Political Quotes

“I thank our colleague, an outstanding member of the Committee on National Security, for his leadership, especially in the area of nuclear material, control and security, and our stockpile stewardship. One of the items that our distinguished colleague did not mention, which is also of great concern both to him and to us, is the security of the Russian nuclear stockpile. It was last year, Mr. Speaker, in May, when I led a delegation to Moscow and we sat in the office of General Alexsander Lebed, who was at one time a key defense advisor to Boris Yeltsin. General Lebed was talking to us about his concerns relative to the security of the Russian nuclear forces, as well as the Russian military in general; and he told us some real horror stories. One of the ones that was really picked up by our national media was that when General Lebed reported to Boris Yeltsin, one of his responsibilities was to account for 132 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs, nuclear devices called Small Atomic Demolition Devices, SADDMs, that both the U.S. and Russia had built at one time, but we destroyed all of ours in the arms control process, he was charged by Yeltsin to account for the 132 devices that Russia built. And he said, Members of Congress, I could only find 48.”