Date: 2008-12-10
Speaker: K ENNEDY (democrat)
Chamber: S

Madam President. it is a privilege to bring to the attention of my colleagues the remarkable fecord of humaiiitarian work and numerous accomplishments of Albert Corcos. one ofthe truly great humanitarian leaders of our time He is now 98 and lives in Concarneau. France. with his loving wife Camille. He recently completed his memoir spanning his incredible career. during which he was awarded the Legion of Honor in France and a distinguished Royal Award from Thailand. I first became acquainted with Mr. Corcoss humanitarian activities when I was serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugees in the 1970s. In fact. Mr. Corcos had begun his extraordinary career a generation earlier. by coordinating the international effort in 1945 to resettle millions of displaced persons and refugees uprooted by World War II. He was a young man of immense energy and compassion and had been persuaded to use those talents to - work with the new United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to help refugees and displaced persons in Europe. He had actually had an even earlier role. performing the hazardous duty of a young courier for the French resistance during the war. The good work that best exemplifies Mr. Corcoss compassionate concern for the disadvantaged was his indispensible role in coming to the aid of the Indochinese refugees. After an already very full career with the International Organization for Migration and its predecessors working to resettle the displaced. he blazed a unique trail in developing and implementing the initial response to one of the great humanitarian crises of the timethe international response to the exodus of 1.5 million Indochinese refugees in the 1970s. As Indochinese refugees flowed into neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. in 1975. it was a monumental challenge to find opportunities for their resettlement in the United States and other Western. nations and to provide the logistical support to make it possible. It was vital to move the refugees out of the region rapidly. in order to keep the doors open in the first asylum countries of the region. The goal was to prevent the land borders from being closed. which would have forced refugees to take to the sea in desperation and cost thousands of lives. Mr. Corcos postponed his retirement and put together and oversaw the system for processing and transporting refugees to the United States and other countries for resettlement. The challenges were extraordinary. The refugees were strewn across dozens of camps from northern Thailand to Indonesia. Hong Kong. Malaysia. and the Philippines. Each refugee had to be documented. fingerprinted. photographed. given medical examinations and issued transit papers. The refugees then had to be booked o flights to resettlement countries. even as air commerce shrank in Southeast Asia after 1975. The creativity. courage. and perseverance of Mr. Corcos and his team in making this process run smoothly was amazing and won him well deserved international praise. Mr. Corcos came out of retirement again in 1979 to deal with a second surge of Indochinese refugees. This time. the numbers were even more enormous. but he was skillfully able to replicate the process of earlier years on a much larger regional basis. Mr. Corcos is a true humanitarian and made a vast difference in the lives of countless refugees fleeing from Vietnam. Cambodia. and Laos in the 1970s. He is a legend among those who created and benefitted from the Indochinese Refugee Program. and his legacy will forever be remembered.*