Political Quotes

“the purpose of this amendment--and this is really a very simple amendment that I think specific language will be worked out on with members of the committee and hopefully could be included as part of the managers' amendment--is simply to ensure that the President of the United States receives direct and objective and unencumbered advice regarding the safety and reliability and security of the U.S. nuclear force from the directors of the national laboratories and the members of the Nuclear Weapons Council. Just one bit of background here. Both the national laboratories and the Nuclear Weapons Council are supposed to give the President advice about the safety, reliability, and security of our nuclear force. For them to be able to do that in an objective way, they obviously need to tell it as it is, ``tell it like it is,'' without any fear that they are not adhering to any party line with respect to those issues. This, in effect, extends the Goldwater-Nichols-like protection that has previously been provided to members of the armed services, the Joint Chiefs, for example, to the lab directors and the members of the Nuclear Weapons Council so they can give the President unvarnished, objective, accurate information, and that information can also come to the Congress, all for the purpose of enabling us to set proper national policy with respect to our nuclear weapons. Mr. President, I will have more to say about this later.…”