James Traficant: “I do not have as much confidence as everybody else who is here. I may give it a chance. I have respect for the gentleman…”

“I do not have as much confidence as everybody else who is here. I may give it a chance. I have respect for the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] and for the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks]. But quite frankly, we heard about the collapse of the Soviet Union on CNN. We learned about the fall of the Berlin Wall on CNN. We learned about the invasion of Kuwait on CNN. I honest to God believe we might save a lot of money by getting rid of our intelligence community and giving the money to CNN. There is an issue that concerns me, and I know it will be ruled nongermane, but during the Vietnam war we had 450 commandos, South Vietnamese, to perform espionage services. They were captured by the North Vietnamese. The CIA lived up and the DIA and our intelligence community kept their payments and compensation to their families up until 1965, until they were listed as missing. Then they cut off those payments. Even though the Congress of the United States passed $20 million in compensation for those commandos who helped us during Vietnam, the CIA has said, no, and they cite the Totten doctrine, an 1876 Supreme Court ruling, Totten versus the United States, as the grounds for not in fact meeting that compensation level.”