Political Quotes

“in 1972, the Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, but subject to the passage of implementing legislation by Congress. The implementing legislation--the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA)--became law in 1983. I wrote this legislation in the Senate in cooperation with Senators Robert J. Dole and Spark M. Matsunaga. It is technically a revenue measure and came under the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee of which I was then a senior member, later chairman. Earlier I had been Ambassador to India and to the United Nations and was much aware of the issues surrounding cultural property. As Ambassador in Delhi I was responsible for negotiating the return of the Shiva Nataraja. I also was serving at the time as chairman of the board of trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and in that capacity I dealt at length with similar issues. The CCPIA sets forth our national policy concerning the importation of cultural property. As part of the statute, we created the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC), an 11-member body appointed by the President to advise him concerning foreign government requests that import restrictions be placed on certain archaeological and ethnological material.…”