Political Quotes

“I stand this morning not to give a long speech, even by Senate standards, but I would like to say I hope all Members of the Senate will put this debate into its historical context. This may be one of the most important foreign policy debates of the decade. It is to determine the future of the U.S. relationship with a new Europe, a Europe after the cold war. Since 1949, the United States understood, particularly through the NATO alliance, our relationship with Europe. We defined that relationship in specific terms and committed not only the United States on paper but, in fact, at one point stationed some 300,000 Americans in Europe, in an effort to make certain that that sector of the world will continue to be safe from any type of aggression or invasion. When I think back on my own life and all of the concerns of the cold war, it focused primarily on the possibility that the Soviet Union might expand through some manner through its Warsaw Pact nations into the a NATO alliance and force us to respond.”