Don Nickles: “I wish to first compliment Senator Brown of Colorado for his leadership in opposing this nomination. I join him in…”

“I wish to first compliment Senator Brown of Colorado for his leadership in opposing this nomination. I join him in opposing Sam Brown for the post of Ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Senator Brown, I think, has done a very good job in exposing some serious flaws that the President has made in making this nomination. We do have a responsibility as Senators to give advice and consent, and this is an Ambassador-level position. I am troubled by Mr. Brown and his past statements and by his past actions, both as an antiwar activist and as Director of the agency ACTION. In my opinion, he should not be promoted or rewarded with a very important position as Ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. I do not think there is any question that he was an antiwar activist, a radical as many people would say. But I might mention a lot of my opposition comes not just out of his antiwar activities and statements. I was prepared to read some of the same quotes Senator Hutchison and Senator Brown have put in the Record. But maybe I am more troubled by his postwar activities. When he was Director of ACTION, he also attended a meeting in New York welcoming the Vietnamese delegation to the United Nations. And this has been quoted before, but he says: I am deeply moved. It is difficult to describe my feelings. What can you say when the kinds of things that 15 years of your life are wrapped up in are suddenly before you?…”