William Cohen: “the nominee being considered by the Senate is a man of great intellect and significant accomplishment. From his…”

“the nominee being considered by the Senate is a man of great intellect and significant accomplishment. From his selection as a young man to be a Rhodes scholar to his debut as a young scholar translating Khrushchev's memoirs to his well-sourced books on arms control and the Reagan administration, Mr. Talbott has been an overachiever. At the same time, we have heard today a number of questions raised about the views that Mr. Talbott has expressed over the years concerning the Soviet Union, Israel, and other matters. I want to join my colleagues in expressing concern about many of the statements Mr. Talbott has made, in writing. While Mr. Talbott's advocates argue that some of his most egregious statements were made more than a decade ago and he has since matured in his understanding and views, many of these writings are quite recent. In the fall of 1990, as Saddam Hussein sought to link any effort to reverse his invasion of Kuwait with efforts to resolve the fate of the Israeli occupied territories, Mr. Talbott compared Israel's policies with those of Saddam, writing that 'Israel's policy today does indeed have something in common with Iraq's.' In 1991, he compared the United States-led international effort to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait with Russian troops' attacks in Lithuania. 'There was a bizarre similarity,' Mr. Talbott wrote, 'between what Gorbachev and Bush felt compelled to do last week.'”