Richard Gephardt: “I rise to just hope that Members on both sides of the aisle will turn down this amendment. I realize that disarming the…”

“I rise to just hope that Members on both sides of the aisle will turn down this amendment. I realize that disarming the Soviet Union is the most important foreign policy objective we have. I think this amendment will make it harder to actually accomplish that reality that we all hope for, and I would simply remind Members, whatever their view on specific parts of this amendment, please remember there is an election in Russia next month. Can my colleagues imagine how it is in our interests to say to the Russian people that we want to stop and move back from an effort we have made together to get rid of nuclear arms as they are going to the polling booths to vote for whether they want to return to communism and to totalitarianism or whether they want to continue with democracy? This is a bad amendment, it is a bad idea, it is bad timing, and I urge Members to vote against this amendment.”