Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted by the last discussion, and I hope that whatever eloquence I might have would be useful in this regard because we are now debating some of the most important and profound issues that will ever come before this Congress, as it has in the past Congresses and in the future Congresses, and that is the role of nuclear weapons in our lives. Mr. Speaker, we are involved in a new nuclear arms race, and this one is extremely expensive. But much more importantly, it is extremely dangerous because this arms race is designed to provide weapons delivery systems that are not observable and observation systems that are totally unreliable in a conflict--basically the satellite systems. So this amendment deals with one part of the triad, and that is the ground-based missiles, some 400 or so, that are in silos in the northern Midwest. Those are the Minuteman III missiles. They are armed, they are ready, and the President, should there be an incident that would cause him to make a decision about launching those missiles, has something less than 15 minutes--probably less than 12 minutes--to make a decision to literally end life on this planet as we know it. Those are the use-it-or-lose-it missiles, the Minuteman III.…”