S5568 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE April 24, 1995 

the Immaculate Conception Church in 

his hometown of Watertown, SD. 

Over the years Father Robert has 

faithfully served the Catholic church in 

many different parishes across eastern 

South Dakota. He has been ministering 

in Alexandria since 1985. During his career Father Robert has authored 20 

books and numerous articles in Catholic publications. He also has taken pilgrimages with 3,000 youth. Certainly, 

South Dakotans of all ages have benefited from his very active career of 

service. 

I am just one of many South Dakotans who have profited from Father 

Robert’s wisdom. His valuable advice 

will always be greatly appreciated. He 

is loved and respected by many. I am 

honored to join in observing this very 

special occasion for Father Robert. 

f 

THE DEATH OF JOHN F. BLAKE 

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the 

CIA, the Senate Intelligence Committee and our country lost a loyal 

servant on March 27 when Jack Blake 

passed away after a long illness. Jack 

was an OSS veteran who became one of 

the CIA’s premier managers, serving as 

its director of logistics, Deputy Director for Administration and acting Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. He 

also served as president of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. 

In 1981, when Senator Barry Goldwater became the first Republican to 

chair the Select Committee on Intelligence, he chose Jack Blake to be staff 

director of the committee. Together, 

Senator Goldwater and Jack Blake established the principle that the transfer from a Democratic to a Republican 

majority would not mean an end to the 

Senate’s bipartisan oversight of sensitive national security matters. They 

also made the point that the intelligence community’s best friends were 

capable of examining its activities 

with a critical eye, for the sake of improving this vital function and safeguarding the liberties of our citizens. 

Jack Blake went on to become a professor at the Defense Intelligence College and frequently brought his classes 

back to the Hill to meet with congressional overseers and see for themselves 

that we were not monsters, but people 

of good will. His tremendous good 

humor and perseverance served him 

and his country well. We will miss 

Jack Blake, but we will also continue 

to profit from his life of good works. 

The Senate was fortunate to have 

known him. 

f 

THE DEATH OF RICHARD E. CURL 

Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, our 

Nation lost a valuable member of its 

national security team recently, when 

Richard E. Curl died at the age of 77. 

Dick Curl was Director of the Office of 

Intelligence Resources in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and 

Research. He was not the former Director, not the retiring Director, but very 

much the active Director of that office, 

even at the age of 77. 

Dick Curl devoted his life to intelligence. He served as a naval intelligence officer in both World War II 

and the Korean war, and with the State 

Department between those wars. And 

Dick began his work for INR in 1952. 

Overall, he gave his country over half a 

century of service. 

Mr. Curl’s obituary states that his 

work ‘‘involved contact with various 

foreign intelligence services as well as 

U.S. intelligence agencies.’’ Suffice it 

to say that his role was often that of a 

mediator between the two different 

cultures, explaining the uses of intelligence to policymakers and Foreign 

Service officers while also ensuring 

that the risks and benefits of intelligence operations were weighed in 

light of broader U.S. policy interests 

that might be affected if something 

went wrong. Much of Dick Curl’s career 

was spent teaching the policy and intelligence communities to listen to 

each other. 

The staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence knew Mr. Curl 

since at least the early 1980’s. They 

found him a valuable source of information and good counsel. Dick Curl 

will be missed by both the committee 

and his country. 

f 

RURAL SUMMIT 

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come 

to the floor for a different purpose 

today, however. I want to describe 

something that is happening tomorrow 

in Ames, IA, and something that happened last Friday in Bismarck, ND. 

Some many months ago, I and Congressman DICK DURBIN, from Illinois, 

asked President Clinton to host a rural 

summit in our country prior to the 

writing of the new 5-year farm bill in 

Congress this year. The President took 

our suggestion and set December 1 of 

last year as a date for a rural summit. 

It would be the first ever of its kind 

held in this country prior to the writing of a new farm bill. 

On December 1, it turned out that the 

Senate was going to reconvene and 

vote on the GATT treaty, and the result was the rural summit had to be 

postponed. The President was required 

to remain in Washington, and others 

who were to participate were to remain 

here as well. A new date was set, and 

that new date is tomorrow. 

The President, the Vice President, 

the Secretary of Agriculture, and other 

Cabinet Members will go to Ames, IA, 

and they will convene a rural summit. 

The purpose of that is to discuss, before the new farm bill is written, what 

works and what does not in rural 

America, what kind of a farm program 

works to save family farmers, to try to 

provide an injection of economic life 

into rural economies; how can we improve on it, how can we change it, how 

can we offer more hope to rural America? 

I give great credit to President Clinton for his willingness to do this. It is 

long overdue that we take a fresh look 

at all of the programs and all of the 

initiatives and all of the efforts that 

are designed to try to help rural America. This is, after all, one country, not 

many countries, and the one country 

includes, yes, some of the biggest cities 

but also some of the smallest counties. 

In my home county in rural North 

Dakota, as an example, where fewer 

than several thousand people live in 

the entire county, they lost 20 percent 

of their population in that county in 

the 1980’s. In the first 5 years of the 

1990’s, from 1990 to 1995, the new census 

report shows they lost another 11 percent of their population. 

The flip side of economic stress, that 

we register in the cities by taking a 

look at poverty and unemployment, for 

rural America is out migration, people 

getting in their car and leaving because there is no opportunity, they 

feel, in rural counties. What is happening in rural America is that many 

rural counties and rural areas are 

shrinking like prunes. The lifeblood is 

leaving these rural counties. 

And so the question is what works 

and what does not, what kind of a farm 

plan, what kind of a rural economic development policy should we have in 

rural America to give everybody in this 

country a chance; yes, even those who 

live in sparsely populated areas. 

Prior to the summit that will be held 

in Ames, IA, tomorrow, the President 

asked the new Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, to hold six regional forums around the country, and 

he has done that. I believe the last one 

is today in Illinois. He held one of 

those six forums in Bismarck, ND, last 

Friday. 

At that forum, the Secretary of Agriculture brought along most of the Assistant Secretaries, and they were all 

there as a team from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to listen to family 

farmers. About 700 to 800 people crowded into this facility, the Farmers Livestock Exchange, to spend 3 hours at 

this forum. Another probably 200 people could not get into the facility, but 

because it was broadcast on a couple of 

radio stations, there were people sitting in the parking lot listening to 

their radios to hear the discussion during these 3 hours about rural America, 

about the farm bill, and about what 

works to try to rescue, revive, and 

breathe some life into rural America. 

I know this subject would not sound 

very interesting or important to a lot 

of Americans. Most Americans take a 

look at rural America or farmers and 

they do not think much about them. 

They go to the store and buy elbow 

macaroni, and it is in a carton. Well, 

elbow macaroni does not come in a carton. That is the way it is sold, but it 

comes from semolina flour. You get 

that by grinding durum wheat that 

comes from the wheat field of someone 

who, most often, is a family farmer 

who risks all of his economic strength 

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