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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 67 (Tuesday, April 25, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5661-S5663]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                 IN MEMORY OF THE LATE JOHN C. STENNIS

  Mr. NUNN. Mr. President, I would like to speak for a few minutes this 
evening on a subject close to my heart, and that is the memory of our 
former colleague, John C. Stennis, who passed away on Sunday, April 23, 
at the age of 93. Senator Stennis served in this body for over 41 
years, from 1947 to 1989.
  For a long number of years, as I was growing up and following the 
activities of the Congress of the United States, Senator Stennis was 
one of my heroes, and that was long before I came to U.S. Senate. John 
Stennis personified for me the image of what a Senator should be, and 
that image inspired me as I considered whether to seek a seat in the 
U.S. Senate in the 1972 election. From my first days in the Senate, 
John Stennis was a patient mentor, a strong and valuable colleague, and 
a cherished friend.
  It has been said that ``Great men are like eagles, they do not flock 
together. You find them one at a time, soaring alone, using their 
skills and strengths to reach new heights and to seek new horizons.'' 
Such an eagle was John Stennis.
  John Stennis was a Senator's Senator. He was gentle and courteous in 
conduct, but tough and strong in conviction and in character. He was a 
man of singular purpose and broad vision--yet he was sensitive, very 
sensitive, to the needs and the wishes of others.
  John Stennis personified the highest ideals of honor and integrity 
within the U.S. Senate. Members of the Senate from both parties and 
from widely divergent philosophical points of view treasured his 
steadfast leadership, his fearless courage, his kindness toward others, 
his unselfish devotion to public service, his love and respect for the 
U.S. Senate, the Congress, his reverence for the U.S. Constitution, and 
his unshakable faith in God.
  Senator Stennis was an outstanding lawyer and judge before he came to 
the Senate, and his judicial temperament marked every aspect of his 
Senate service. Time after time, the Senate turned to him to address 
the most difficult and divisive issues, such as the conduct of Senator 
Joseph McCarthy.
  When the Senate established the first Select Committee on Standards 
and Conduct, which was the predecessor of the Ethics Committee, it was 
only natural that Senator Stennis was selected as the first chairman. 
From 1961 to 1981, he served as chairman of the Armed Services 
Committee. As chairman, he set a standard that all of his successors 
strive to meet. He was a man of conviction, strong, moral character, 
and absolute and total courage. Despite much adversity--a life-
threatening gunshot wound in 1973, right after I came to the Senate 
that tragedy happened, also the loss in 1983 of his beloved wife, Miss 
Coy, and the challenges of serious operations in later years, through 
all of that he served the people of Mississippi and the people of this 
Nation with courage and with strength.
  Chairman Stennis was the Senate's preeminent authority on military 
affairs. His career spanned the period of the cold war. He came to the 
Senate in 1947, the year the Marshall plan was announced. He left in 
1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down. He played a very large role 
in those events and all the events in between. He had guided this body 
through the difficult years of the post-Vietnam era and through the 
subsequent revitalization of America's Armed Forces.
  Senator Stennis consistently supported a strong national defense even 
in times when it was not popular to do so. I recall clearly the first 
few years after I came to the Senate in the early 1970's, when 
virtually all defense programs were being challenged one after another 
on the Senate floor. Senator Stennis remained in the Chamber steadfast 
for hours and weeks and sometimes even months while the bill was 
pending in the Senate, making the case for maintaining a strong defense 
for our Nation.
  At the same time, Senator Stennis was downright intolerant of wasted 
and misspent dollars, and he consistently opposed those who simply 
wanted to write a Pentagon blank check.
  Senator Stennis remembered well the lessons of pre-World War II 
isolationism and he constantly opposed the recurring isolationist 
impulse, especially during the difficult post-Vietnam years. He was a 
rock of support for NATO at a time when there was strong opposition in 
the country to foreign military alliances. One of the first assignments 
he gave me when I got to the Senate was going to NATO and coming back 
and reporting to him on what I found there.
  Yet he remained skeptical of excessive military involvement overseas 
and he expressed great concern about the plans for intervention in 
Vietnam before that intervention occurred. Once the Nation was 
committed to war, however, he always believed that American forces 
should be provided with the means necessary and the backing to 
accomplish the objectives assigned to them.
  It was my privilege to serve with him since coming to the Senate in 
1973 until he left in 1989. He was my friend. He was my mentor. He 
remained my hero. I will miss him, and I will miss his sound advice and 
wise judgment. During my first campaign for the Senate in 1972, I came 
to Washington to meet with Senator Stennis. This was before I was 
elected in November but after I had won the Democratic primary. I told 
him of my strong interest in military affairs, and I asked for his 
support in obtaining a seat on the Armed Services Committee if I should 
be elected.
  I will always be grateful for his assurances of support and his 
assistance once I arrived, and certainly all of that played a very 
important part in my Senate career. With his support, I obtained a seat 
on the Committee on Armed Services, and I promptly sought his advice on 
how I should fulfill my duties. He told me, and I recall it well, that 
the best way to learn about the Defense Department and the military 
services was to deal directly and extensively with the men and women in 
uniform as well as the civilian employees of the Department of Defense. 
He encouraged me to listen to their advice and understand their point 
of view, to remain open and objective but always to at least listen.
  He appointed me to be the chairman of the newly created Manpower and 
[[Page S5662]] Personnel Subcommittee which gave me the opportunity to 
follow his advice in a great number of details and with considerable 
amount of time.
  Over the years, I listened to and learned from Senator Stennis as we 
debated the great issues of national security and other national 
affairs that faced our country in the 1970's and 1980's, and the 
lessons learned then still apply almost every day in the Senate in the 
1990's. It was a marvelous education in the ways of the Senate, the 
conduct of national security affairs and the Constitution of the United 
States.
  In 1987, Senator Stennis became chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee, and I became chairman of the Armed Services Committee. It 
was my good fortune to have him continue to sit on that committee, to 
be able to begin my chairmanship with Senator Stennis at my side, 
because I frequently consulted with him and benefited from his advice 
on the problems and issues that arose under the jurisdiction of the 
Armed Services Committee as well as many other matters that came to the 
floor of the Senate.
  When Senator Stennis first came to this body, he said in his classic 
direct style, ``I wish to plow a straight furrow right down to the end 
of my row.'' There is no doubt he did exactly that. Senator Stennis 
grew up on a farm and he knew how difficult it was to plow a straight 
furrow with a mule. You cannot plow a straight line to your immediate 
goal or mark a stake in the field unless you keep your eye on the 
distant point that establishes your sight line. That is the way John 
Stennis lived. He staked out his immediate goals, but he always kept 
his eye on the distant goal, the values and principles that enabled him 
to plow a straight furrow right to the end of the row.
  Mr. President, I also remember well his advice to me when I came to 
the Senate. I hope I never will forget this. He said, ``Sam, some new 
Senators grow and some simply swell. Make sure you continue to grow.''
  Mr. President, no higher honor has come my way than serving in the 
Senate with John Stennis. When he retired a few years back, I said then 
it was hard for me to imagine the Senate without John Stennis at his 
desk. It is now hard for me to imagine the Nation without the benefit 
of his talent, counsel, and his sterling example. We will miss him. We 
will all miss him. But his legacy of integrity and devoted service to 
the country will inspire the Senate and the Nation and young people 
particularly for generations to come.
  Mr. President, Colleen, my wife, and I extend our sympathies to his 
son, John Hampton Stennis, his daughter, Mrs. Margaret Stennis Womble, 
and to all of his grandchildren and great grandchildren, indeed, to all 
of his family and his friends, and we thank the people of Mississippi 
for sending this giant to the Senate for the number of years that he 
served. The people of Mississippi and the people of this Nation can be 
very proud of Senator Stennis. He will be remembered in history as one 
of the giants of the Senate. As long as there is a Senate, John Stennis 
will be remembered for his service, for his integrity, and for his 
character.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
                  john stennis--a lifetime of service

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I wish to pay honor today to one of the 
great Senators of this century, John Cornelius Stennis. His roots began 
at the turn of the century as a young farmboy, in the fertile soil of 
Kemper County, MS. And while his subsequent career was to take him to 
far away places, and to positions of great honor in our Nation's 
Government, his beloved home country was never far from his mind. 
Second only to service to his Nation, his dedication to the State of 
Mississippi was legendary.
  He had amassed a distinguished record a public service, even before 
coming to the Senate in 1947. A Phi Betta Kappa law school graduate, he 
served as a State Representative, district attorney, and State circuit 
court judge. But it was here in the Senate where we shall best remember 
him. For more than 42 years, this Nation had the benefit of his wisdom 
and his guidance. He was the epitome of a Southern gentleman, and 
fairness and integrity were constants in his conduct. It was no mere 
happenstance that he was our first chairman of the Select Committee on 
Standards and Conduct. He was for decades the foremost guardian of our 
Nation's defense, forcefully and relentlessly pursuing strong defense 
programs throughout the Cold War years. His credentials as ``Mr. 
Defense'' made even more remarkable his misgivings and warnings to the 
Nation on involvement in combat in Vietnam, and he was a major author 
of our first war powers legislation. Chairman of Armed Services, 
chairman of Appropriations, President Pro Tem--his achievements here on 
this floor and in this body have been equaled by few.
  And who among us who knew him will ever forget his quiet courage? He 
quietly brushed aside the impacts of being shot and robbed while 
walking home. Years later, after loosing a leg to cancer, he refused to 
yield to adversity--always rising to address this body, exuding dignity 
and determination with every action.
  John Stennis was a patriot--a statesman--a Senator in the finest 
traditions of the word. He was one of the great lions of our assembly, 
and we will miss him. I read today where he once responded to a 
question about how he would like to be remembered. He said he hoped 
that one could say of him that ``He did his best.'' Well, that he did. 
And his best will serve as a reminder and a standard to all of us, for 
generations to come.
  Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Georgia has touched on 
it when he said I wish to hoe a straight furrow right down the field, 
that was John Stennis. I can hear him now. He had those sayings about 
not swelling but growing in experience. The reverence and respect at 
that particular time was for Senators listening and learning and 
profiting from experience. Now the pledge is when you come to town you 
are not going to listen to anybody; you have a contract. You are going 
to vote for it. And by the way, do not give me any of your experience 
because in 6 years I am gone. It is an entirely different atmosphere.
  And when you see, as the Senator from Georgia has said in such 
eloquent terms, one of the finest, I am just deeply moved.
  John Stennis and I became very close amid serving on committees 
together, particularly the Appropriations Committee later on.
  But his family--the Peden clan--was from Fountain Inn, SC, where Mr. 
Quillen was born and other persons of eminence.
  Invariably he would come back to South Carolina for the annual Peden 
clan reunion.
  I figured, like the Senator from Georgia, that he was my sort of 
patron and leader. I listened to him many a time. I can tell you this. 
John Stennis was a man of this institution. We have Senator Byrd, who 
really reveres the Senate as an institution. John Stennis revered the 
U.S. Senate as an institution.
  And as much as we liked each other and as close friends as we were, 
when I was chairman of the Budget Committee, he followed it very, very 
closely. When I was chairman back in 1980, he would say, ``Fritz, 
you're right. We have to somehow pay our bills. We are eating our seed 
corn.'' He would make a little talk on the floor, not only with respect 
to military affairs, with tremendous authority, but with respect to 
fiscal matters.
  And later on, when I was not the chairman of the committee, but I 
talked to him and tried to get a vote with respect to that budget, he 
would say, ``I'm sticking with the chairman. I know how you feel about 
this, but we have got to stay with the chairman.''
  I can hear him now. He was an institution man. And that says a lot 
for the stability of the body and the courtesy here and the ethics that 
we have. He set the highest standard of anybody I have ever known.
  I will never forget the afternoon he was shot. Invariably, we would 
get together down at the gym there at this time, 6:30 going on 7 
o'clock, and get a workout. He said, ``You've got to try to keep up 
with Strom.'' That is my senior Senator. He said, ``You will find if 
you stay in good physical shape, you will be able to keep up with 
Strom.''
  We would work out. They had this wheel that you get down on your 
knees and you go forward and pull it backward and forward, and 
everything else. 
[[Page S5663]] He was on that wheel the afternoon he was shot. He left, 
if I remember correctly, about 6:15 and he was shot about 6:30 or 6:45.
  He later related, when I went to see him, he said:

       You know, I'm lucky. These fellows told me they wanted 
     money and I did not have any money. And I said, ``Take my 
     watch, anything else, my ring.''

  And they cursed him and just fired five shots into his middle, his 
stomach, pancreas, and lungs--his insides.
  He walked up to his house and talked to Miss Coy, Mrs. Stennis, his 
wife. He said, ``Call an ambulance and call Walter Reed.''
  The ambulance came. And as they lifted him up, he remembered well 
hearing the chief of police, who had reached the home at that time, 
saying, ``All right, take him over to George Washington Hospital.'' He 
raised up on that stretcher--the last he ever remembered, he said, 
prior to coming to some 9 hours later--and said, ``Take me to Walter 
Reed. They are waiting for me there.''
  He said that was the real fortunate part, because when he got to 
Walter Reed, they had two Army surgeons who had finished a 2-week 
lecture course to the Army surgeons around the country on bullet wounds 
and shrapnel wounds and battlefield surgery and that kind of thing, 
particularly with respect to the loss of blood.
  His operation took 9 hours. I will never forget him saying that. He 
said, ``Had they not had that hard experience of when to stop and 
replenish and when to move forward * * *'' They had to sew up all his 
innards or he would have been long since gone.
  He came back and, as Senator Nunn points out, he did not slow down at 
all. Later, when the cancer got his legs, he did not.
  As Senator Cochran pointed out--who sits at the Stennis desk--he 
believed in this institution. He attended regularly all the sessions. 
He attended these debates.
  I think television has ruined us all. Perhaps some would listen back 
in their offices. But you do not have the open exchange in the most 
deliberative body. You are here and get quips that staff gives you. 
They have prepared remarks and they run out and the Record is full and 
it appears it is a deliberative effort. Not at all.
  Senator Stennis did not like that, and he said so. He attended the 
debates. He attended all the votes and he kept going until the very, 
very end.
  Unfortunately, he was not as conscious and alert as he could have 
been the last few years. I wanted to go to see him, but my staff who 
worked intimately with him on the Armed Services Committee and later on 
on the Appropriations Committee, said that, ``Poor John would not 
recognize you right now.''
  So he has gone to his just reward after the most distinguished career 
in the U.S. Senate of over 41 years.
  He was a Senator's Senator if there ever was one in this body. He was 
not only, as pointed out, an outstanding authority on military affairs, 
but he had that fundamental feel of paying the bills and being 
straightforward in his treatment here with all the Senators and setting 
the highest standard of ethical conduct that you could possibly 
imagine.
  We need that inspiration today that, unfortunately, we do not have. 
We are all going to miss him very, very badly.
  I am sorry tomorrow I cannot be at the session relative to the 
continued debate on product liability. I want to attend those services. 
But we will be back here at 4:45.
  But it is good that we have those who have served with him and 
remember him so well that will be there and be with his family. His 
daughter retired first in Charleston, where her husband was the dean at 
the College of Charleston and later up in Greenville, SC. So I am 
looking forward to seeing that family.
  But I will never forget the inspiration he has given for all of us 
who have served with him to continue to serve.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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