties in clearing the ridges southeast of Bastogne. Meanwhile, the 35th and 5th Infantry Divisions and the 6th Armored Division moved northward to strengthen the counterattacks. Millikin finally shifted the main effort to the west, where the 4th Armored Division was having more success. Following fierce village-by-village fighting in frigid temperatures, the 4th linked up with Bastogne's defenders at 1650 on 26 December, lifting the siege but setting the stage for even heavier fighting for the Bastogne sector. nordwind in alsace, 31 december-5 january By 21 December Hitler had decided on a new offensive, this time in the Alsace region, in effect selecting one of the options he had disapproved earlier in favor of Wacht am Rhine. With the Fifteenth Army's supporting thrust canceled due to Dietrich's failure to break the northern shoulder, and with no hope of attaining their original objectives, both Hitler and Rundstedt agreed that an attack on the southern Allied front might take advantage of Patton's shift north to the Ardennes, which Wehrmacht intelligence had identified as under way. The first operation, called Nordwind (``Northwind''), targeted the Saverne Gap, 20 miles northwest of Strasbourg, to split the Seventh Army's XV and VI Corps and retake the Alsace north of the Marne- Rhine Canal. If successful, a second operation, called Zahnartz (``Dentist''), would pursue objectives westward toward the area between Luneville and Metz and into the Third Army's southern flank. Lt. Gen. Hans von Obstfelder's First Army would launch the XIII SS Corps as the main effort down the Sarre River valley, while to the southeast four divisions from the XC and LXXXIX Corps would attack southwesterly down the Low Vosges mountain range through the old Maginot Line positions near Bitche. A two-division panzer reserve would be held to reinforce success, which Hitler believed would be in the Sarre River sector. Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler's Army Group Oberrhein, virtually an independent field army reporting only to Hitler, was to pin the southern flank of the Seventh Army with holding attacks. The new offensive was planned for the thirty-first, New Year's Eve. However, its target, the U.S. Seventh Army, was neither unready nor unwarned. Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch's Seventh Army, part of Devers' 6th Army Group, which also included the French First Army, had been among the theater's unsung heroes. After conducting assault landings on the coast of southern France in August 1944, the small army had chased a significantly larger force northward; but, much to the chagrin of his commanders, Patch had been ordered not to cross the Rhine, even though his divisions were among the first Allied units to reach its banks. In November the Seventh Army had been the Western Front's leading Allied ground gainer. Yet, when Patton's Third Army found its offensive foundering, Patch, again following orders, had sent a corps northward to attack the Siegfried Line's southern flank, an operational lever designed to assist Patton's attack. On 19 December, at the Verdun conference, the 6th Army Group was again relegated to a supporting role. Eisenhower ordered Devers to assume the front of two of Patton's corps that were moving to the Ardennes, and then on the twenty- sixth he added insult to injury by telling the 6th Army Group commander to give up his Rhine gains by withdrawing to the Vosges foothills. The switch to the defense also scrapped Devers' planned attacks to reduce the Colmar Pocket, the German foothold stretching 50 miles along the Rhine's western banks south of Strasbourg. Held in check by two corps of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny's French First Army, this area was the only German bridgehead in Devers' sector. But by Christmas Eisenhower saw a greater threat than the Colmar Pocket opening on his southern front. Allied intelligence had confirmed that a new enemy offensive in the Alsace region was imminent. Eisenhower wanted the Seventh Army to meet it by withdrawing to shortened lines to create reserves, essentially ceding northern Alsace back to the Germans, including the city of Strasbourg. Not surprisingly, Devers, Patch, and de Lattre objected strongly to the order. In the end, rather than withdraw, Devers shifted forces to create a reserve to backstop the key enemy attack avenues leading into his front and ordered the preparation of three intermediate withwrawal lines forward of the defensive line designated by Eisenhower. By New Year's Eve, with two U.S. divisions withdrawn from the Seventh Army and placed in theater reserve, the 6th Army Group's front resembled the weakened defense that had encouraged the German Ardennes offensive. Patch's six divisons covered a 126-mile front, much of it along poor defensive ground. Feeling that the Saree River valley just north of the Low Vosges would bear the brunt of any attack, Patch assigned Maj. Gen. Wade Haislip's XV Corps a 35-mile sector between Sarreguemines and Bitche, with the 103d, 44th, and 100th Infantry Divisions holding from northwest to southeast, backed by the experienced French 2d Armored Division. Maj. Gen. Edward H. Brooks' VI Corps took up the balance of Patch's front from the Low Vosges southeast to Lauterbourg on the Rhine and then southward toward Strasbourg. Brooks' corps had the veteran 45th and 79th Infantry Divsions and the 14th Armored Division in reserve. Patch inserted Task Force Hudelson, a two- squadron cavalry force, reinforced with infantry from the uncommitted 14th Armored Division at the boundary joining the two American corps. The deployment of three additional units--Task Force Linden (42d Infantry Division), Task Force Harris (63d Infantry Division), and Task Force Herren (70th Infantry Division)-- demonstrated how far Devers and Patch would go to avoid yielding ground. Formed from the infantry regiments of three arriving divisions and led by their respective assistant division commanders, these units went straight to the Seventh Army front minus their still to arrive artillery, engineer, and support units that comprised a complete division. By late December Patch had given the bulk of Task Force Harris to Haislip's XV Corps and the other two to Brooks, who placed them along the Rhine between Lauterbourg and Strasbourg. Despite knowledge of the impending Alsace offensive, the exact location and objectives were unclear. Troop buildups near Saarbruecken, east of the Rhine, and within the Colmar Pocket pointed to possible thrusts either southwestward down the Sarre River valley or northward from the Colmar region, predictions made by the Seventh Army's G-2 that proved to be remarkably accurate. On New Year's Eve Patch told his corps commanders that the Germans would launch their major offensive early the next day. Actually, first combat began shortly before midnight all along the XV Corps front and along both the southeastern and southwestern approaches from Bitche toward the Low Vosges. The XIII SS Corps' two reinforced units, the 17th SS Panzergrenadier and 36th Volksgrenadier Divisions, attacked the 44th and 100th Division, whose prepared defense in depth included a regiment from Task Force Harris. The Germans made narrow inroads against the 44th's line near Rimling during fighting characterized by constant American counterattacks supported by French armor and Allied air attacks during clear weather. After four days of vicious fighting the XIII SS Corps' initial offensive had stalled. The XC and LXXXIX Corps attacked near Bitche with four infantry divisions abreast. Advancing through the Low Vosges, they gained surprise by forgoing artillery preparations and by taking advantage of fog and thick forests to infiltrate Task Force Hudelson. As in the Losheim Gap, the defending mechanized cavalry held only a thin line of strongpoints; lateral mobility through the rough snowladen mountain roads was limited. The light mechanized forces were soon overrun or bypassed and isolated by the 559th, 257th, 361st, and 256th Volksgrenadier Divisions. The Germans gained about 10 miles during Nordwind's first four days, heading directly for the Saverne Gap that linked the XV and VI Corps. Both American corps commanders responded quickly to the threat. Haislip's XV Corps plugged the northwestern exits to the Low Vosges with Task Force Harris, units of the 14th Armored and 100th Divisions, and a regiment from the 36th Infantry Division, which Eisenhower had released from theater reserve. Brooks' VI Corps did the same, stripping its Lauterbourg and Rhine fronts and throwing in Task Force Herren, combat engineers converted to infantry, and units of the 45th and 75th Infantry Divisions to plug holes or block routes out of the Low Vosges. While units fought for twisted roads and mountain villages in subfreezing temperatures, Obstfelder's First Army committed the 6th SS Mountain Division to restart the advance on the Saverne Gap. In response, Patch shifted the 103d Infantry Division eastward from the XV Corps' northwestern wing to hold the southeastern shoulder of the Vosges defense. By 5 January the SS troopers managed to bull their way to the town of Wingen-sur-Moder, about 10 miles short of Saverne, but there they were stopped. With the Vosges' key terrain and passes still under American control and the German advance held in two salients, Nordwind had failed. Meanwhile, the original SHAEF withdrawal plan, especially the abandonment of Strasbourg, had created an Allied crisis in confidence. Supporting Devers' decision not to withdraw, the Free French government of General Charles de Gaulle enlisted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's support to amend Eisenhower's orders. Fortunately, Patch's successful defense temporarily shelved the SHAEF withdrawal plan, but Alsace was not to be spared further German attacks. Hitler's armored reserve and Himmler's Army Group Oberrhein had not yet entered the battle. erasing the bulge North of the Alsace region the Allied commanders were concerned with reducing the enemy's Ardennes salient, now called the ``Bulge.'' From the beginning of Wacht am Rhein they had envisioned large-scale counterattacks. The decisions as to where and how the attacks would be launched, however, underscored their different perspectives. The theoretical solution was to attack the salient at its base. Patton had in fact planned to have the Third Army's right flank corps, the XII, attack further eastward toward Bitburg, Germany, along what he referred to as the ``honeymoon trail.'' Bradley, however, as the commander responsible for the southern attack, wanted to cover the shortest distance to relieve Hodges' beleaguered First Army units. Overruling Patton, he designated Houffalize, midway between Bastogne and St. Vith, as a primary objective. Middleton's reinforced VIII Corps, the westernmost force, would drive on Houffalize; the middle force, Millikin's III Corps, would remain on Middleton's right flank heading for St. Vith; and Eddy's XII Corps would serve as an eastern hinge. Bradley's choice made the best use of the existing roads; sending Millikin's IIII Corps along advantageous terrain corridors avoided the favorable defensive ground on the successive ridges east of Bastogne. Once linked with the First Army, the 12th Army Group's boundary would revert to its original northern line. Only then would Bradley send the First and Third Armies east into the Eifel toward Pruem and Bitburg in Germany. Bradley further solidified his plan by committing newly arriving reinforcements--the 11th Armored, 17th Airborne, and 87th Infantry Divisions--to the west of Bastogne for Middleton's VIII corps. Montgomery had eyed Houffalize earlier, viewing the approaches to the town from the northwest as excellent for a corps-sized attack. His own extended defensive line on the northern shoulder of the bulge and the piecemeal entry of Collins' VII Corps into battle further west did not shake his original concept. Much like Bradley, he saw an interim solution as best. Concerned that American infantry losses in Gerow's V Corps had not been replaced, and with the same terrain and roadnet considerations that had jammed the German assault westward, Montgomery ruled out a direct attack to the south at the base of the bulge. As December waned, Rundstedt's remaining armored reserves were centered near St. Vith, and the roadnet there offered inadequate avenues to channel the four U.S. armored divisions into an attack. Unwilling to weaken his western flank now that his reserve had been committed, Montgomery seemed more prone to let the VII Corps attack from its present positions northwest of St. Vith. Eisenhower raised the issue of committing the British 30 Corps. But having deactivated units to rebuild the corps for use in his projected Rhineland offensive, Montgomery agreed to move it across the Meuse to assume Collins' vacated front, a transfer that would not be completely accomplished until 2 January. From there, the 30 Corps would conduct limited supporting attacks. Although Hodges, as First Army commander, would select the precise counterattack axis, he knew Montgomery's repeated preference for the VII Corps to conduct the main effort and also Bradley's preference for a quick linkup at Houffalize. Hodges' decision was thus predictable. The VII Corps would constitute the First Army's main effort, aimed at Houffalize. Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps would cover the VII's northeastern flank, and, like Millikin's III Corps, its advance would be pointed at St. Vith. The Germans would thus be attacked head on. Timing the counterstrokes also raised difficulties. The American generals wanted the First Army to attack immediately, claiming the Germans had reached their high- water mark. Montgomery demurred, citing intelligence predictions of an imminent offensive by the II SS Panzer Corps--an assault he welcomed as it fit his concept of weakening enemy armor further rather than conducting costly attacks. Contrary to Montgomery's tactics, Eisenhower preferred that the First Army attack immediately to prevent the Germans from withdrawing their panzers and shifting them southward. Patton's renewed attacks in late December caused the Third Army to learn firsthand how difficult the First Army battles had been. In the Third Army sector the relief of Bastogne had not changed the intensity of combat. As Manteuffel received panzer reinforcements, he threw them into the Bastogne salient before it could be widened and extended northward toward the First Army. Patton's Third Army now encountered panzers and divisions in numbers comparable to those that had been pressing against the northern shoulder for the previous 10 days. In the week after Bastogne's relief the number of German divisions facing the Third Army jumped from three to nine around Bastogne and from four to five in the III and XII Corps sector of the front. The fighting during the 9-mile American drive from Bastogne to Houffalize became a series of bitter attacks and counterattacks in worsening weather. Patton quickly added the 17th Airborne, the 87th and 35th Infantry, and the 11th and 6th Armored Divisions to his attacking line, which stretched 25 miles from the Ourthe River to the Clerf. While the III Corps continued its grim attacks northeastward against the forested ridges of the Wiltz valley leading toward German escape routes eastward out of the salient, VIII Corps forces added some width to the Bastogne salient but gained no ground northward before New Year's Day. Both sides reinforced the sector with every available gun. In a nearly week-long artillery duel Patton's renewed attacks collided with Manteuffel's final efforts to eradicate the Bastogne bridgehead. During the same week German attacks continued along the First Army line near the Elsenborn ridge and in the center of the XVIII Airborne Corps line before a general quiet descended upon the northern front. In many areas the fields, forests, and roads were now covered with waist-high snowdrifts, further impeding the movement of both fighting men and their resupply vehicles. Climaxing Wacht am Rhein's efforts, the Luftwaffe launched its one great appearance of the campaign during the early morning hours of New Year's Day. Over 1,000 aircraft took off before dawn to attack Allied airfields in Holland and Belgium, with the objective of eliminating the terrible scourge that the Allied air forces would again become once the skies cleared over the entire battle area. The Germans destroyed roughly 300 Allied machines, but their loss of more than 230 pilots was a major blow to the Luftwaffe, whose lack of trained aviators was even more critical than their fuel shortages. Casualties mounted, bringing on a manpower shortage in both camps. Although the Germans continued to commit fresh divisions until late December, the Americans, with only three uncommitted divisions in theater, were forced to realign their entire front. Many units moved from one combat to another without rest or reinforcement. December's battles had cost the Americans more than 41,000 casualties, and with infantry replacements already critically short, antiaircraft and service units had to be stripped to provide riflemen for the line. Black soldiers were offered the opportunity to fight within black platoons assigned to many white battalions, a major break from previous Army policy. Despite the shortage of replacements, both Patton's Third Army and Hodges' First Army attacked on 3 January. Collins' VII Corps in the north advanced toward the high ground northwest of Houffalize, with two armored divisions in the lead. Meeting stiff opposition from the LXVI Corps, VII Corps infantry soon replaced the tanks as difficult terrain, icy roads, and a tenacious defense using mines, obstacles, antitank ambushes, and armored counterattacks took their toll. The XVIII Airborne Corps moved its right flank south to cover Collins' advance, and in the far west the British 30 Corps pushed eastward. Under intense pressure Hitler's forces pulled back to a new line, based on the Ourthe River and Houffalize, with the bulk of the SS panzer divisions withdrawing from the battlefield. Poor weather restricted Allied flyers to intermittent close support for only three days in the nearly two weeks that VII Corps units fought their way toward their juncture with the Third Army. South of the Bulge the Third Army intensified its attacks northward to meet the First Army. Still counting on Middleton's VIII Corps to break through, Patton sent Millikin's III Corps northeastward, hoping to enter the roadnet and follow the terrain corridors to link up with Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps attacking St. Vith. Despite having less than fifty-five tanks operational, the I SS Panzer Corps counterattacked the III Corps' 6th Armored Division in ferocious tank fights unseen since the fall campaign in Lorraine. While the III Corps' 90th Division infantrymen broke through to the heights overlooking the Wiltz valley, the VIII Corps to the west struggled against a determined force fighting a textbook withdrawal. By 15 January Noville, the scene of the original northern point of the Bastogne perimeter, was retaken. Five miles from Houffalize, resistance disappeared. Ordered to escape, the remaining Germans withdrew, and on the sixteenth the Third Army's 11th Armored Division linked up with the First Army's 2d Armored Division at Houffalize. The next day, 17 January, control of the First Army reverted to Bradley's 12th Army Group. Almost immediately Bradley began what he had referred to in planning as a ``hurry-up'' offensive, another full-blooded drive claiming the Rhine as its ultimate objective while erasing the Bulge en route. On the twenty-third Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps, now the First Army's main effort, and the 7th Armored Division took St. Vith. This action was the last act of the campaign for the First Army. Hodges' men, looking out across the Losheim Gap at the Schnee Eifel and hills beyond, now prepared for new battles. In the Third Army sector Eddy's XII Corps leapt the Sure River on 18 January and pushed north, hoping to revive Patton's plan for a deep envelopment of the German escape routes back across the Belgian-Luxembourg-German borders. Intending to pinch the escape routes via the German tactical bridges on the Our River, the 5th Division crossed the Sauer at night, its main body pushing northward to clear the long Skyline Drive ridge, where the 28th Division had faced the first assaults. By the campaign's official end on the twenty- fifth the V, XVIII, VIII, III, and XII Corps had a total of nine divisions holding most of the old front, although the original line east of the Our River had yet to be restored. Nordwind Revisited, 5-25 January In early 1945, as Operation Wacht am Rhein in the Ardennes started to collapse, Operation Nordwind in the Alsace was revived. On 5 January, after Nordwind's main effort had failed, Himmler's Army Group Oberrheim finally began its supporting thrusts against the southern flank of Brooks' VI Corps, with the XIV SS Corps launching a cross-Rhine attack north of Strasbourg. Two days later, south of the city, the Nineteenth Army launched Operation Sonnenwende (``Winter Solstice''), attacking north, astride the Rhone-Rhine Canal on the northern edge of the German-held Colmar Pocket. These actions opened a three-week battle, whose ferocity rivaled the Ardennes fighting in viciousness if not in scope and threatened the survival of the VI Corps. Sonnenwende sparked a new crisis for the 6th Army Group, which had too few divisions to defend every threatened area. With Brooks' VI Corps now engaged on both flanks, along the Rhine at Gambsheim and to the northeast along the Low Vosges mountain exits, Devers transferred responsibility for Strasbourg to the French First Army, and de Lattre stretched his forces to cover both the city and the Belfort Gap 75 miles to the south. But the real danger was just northeast of Strasbourg. There, the XIV SS Corps had punched out a 10-miles bridgehead around the town of Gambsheim, brushing off small counterattacks from Task Force Linden. Patch's Seventh Army, reinforced with the newly arrived 12th Armored Division, tried to drive the Germans from the Gambsheim area, a region laced with canals, streams, and lesser watercourses. To the south de Lattre's 3d Algerian Division defended Strasbourg, while the rest of the French First Army kept the Colmar Pocket tightly ringed. But the fate of Strasbourg and the northern Alsace hinged on the ability of the American VI Corps to secure its besieged flanks. Having driven several wedges into the Seventh Army, the Germans launched another attack on 7 January. The German XXXIX Panzer Corps, with the 21st Panzer and the 25th Panzergrenadier Divisions, attacked the greatly weakened VI Corps center between the Vosges and Lauterbourg. Quickly gaining ground to the edge of the Haguenau Forest 20 miles north of Strasbourg, the German offensive rolled along the same routes used during the successful attacks of August 1870 under Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke. Moltke's successors, however, made no breakthrough. In the two Alsatian towns of Hatten and Rittershoffen, Patch and Brooks threw in the Seventh Army's last reserve, the 14th Armored Division. Assisted by a mixture of other combat, combat support, and service troops, the division halted the Germans. While the VI Corps fought for its life in the Haguenau Forest, the enemy renewed attacks on both flanks. During an intense battle between units of the 45th Division and the 6th SS Mountain Division in the Low Vosges, the Germans surrounded an American battalion that had refused to give ground. After a week's fighting by units attempting its relief, only two soldiers managed to escape to friendly lines. Although gaining ground, the enemy had achieved no clear- cut success. Hitler nevertheless committed his last reserves on 16 January, including the 10th SS Panzer and the 7th Parachute Divisions. These forces finally steamrolled a path along the Rhine's west bank toward the XIV SS Corps' Gambsheim bridgehead, over-running one of the green 12th Armored Division's infantry battalions at Herrlisheim and destroying one of its tank battalions nearby. This final foray led Brooks to order a withdrawal on the twenty-first, one that took the Germans by surprise and was completed before the enemy could press his advantage. Forming a new line along the Zorn, Moder, and Rothback Rivers north of the Marne-Rhine Canal, the VI Corps commander aligned his units into a cohesive defense with his badly damaged but still game armored divisions in reserve. Launching attacks during the night of 24-25 January, the Germans found their slight penetrations eliminated by vigorous counterattacks. Ceasing their assaults permanently, they might have found irony in the Seventh Army's latest acquisition from SHAEF reserves--the ``Battling Bastards of Bastogne,'' the 101st Airborne Division, which arrived on the Alsace front only to find the battle over. Even before Nordwind had ended, the 6th Army Group commander was preparing to eliminate the Colmar Pocket in southern Alsace. Five French divisions and two American, the 3d Infantry and the rebuilt 28th Division, held eight German infantry divisions and an armored brigade in a rich farming area laced with rivers, streams, and a major canal but devoid of significant hills or ridges. Devers wanted to reduce this frozen, snow-covered pocket before thaws converted the ploughed ground to a quagmire. General de Lattre's French First Army would write finis to the Germans in the Colmar Pocket, but it would be a truly Allied attack. To draw the German reserves southward, plans called for four divisions from the French I Corps to start the assault. This initial foray would set the stage for the French II Corps to launch the main effort in the north. The defending Nineteenth Army's eight divisions were low on equipment but well provided with artillery munitions, small arms, and mines, and fleshed out with whatever manpower and materiel that Himmler, the overall commander, could scrounge from the German interior. Bad weather, compartmentalized terrain, and fear of Himmler's SS secret police strengthened the German defense. On 20 January, in the south, Lt. Gen. Emile Bethouart's French I Corps began its attack in a driving snowstorm. Although its gains were limited by armored-infantry counterattacks, the corps drew the Nineteenth Army's armor southward, along with the arriving 2d Mountain Division. Two days later, in the north, Maj. Gen. Amie de Goislard de Monsabert's French II Corps commenced its attack, led by the U.S. 3d Division. Reinforced by one of the 63d Infantry Division's regiments, the 3d advanced over the first of several watercourses and cleared the Colmar Forest. It met resistance on the Ill River but continued to fight its way forward through enemy counterattacks, subsequently crossing the Colmar Canal and opening an avenue for the French 5th Armored Division. The Allies pushed further eastward in deepening snow and worsening weather, with the 28th and 75th Divisions from the Ardennes following. On the twenty-fifth Maj. Gen. Frank W. Milburn's XXI Corps joined the line. Assuming control of the 3d, 28th, and 75th Divisions, the 12th Armored Division, which was shifted from reserves, and the French 5th Armored Division, the corps launched the final thrust to the Vauban Canal and Rhone-Rhine Canal bridges at Neuf-Brisach. Although the campaign was officially over on 25 January, the American and French troops did not completely clear the Colmar Pocket until 9 February. However, its successful reduction marked the end of both the German presence on French territory and the Nineteenth Army. And with the fighting finally concluded in the Ardennes and Alsace, the Allies now readied their forces for the final offensive into Germany. analysis Hitler's last offensives--in December 1944 in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg, and in January 1945 in the Alsace region of France--marked the beginning of the end for the Third Reich. With these final attacks, Hitler had hoped to destroy a large portion of the Allied ground force and to break up the Allied coalition. Neither objective came close to being achieved. Although perhaps the Allies' victory in the spring of 1945 was inevitable, no doubt exists that the costs incurred by the Germans in manpower, equipment, supplies, and morale during the Ardennes-Alsace battles were instrumental in bringing about a more rapid end to the war in Europe. Eisenhower had always believed that the German Army on the Western Front had to be destroyed west of the Rhine River to make a final offensive into Germany possible. When added to the tremendous contributions of the Soviet Army, which had been fighting the majority of Germany's armed forces since 1941, the Ardennes-Alsace victory set the stage for Germany's rapid collapse. With little hope of staving off defeat, Germany gambled everything on achieving a surprise operational decision on the Western Front. In contrast, the Allied coalition pursued a more conservative strategy. Since the Normandy invasion Eisenhower's armies had neither the combat power necessary to mount decisive operations in more than one sector nor the reserves; more importantly, their logistical capability was insufficient to fully exploit any major successes. The resulting broadfront Allied advance steadily wore away the German defenses; but, as in the case of the Ardennes and Alsace fronts, the Allied lines had many weak points that could be exploited by a desperate opponent. Moreover, once Hitler's attacking legions had been stopped, the Allies lacked the combat power to overwhelm the German divisions defending their recently acquiring gains. In the Ardennes, terrain and worsening weather aided the Germans in holding off Allied counterattacks for an entire month, ultimately allowing them to withdraw a sizable portion of their initial assault force with perhaps one-third of their committed armor. The battle in the Alsace appeared to be less dramatic than in the Ardennes, but was no less an Allied victory. Hitler spent his last reserves in Alsace--and with them the ability to regain the initiative anywhere. Like the Normandy Campaign, the Ardennes-Alsace struggle provided the necessary attrition for the mobile operations that would end the war. The carefully husbanded enemy reserves that the Allies expected to meet in their final offensive into Germany had been destroyed in December and January. Some thirty-two U.S. divisions fought in the Ardennes, where the daily battle strength of U.S. Army forces averaged twenty-six divisions and 610,000 men. Alsace added eleven more divisions to the honors list, with an average battle strength of 230,000. Additionally, separate divisional elements as well as divisions arriving in sector at the end of the campaign granted participation credit to three more divisions. But the cost of victory was staggering. The final tally for the Ardennes alone totaled 41.315 casualties in December to bring the offensive to a halt and an additional 39,672 casualties in January to retake lost ground. The SHAFE casualty estimate presented to Eisenhower in February 1945 listed casualties for the First Army at 39,957; for the Third Army at 35,525; and for the British 30 Corps, which helped at the end, at 1,408. Defeating Hitler's final offensive in the Alsace was also costly; the Seventh Army recorded its January battle losses at 11,609. Sickness and cold weather also ravaged the fighting lines, with the First, Third, and Seventh Armies having cold injury hospital admissions of more than 17,000 during the entire campaign. No official German losses for the Ardennes have been computed, but they have been estimated at between 81,000 and 103,000. A recently published German scholarly source gave the following German casualty totals: Ardennes--67,200; Alsace (not including Colmar Pocket)--22,932. Most of the figures cited do not differentiate between permanent losses (killed and missing), wounded, and non-battle casualties. Analysts of coalition warfare and Allied generalship may find much to criticize in the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign. Often common-place disputes over command and strategy were encouraged and overblown by newspaper coverage, which reflected national biases. Predictably, Montgomery inspired much American ire both in revisiting command and strategy issues, which had been debated since Normandy, and in pursuing methodical defensive-offensive tactics. Devers and de Lattre, too, strained coalition amity during their successful retention of liberated French terrain. But in both cases the Allied command structure weathered the storm, and Eisenhower retained a unified command. Preservation of a unit Allied command was perhaps his greatest achievement. In the enemy camp the differences between Hilter and his generals over the objectives of the Ardennes offensive were marked, while the uncoordinated efforts of Obstfelder's First Army and Himmler's Army Group Oberrhein for the Alsace offensive were appaling. The Ardennes-Alsace battlefield proved to be no general's playground, but rather a place where firepower and bravery meant more than plans or brilliant maneuver. Allied and German generals both consistently came up short in bringing their plans to satisfactory fruition. That American soldiers fought and won some of the most critical battles of World War II in the Ardennes and the Alsace is now an indisputable fact. U.S. Divisions in the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign 1st Infantry Division, 2d Infantry Division, 3d Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Division, 5th Infantry Division, 9th Infantry Division, 26th Infantry Division, 28th Infantry Division, 30th Infantry Division, 35th Infantry Division, 36th Infantry Division, 42d Infantry Division, 44th Infantry Division, 45th Infantry Division, 63d Infantry Division,* 70th Infantry Division, 75th Infantry Division, 76th Infantry Division, 78th Infantry Division, 79th Infantry Division, 80th Infantry Division, 83d Infantry Division, 84th Infantry Division, 87th Infantry Division, 90th Infantry Division, 94th Infantry Division, 95th Infantry Division, 99th Infantry Division, 100th Infantry Division, 103d Infantry Division, 106th Infantry Division. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Elements only 2d Armored Division, 3d Armored Division, 4th Armored Division, 5th Armored Division, 6th Armored Division, 7th Armored Division, 8th Armored Division, 9th Armored Division, 10th Armored Division, 11th Armored Division, Armored Division, 12th Armored Division, 14th Armored Division. 17th Airborne Division, 82d Airborne Division, 101st Airborne Division. Ardennes-Alsace 1944-1945 Further Readings A number of official histories provide carefully documented accounts of operations during the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign. U.S. Army operations are covered in Hugh M. Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge (1965); Charles B. MacDonald, The Last Offensive (1973); and Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith, Riviera to the Rhine (1991), three volumes in the United States Army in World War II series. Air operations are detailed in Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate, eds., Europe: Argument to V-E Day, January 1944 to May 1945 (1951), the third volume in the Army Air Forces in World War II series, and the British perspective and operations are covered in L. F. Ellis, Victory in the West: the Defeat of Germany (1968). Among the large number of books that describe the fighting in the Ardennes are Gerald Astor, A Blood-Dimmed Tide (1992), John S. D. Eisenhower, The Bitter Woods (1969), Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets (1985), S. L. A. Marshall, The Eight Days of Bastogne (1946), Jean Paul Pallud, Battle of the Bulge Then and Now (1984), Danny S. Parker, Battle of the Bulge (1991), and Robert F. Phillips, To Save Bastogne (1983). At the small-unit level Charles MacDonald's Company Commander (1947) is still the standard classic. Fighting in the Alsace region has been sparsely covered, but Keith E. Bonn's When the Odds Were Even (1994) is valuable.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding me time, and I congratulate him on offering this important resolution. Mr. Speaker, as we all know, on September 16, Hurricane Floyd took an unexpected turn after ravaging North Carolina and Virginia and crashed into central and northern New Jersey. The State's capital county, Mercer County, along with eight others, were declared major disaster areas, and, as my colleagues know, such a declaration does trigger the release of Federal expertise and funds to help people recover from Hurricane Floyd. To date, over 12,000 New Jersey residents have applied for assistance through FEMA. In the short term, we are looking for immediate relief for those who have been devastated, with loans and small grants; and, in the long term, we will be requesting FEMA's help for extensive mitigation projects to protect family and businesses in flood-prone areas such as in the City of Trenton and the Township of Hamilton. I would just point out for the record, Mr. Speaker, that as a result of that hurricane, in the City of Trenton alone, 40 homes were completely devastated and 25 businesses completely flooded; and each of those people are looking for some help and some assistance. When disaster strikes, as we all know, the U.S. Small Business Administration acts as the Federal Government's disaster bank. The SBA has three types of low interest loans. Approximately 3.6 percent is the rate, for 30 years, available to qualified homeowners and non-farm businesses of all sizes. These loans include homeowner loans up to $200,000 to cover residential losses not fully compensated by insurance. Homeowners and renters may also borrow up to $40,000 to repair/ replace personal property such as clothing, property, and cars; nonfarm businesses of any size and nonprofit organizations may apply for up to $1.5 million to repair or to replace assets like inventory or machinery or equipment damaged by the disaster; and small businesses that suffer economic losses may apply for SBA's economic injury disaster loans. Mr. Speaker, beyond the individual SBA loans, FEMA has a Hazard Mitigation Program to fund construction projects to protect either public or private property; and we will be pursuing that very aggressively as well. Mr. Speaker, I just want to make one final point. When FEMA arrives on the scene, sometimes people feel that the cavalry has arrived and everything is going to be made whole. But FEMA is not a panacea. It provides a bridge, helps people get back on their feet, but the devastating losses that our friends throughout the country on the East Coast especially have experienced will not be fully compensated for, but we have to do the maximum effort to make sure they are back on their feet and their families are protected for the future through mitigation efforts.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mark a milestone in the conduct of America's foreign relations and diplomacy-- the end of an era, if you will. This past Friday, October 1, 1999, the people and programs of the United States Information Agency formally joined the Department of State. After 56 years, America's public diplomacy will begin a new chapter. As the Agency joins the Department, I want to express a deep and profound appreciation for the work of USIA since 1953, and to salute the many members of the Foreign Service and the Civil Service who are engaged in its vital work. The Cold War American ``public diplomacy'' began before World War II with the establishment of American centers in libraries in Latin America. During World War II, the Voice of America and the Office of War Information gave the people of occupied Europe and Asia the truth about the conduct of the war. Public diplomacy gained momentum after the war's end, when American libraries and cultural centers were established as part of postwar reconstruction, when Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Act, and when the Fulbright program began the postwar exchange of students and scholars to advance international understanding. In 1953, these elements of public diplomacy were gathered by President Eisenhower into the United States Information Agency. When USIA was formed, the Cold War divided the world and its peoples. The brutal subjugation of the nations of Eastern Europe as Soviet satellites was a fresh memory. The Korean war was drawing to a close, and the Soviets were propagating yet one more of their ``big lies'': that the United Sates had introduced germ warfare in the conflict there. Three years later they would lie that the people of Hungary-- then being killed by tanks in the streets of Budapest--welcomed the Soviet army. The Cold War was more than a political, economic, and military contest. The Soviets and their surrogates worked hard to demonize the United States, to discredit American ideals, to support ``national liberation'' movements, and to inflame vast areas of the world with anti-American propaganda. Their broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, state-controlled wire services, and publishing houses spread some amazing fictions. Fiction: The communist parties stood for the equality of all people. Truth: the communists, once in power, became a grasping and arrogant elite--a new class--that garnered the privileges of society while ordinary people lived in grim poverty, and their lives grew shorter. Fiction: Communism and central planning would create a new industrial bounty. Truth: Except for their armaments and armies, the socialist nations had Third World economies. Soviet propaganda went beyond words to embrace the use of forged documents and disinformation: that experiments in American laboratories had gone awry and spawned the AIDS virus, that Americans kidnaped Central American children for body parts, and that Americans developed weapons that would decimate the nonwhite peoples of the world, to name a few. Facing such fevered attempts to turn nations of the world against us, USIA over the years developed scores of programs to ``tell America's story to the world.'' For USIA's work to be credible, it had to be accurate and truthful. Edward R. Murrow described USIA's spirit of candor as the telling of America's story ``warts and all.'' USIA's American libraries overseas offered a wealth of knowledge and gave witness to important principles of democracy: that an educated public is the foundation of a democratic society, and that the free exchange of information and opinions is also a necessary element of liberty and prosperity. In the early days, USIA's American libraries and centers also exhibited art and hosted authors and poets. In societies that had been only a few years beforehand devastated by war, these modest and aboveboard efforts to restore the cultural life of other nations were deeply welcomed and appreciated. World's fairs and international exhibitions were important gatherings in the postwar period. It was USIA that managed American pavilions and hired young Americans who spoke the world's languages to describe our way of life and the benefits of freedom, markets, enterprise, and democracy. In less developed areas of the world, USIA officers sometimes led small convoys of vehicles with motion picture projectors and generators, showing documentaries and other American films in small towns and villages. USIA magazines such as America Illustrated, Dialog, World Today, Trends, Topic, Economic Impact, English Teaching Forum, and Problems of Communism won awards for content and design as they communicated American views in many languages to readers across the globe. USIA films such as ``Years of Lightning, Days of Drums'' and ``The Harvest'' were similarly lauded. Americans who spoke abroad under USIA auspices--at foreign universities, policy institutes, and other places where students and intellectuals gathered--addressed topics in politics, economics, the environment, culture, and foreign policy. Among these speakers were American judges and lawyers introducing and explaining the idea of the Rule of Law. International visitors sent to the United States under USIA auspices had the opportunity to meet counterparts in the United States on four week visits. For many, it was their first visit to the United States, and they encountered a society far different from the images they had grown up with. This kind of people-to-people program would not have been possible without the help of thousands of ordinary Americans affiliated with local councils for international visitors. They opened their homes, volunteered their time, and won friends for our country. USIA administered the Fulbright program which placed American professors in foreign universities and brought professors from other countries to enrich our own faculties. Fulbright professors shared their knowledge and their syllabuses, and they were a key element in establishing American Studies associations, programs, and majors of universities abroad. USIA's information officers organized tens of thousands of press conferences that allowed journalists to hear directly from our nation's officials, from visiting members of Congress, and from other distinguished Americans. The distribution of USIA's daily Wireless File (now the Washington file) gave government officials and opinion leaders the full texts of speeches, congressional testimonies and hearings, and documents so that they could have a full understanding of the United States' position on the issues, not simply react to a few quotes, out of context, in a brief article or broadcast. When USIA was established, some Embassies and consulates received the Wireless File by Morse code. There were the years of punched tape and radio teletype--sending the File through both sunspot interference and Soviet jamming. Teletype yielded to computer transmission in the eighties, and to the internet and web pages in the nineties. All along USIA's writers were aided by a corps of able technicians who harnessed each new development in communications technology. They mastered video technology as well. The telepress conference over telephone lines was followed by the televised Worldnet Dialog using TVRO technology. The State Department will continue USIA's program to equip American embassies with Digital Video Conference equipment. In looking back at the Cold War, there were some moments of excitement--and victory--as well as the steady years of information programs and education and cultural exchanges. The international information campaign to explain the deployment of Pershing missiles to Europe in the face of resolute Soviet opposition was an important accomplishment. So too was the effort to show the world how the Soviet Air Force downed KAL 007, killing among its passengers a member of this House. The sound and video portrayal of the attack put together by USIA riveted the United Nations and the world. Attaining America's Goals in the World When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, there were some who said that the work of America's ``Cold War propaganda agency'' was finished, and USIA could be ``pensioned off.'' The end of the Cold War did not, however, end the challenges facing the United States. Our armed forces have fought wars. Drugs, terrorism, and proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons remain grave threats to our security. Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic are only two of the thugs whose rule is buttressed by domestic press controls and by vigorous external propaganda. There are still national wire services, radio programs, and television broadcasts whose central mission is to lie about the United States. USIA's programs aimed to counter propaganda with truth. The means of advocacy and persuasion were democratic--the conversation, the seminar, the op-ed, the open press conference. Americans from all walks of life, with many points of view, cooperated in USIA's work. These were not, then, programs tailored only to win the Cold War. Programs established on these enduring democratic concepts--solid foundations that reflect our nation's values--have proven as appropriate and effective in the new international environment as the old. President Eisenhower's order forming USIA, still, I submit, expresses the values embedded in America's public diplomacy--``to submit to the people of other nations by means of communications techniques that the objectives and policies of the United States are in harmony with and will advance their legitimate aspirations for freedom, progress, and peace.'' USIA's People USIA's buildings are only a few blocks from this House. Over the years our nation has benefitted from the Agency's committed assembly of talents in many fields. The Civil Service provided writers, television producers, film makers, exhibition planners, magazine designers, photographers, communications specialists, and of course the executives and administrators and support staff who helped the others get the job done. USIA's Foreign Service Officers planned and directed the information and cultural programs at Embassies, consulates, and American centers. It was they who took America's message ``the last three feet'' as they met government officials and opinion leaders and spoke to them in their own languages. The Foreign Service also included specialists in libraries, English instruction, student counseling, printing, and other skills. We must also salute the local employees at USIA's posts around the world. On every continent USIA's American personnel worked together with Foreign Service National employees to plan and carry out programs. Programs conceived and run only by Americans would have had limited effectiveness. But in an everyday working partnership, Americans and local colleagues together hammered out effective presentations. On occasions when there has been tension between the United States and another country, USIA's local employees were sometimes charged, even by friends and neighbors, with disloyalty or ``selling out to the Americans.'' Their fidelity to USIA's work has given eloquent testimony that they are also committed to partnership, dialogue, and harmony between the goals of the United States and their own society. They deserve an extra measure of gratitude and recognition. Principles for Public Diplomacy As we make this organizational change in American public diplomacy, Mr. Speaker, we should mark well some principles that should endure as these programs and people move into the Department of State. The first is to affirm that American foreign policy needs public diplomacy more than ever. The world has been forever changed by the communications revolution and by the democratic revolution. The first of those revolutions now allows broad access to information about foreign policy and how it affects people and societies. The second revolution engages citizens in the decisions made by their governments. What we might call traditional diplomacy--between professional diplomats, conducting business away from the public eye--thus gives way to a larger conversation between peoples. At one time public diplomacy may have been considered a complement, a support function perhaps, for traditional diplomacy. In the age of democracy and the age of the Internet, it increasingly moves to the center. The second principle is that the U.S. Government needs a dedicated public diplomacy arm. Occasionally one hears that in the age of CNN our nation has not need for diplomats. The commercial networks and wire services, however, cannot do the whole work of communicating American foreign policy, much less American values. They play an important role--an indispensable role--in reporting the news and informing the public. But members of the Fourth Estate themselves admit that news and public affairs budgets are always right. They recognize that broadcast news generalizes, simplifies, and dramatizes events in a direction that may be unhelpful to diplomacy. And there is the matter of editorial direction. The U.S. Government needs international information programs and activities--beyond the public affairs programs and activities already conducted by the Department of State, which are focused primarily on domestic audiences--so that the facts and the values that underlie the American system can be communicated fully, directly, and in context. The third is that American public diplomacy must continue to be balanced. A vital principle of America's public diplomacy, international broadcasting programs, and exchanges has been that they present American society--and the making of foreign policy--as a whole. It is true that public diplomacy programs sometimes report on and explain official government policies--but only as one component of a broader and more important mission. American public diplomacy has always included the discussion of responsible alternative viewpoints, the coverage of debates, and other information that makes clear that what is being communicated is the enduring American consensus, not just the policy du jour of a particular Administration or a particular Department. Without evenhanded coverage--such as is explicitly required by the charter of the Voice of America--bipartisan support in Congress for public diplomacy and exchanges would, I fear, be impaired. Finally, Mr. Speaker, America's public diplomacy must continue to address the keystone issues of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Increasingly we realize that the fundamental remedies for what we once defined as development problems or as economic problems are to make governments democratic, responsive, honest, and respectful of human rights. Mr. Speaker, when Thomas Jefferson wrote of America's commitment to certain self-evident truths--among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--he did so to express the new American nation's ``decent respect to the opinions of mankind.'' The men and women of the United States Information Agency have possessed the same commitment. Their calling has been to explain the United States--its foreign policy, its form of government, its society, and its ideals--to the people of other countries. They did so with honor for fifty-six years. They now move into the Department of State. I know I speak for many other members of this body when I express the nation's thanks for their service--and the hope that their programs, their talents, and their commitment will continue to prosper.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, today the Russian people are mourning the passing of one of their most respected citizens and renowned scholars. Academician Dmitri Likhachev has passed away at the age of ninety-two. He was, in the words of the distinguished historian of Russia and Librarian of Congress Dr. James Billington, ``an extraordinary human being, a person of great moral integrity.'' Academician Likhachev epitomized what Russia has endured in this century. Born in 1906 in St. Petersburg, as a university student he was sent to the brutal Solovki labor camps established by Lenin to deal with ``counter-revolutionaries.'' Later he was condemned with hundreds of thousands of other prisoners to dig Stalin's infamous White Sea Canal, the first major forced labor project of the Soviet period. During World War II, he survived the 900-day siege of his native city, renamed Leningrad. Through all the deprivations and hardships of Soviet Russia, Dmitri Likhachev pursued his studies in medieval literature, ultimately becoming Russia's foremost literary and cultural historian. In 1970, he became a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. When the Academy voted to expel dissident scientist Academician Andrei Sakharov from its ranks, Academician Likhachev was one of the few to defend Sakharov openly and vote against expulsion. Soon afterward, he barely escaped an attempt on his life. After the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia regained its independence, Academician Likhachev became prominent for his defense of Russian culture. He helped preserve many architectural monuments in St. Petersburg, and lobbied the Russian Government to finance a television channel devoted to culture. However, it was not only the physical destruction of his homeland that concerned Academician Likhachev. He condemned the moral wasteland left by seventy years of communism. ``Like other members of the Russian intelligencia,'' wrote the New York Times, ``Likhachev was deeply disappointed by the violence, greed and vulgarity that surfaced in Russian society after the fall of communism.'' Without overcoming the perverted morality created by communist rule, he warned, Russia could fall prey to an irrational demagoguery that could threaten the entire world. With his love of country, combined with tolerance and reason, I believe Academician Likhachev embodied ``Russian nationalism'' in the best sense of the word. May his example and his ideas thrive in Russia of the 21st century.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, it is amazing to me what length me people will go to sustain a myth, believe the unbelievable, and aggressively market a collective sense of denial concerning a profound truth. Mr. Chairman, at a time when we know more and understand more about the magnificent life of an unborn child than ever before in history, at a time when doctors can diagnose and treat serious anomalies that afflict these smallest of patients, at a time when ultrasound imaging has become a window to the womb, revealing the child in utero, sucking his or her thumb or doing somersaults or even little karate kicks, along comes the pro-choice lobby, outraged, angry, fuming, that anyone dare challenge their big lie and suggest that unborn children have innate value, worth, and dignity. At all costs, abortion advocates must cling to the self-serving fiction that unborn babies are something other than human and alive. By systematically debasing the value of these children, it has become easier for adults to procure the violent deaths of these little ones if they happen to be unwanted, unplanned, or imperfect. But the inherent violence of abortion is not what is addressed by this bill. As a matter of fact, abortion is expressly outside the scope of this legislation. I say to my colleagues, read the bill. So for now at least, I say to the advocates of abortion, go ahead, pat yourselves on the back. You have won for now. As a result of Roe versus Wade and its prodigy and 26 years of congressional acquiescence, 40 million unborn babies in America have been dismembered or chemically poisoned or have had their brains sucked out by what some euphemistically call choice. But that should not mean that murderers, muggers, and rapists should also have that same unfettered ability to maim or kill an unborn child without consequence. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act is designed to deter and, if that fails, to punish the perpetrators of violence against unborn children in the commission of a Federal offense. The bill, as we know, would apply to some 65 laws that establish Federal crimes, including violence. H.R. 2436 does not diminish existing law concerning violence against women in any way, shape, or form, but adds new penalties and seeks justice for the harm or death suffered by the child. Thus, if this legislation is enacted into law, our laws against violence will be stronger, tougher, and more comprehensive. H.R. 2436 merely adds new penalties to existing ones and tracks existing statutes currently in force in approximately 24 States. This initiative adds layers of deterrence and punishment so that violent offenders can be held to account for all of the damage and injury or death and heartbreak they have inflicted on innocent victims. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, Mr. Chairman, recognizes in law the self-evident truth that an assault on a pregnant woman is an attack on two victims. Both lives are precious; both lives deserve protection. This is truly a humane and necessary legislative initiative, and I congratulate the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) for his wisdom and courage in authoring this bill and the skill and tenacity of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady), the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution; and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, in shepherding this legislation to the floor. I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' and against the substitute.