Steve Cohen: “shortly prior to his death, I had a conversation with Admiral Boorda. We spoke initially on the phone and then he came…”

“shortly prior to his death, I had a conversation with Admiral Boorda. We spoke initially on the phone and then he came to my office because we went through this process. We said look, we understand. You are under orders to come up to the Hill and testify as to whether you can live with this particular budget. And each time the military has done their duty as required apparently by their obligations and they said, yes, we can live with what the President has requested; he is our Commander in Chief; we can live with this, this year for the first time they started sending other signals that said ask us basically what we really need over and above what is being requested. And so we asked the question: If more money were added, what would you request? Admiral Boorda sent a request to me that was in excess of $7 billion, alone, for the Navy--$7.9 billion over and above the President's request just for the Navy. And I told him it was completely and wholly unrealistic. He said, look, we have a bow wave coming. I am not going to be here. I am retiring. He would not be here when his period for being CNO had expired and left the Navy, he said, but in the year 2000, 2005, 2010, we have an enormous tidal wave of procurement coming and, frankly, he did not see whether we could ever have the will or spirit to measure up to the responsibilities to fund the programs. So he said, I am putting in my request. This is what I need. So that is just one service.…”