Celebrate Safe Communities
Floor Speech
CELEBRATE SAFE COMMUNITIES -- (Senate - September 30, 2008)
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JOHN WARNER
Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is very standard in the Senate, we say ``the distinguished gentleman,'' and we say that a lot, and we mean it. But it is never more meaningful than when you refer to John Warner as a distinguished gentleman because that says it all. If there were ever a distinguished gentleman, John Warner is that person.
I can remember when I first came to the Senate 22 years ago, I was so fortunate. I was placed on the Environment and Public Works Committee. John Warner, even though he had been here a while, was one of the relatively new members of that committee. Some people had been there for so long. John Chafee was the ranking Republican on that committee. What a wonderful man he was. But anyway, John Warner, he took such good care of me. He looked out for me. I sat on the other side of the dais, but he took good care of me. We were able to do some good things.
I was fortunate, I was subcommittee chairman my freshman year. Senator Warner will probably remember this. We worked on a number of things. One of the things we worked on was Alar. It was a product that people sprayed on cherries, apples, grapes to keep them from falling off the trees and vines more quickly. We legislated and legislated, and we were never able to get anything passed, but we accomplished what we set out to do because through the hearing process we focused so much attention on this that people stopped using it.
John Warner is a distinguished gentleman. There is no more distinguished gentleman than the man we refer to as John Warner--John William Warner. I love his stories. He talks about his dad who was a physician.
When John was 17, he had in his heart that it was important to wear the uniform of the American serviceman. He volunteered for the Navy so he could fight in World War II. He says he did not do any fighting, but he would have if he had been called upon to do so.
After his first tour of duty, he returned home to his native Virginia, where he attended Washington and Lee University on the GI bill, and then the University of Virginia Law School, which, by the way, then and is now a very difficult school to get in. It is always rated as one of the top 10 law schools in America. It is a great school.
His legal studies were interrupted again to be in the U.S. military, this time as an officer in the Marine Corps during the Korean war. His 10 years in the Marine Corps earned him the rank of captain, CAPT John Warner.
When he completed law school, he was selected as a law clerk by one of the outstanding and historic circuit court judges: E. Barrett Prettyman. What a name: E. Barrett Prettyman. But those of us who have been in the practice of law have always recognized that Prettyman wrote some pretty opinions. He was a renowned lawyer and, of course, now we have a Federal courthouse named after Judge Prettyman as a result of his being such an outstanding judge. John Warner worked for him.
After 4 years as an assistant U.S. attorney, John Warner was appointed and confirmed as Under Secretary of the Navy, then as Secretary of the Navy.
Then, one of my fond memories of John Warner is his telling a story. He was Under Secretary; John Chafee, whom I had the good fortune to serve with in the Senate, was the Secretary of the Navy. The Vietnam war was ongoing. They were asked by the Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, to come down and see what was going on at the Capitol Mall. So, as Senator Warner said, they left their Cadillacs someplace else that was supplied to the Secretary and the Under Secretary, and they took off their fancy clothes and came down to the Capitol Mall. And look around they did. There were tens of thousands of people here, tens of thousands--hundreds of thousands of people at the Mall. They were demonstrating against the war. Frankly, after listening to the speeches and watching the crowd and seeing the fervor of the crowd, both Secretary Chafee and Under Secretary Warner returned to the Pentagon and recommended to Melvin Laird that he better take a close look at this war, that things would have to change, based on their observation of what was happening on the Capitol Mall that day.
That is John Warner perfectly described: Someone who gathers the facts, and after having an understanding of the facts, issues his honest opinion as to what is going on. He and John Chafee, two wonderful human beings, two dedicated servants of the U.S. military returned back to the Secretary of Defense and said: Things have to change.
After serving in the Department of the Navy, he did a number of other things. But the story I try to tell is, I repeat, a real John Warner portrayal because he is always eager to listen to all sides of an issue. He is always willing to part from conventional wisdom in order to do the right thing, and then once he says he is going to do something, that is it. So after serving in the Department of the Navy, he decided he would accept the challenge of being the national coordinator for America's bicentennial celebration in 1976. As my colleagues know, there are a lot of things that happened during that period of time under his leadership. But as a little side story, there is a story about Virginia City, NV. Virginia City, NV, at one time was a thriving place of some 30,000 or 40,000. It was the reason Nevada became a State so far ahead of most Western territories. In 1864, we became a State. But as part of his going around the country, as you do when you have a job such as his, raising money and giving speeches, he was asked to go to Virginia City, this historic place in Nevada. He had never been there. It is a very winding road to get up there, and it is a dangerous road. But he was looking forward to being there because one of the patrons in the area--there are some people who are wealthy in Virginia City--decided to have dinner in honor of the bicentennial celebration. So John Warner and his entourage arrive in little Virginia City, which now, by the way, is not 30,000 or 40,000, it is a very small community of maybe, if we are lucky, a thousand--but probably not. He goes to the assigned place. He knocks on the door. There is no answer. He looks in the window, and you can see the beautiful table, it is all set. It is a banquet in this beautiful home. So someone with John Warner goes to the local law enforcement and says: Could you help us? Because they thought maybe something was wrong. So the local deputy comes and looks in the window with everybody else, walks around the house, and he comes to Senator Warner and says: Mrs. So-and-so is in her vapors. The dinner will not go forward. In Nevada, rather than ``in her vapors,'' we would have said she is too drunk to a have a party. But anyway, John Warner, being the gentleman he is, responded that was okay. Although he came to Virginia City, he did not have dinner at that home that night. He went someplace else for dinner.
I heard Senator Dodd's remarks about him. John Warner is a unique individual. I see the Presiding Officer who is a brandnew Senator. During that time, we had something called the nuclear option, and I heard Senator Collins talk about this today. Senator Collins was talking about how John Warner silently was the leader of that situation that took place. I talked to John Warner during that period of time. John Warner told me what he was going to do. I never once told anyone publicly what he said he would do, but we all knew where he was. I knew where he was. He was on the right side of the issue. Because of his credibility, the issue, with the help of some new Senators such as the Presiding Officer from Colorado, was settled to the good of the country.
John Warner is a person who has class. He has clout and he has tremendous courage. John Warner was sitting as a Senator. A Democratic Senator was his colleague. A person was running as a Republican against his colleague in the Senate, somebody whom John Warner didn't agree with, and he said so. That takes courage. Think about that. You are a Republican from a Republican State. You are sitting with a Democrat. The person who is the nominee for the party is somebody whom you would think the senior Senator from Virginia would support. John Warner, as a matter of conscience, couldn't do that, and he didn't. Everybody said ``that is the end of John Warner. He will never get reelected.'' But, of course, it only caused his popularity to grow in the State of Virginia because they know John Warner is a person who supports people for whom they are, what they do, not any political party.
John Warner was elected in 1978 to the first of five terms representing the Commonwealth of Virginia. Three years ago, he became the second longest serving Senator in the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is without any elaboration or fluff of any kind that now, in his 30th year as a Senator, John Warner has rightly earned the reputation as one of America's alltime great legislators. He is an expert in a number of different areas: national security. He is a champion for the men and women in the military, there is no question about that; he served as chairman and now the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; he is a leader on environmental issues; he served as long-time senior member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, where I had the pleasure of serving with him.
John Warner is going to return to private life at the end of the year. The family, our family, our Senate family will lose a tremendous leader and friend. In a place where one's integrity is paramount, I have not known anyone more honest and honorable than John William Warner. I have served throughout my career with lots of people at city level, county level, State level, in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate. I have served with hundreds and hundreds of men and women. There may be, John Warner, people who are as honest and as honorable as you, but never have I met anyone more honorable and more honest than you. Our country is grateful to you for your service. Even though the people of Nevada don't know you, if they did, they would be as grateful as I am for what you have done for our country: Dedicated service in the Senate, in the Armed Services Committee, for the cause of democracy.
He knows everybody. I was talking to him the day before yesterday when Paul Newman died. I said: Did you know Paul Newman? He said: Yes. My son went with his daughter for a couple years. I said to him: Was his daughter as pretty as Paul Newman was handsome? He said: More so. That kind of speaks to his son, too, doesn't it?
John Warner, a man who had an estate in Virginia, decided a number of years ago to no longer have that and moved into the city. I wish I had the words to express, to communicate, to tell him of my affection, my admiration. But even though I may not be able to express it very well, I want John Warner to know that John Warner will always be in my heart.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I think sometimes Senators should be seen and not heard from. That might be this moment for me. I am deeply moved and humbled by your comments, my dear friend and leader of this body, at this time. As I was talking with Senator Dodd about history and how both of us have an interest in the great events of our Nation, we talked about the challenges facing America tonight and how fortunate we are to have leaders such as yourself and Senator McConnell on this side of the aisle to lead our Nation out of this situation. I am glad we didn't dwell on those heavy matters. We touched on the light ones as we talked together. How well I remember you as the chairman of the committee; you remember we worked on batteries. For some reason, the lead battery was the center focus at that time.
Mr. REID. I say to my friend, now it is a big issue. We tried a long time ago.
Mr. WARNER. That is right. But we got some money and put it into research of batteries, which hopefully might be contributing in the future to our deliverance from the problems we have with reliance on foreign oil and greater use of our motor vehicles operated by natural gas. But I could go on.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, could I interrupt my friend and say one thing? I wish to say this because I try not to be envious. Envy is not anything that is good, but I have to admit that I am so envious of your hair. I mean, for a man--I mean, I am envious. I have to acknowledge that. It is great. I wish I could get up in the morning and go to the mirror and have that.
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