Political Quotes

“earlier last week I shared with my colleagues and the American people some observations on the crisis that has occurred on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, as a consequence of French President Jacques Chirac's recent decision for the Government of France to resume testing of nuclear bomb explosions on the Pacific island atolls of Moruroa and Faugataufa. Mr. Speaker, despite thousands of petitions and the pleadings from leaders of countries from Europe, from South America, from Asia, and especially from the Pacific island nations, asking France to refrain from conducting nuclear bomb explosions under these Pacific atolls, President Chirac went ahead and pressed the nuclear button 3 weeks ago, exploding a nuclear bomb under Moruroa Atoll with a nuclear punch of 20 kilotons. The nuclear bomb detonated, Mr. Speaker, was more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan--which, incidentally, Mr. Speaker, killed some 200,000 men, women and children, from the direct explosion as well as the subsequent radioactive contamination of the residents of Hiroshima.”