[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1569-E1570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

HONORING DAVID ABSHIRE

______

HON. FRANK R. WOLF

of virginia

in the house of representatives

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. David M. Abshire,
who passed away on October 31st, 2014, in Alexandria, Virginia. I
worked with David during my career in Congress and always held him in
the highest regard.
David was an indispensable public servant. He began his career at
West Point, from which he graduated and led a platoon in the Korean
War, earning a Bronze Star for bravery. He went on to found the Center
for Strategic and International Studies and lead the Center for the
Study of the Presidency & Congress. David also served as assistant
secretary of state for congressional relations and chairman of the
Board for International Broadcasting under President Nixon and United
States ambassador to NATO under President Reagan. He coordinated
President Reagan's internal investigation of the Iran-Contra Affair as
well.
David was a man of moral strength and character. He will be deeply
missed by his family, friends and community. David is survived by his
wife Carolyn, five children and 11 grandchildren.
I respectfully submit David's obituary from The New York Times and
ask my colleagues to join me in honoring David's life and
accomplishments.

[From The New York Times, Nov. 3, 2014]

David M. Abshire, Who Helped Reagan Through Iran-Contra Scandal, Dies
at 88

(By Douglas Martin)

David M. Abshire, who led respected research groups and
held high government posts but made his most visible mark by
helping President Ronald Reagan navigate the political storms
of the Iran-contra scandal, died on Friday in Alexandria, Va.
He was 88.
His death was announced by the Center for the Study of the
Presidency & Congress, a Washington group he helped lead.
Reagan sought out Mr. Abshire in December 1986. He called
him in Brussels, where he was the United States ambassador to
NATO, and asked him to accept a cabinet-level job as
coordinator of the White House's response to multiple
investigations of the administration's secret sales of arms
to Iran, despite an embargo on such sales.
There were allegations that United States officials had
hoped the arms sales would secure the release of several
hostages being held in Lebanon by a group with ties to Iran,
which would have been another violation of policy. Proceeds
from the sales were to be used to finance the anti-Communist
insurgents in Nicaragua known as contras--aid that Congress
had expressly forbidden.
Reagan asked Mr. Abshire to handle all requests and
obligations stemming from investigations in both the House
and the Senate and from an independent commission headed by
John Tower, a former senator from Texas.
``What we wanted was someone who would come and could
immerse himself in all the details of this Iran controversy--
the dates, when the arms went, who said what on which date,''
Patrick J. Buchanan, then the White House communications
director, said in an interview with CNN in 1986. ``It really
is a detailed job, and the rest of the White House staff,
which was not involved in the controversy, has to get on with
the budget, has got to get on with the State of the Union. We
simply don't have the expertise.''
In a profile in 1987, The New York Times said the job could
leave Mr. Abshire in a ``potentially tricky position'' and
raised the possibility that he could turn up an incriminating
``smoking gun.''
Mr. Abshire accepted the post on the condition that the
administration would be forthcoming. He told The Times that
he regretted suppressing information about military
incursions into Laos and Cambodia during the Nixon
administration, when he was assistant secretary of state for
congressional relations.
``That,'' he said, ``was an example of how not to do it.''
In his first meeting with Reagan, recounted in his 2005
book, ``Saving the Reagan Presidency: Trust Is the Coin of
the Realm,'' Mr. Abshire told the president that it was
unwise to keep insisting that the United States did not trade
arms for hostages. He pointed out that two-thirds of the
public believed that the administration had made such a deal.
``Dave, I don't care if I'm the only person in America that
does not believe it--I don't believe it was arms for
hostages,'' he quoted Reagan as saying.
But in a dozen meetings with the president and in others
with the first lady, Nancy Reagan, Mr. Abshire pressed his
case for admitting what seemed obvious to him and to many
others. He also released thousands of unedited documents to
investigators, handled press relations and signed off on the
president's speeches about the subject.
On March 4, 1987, with evidence of the arms deal mounting,
Reagan admitted in a speech to the nation that he had learned
he was wrong. ``What began as a strategic opening to Iran
deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for
hostages,'' he said.
Mr. Abshire soon resigned, feeling he had finished the job
90 days after taking it. Reagan largely escaped personal
blame and saw his approval rating rise from 46 percent to 64
percent in less than two years.
The Washington Post in 2006 called Mr. Abshire the
``judicious convener and manager of the A-list powerful.'' In
1962, he joined with Adm. Arleigh Burke to start the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, originally as an
affiliate of Georgetown University. Distinguished foreign
policy figures like Henry A. Kissinger, James R. Schlesinger,
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft have been senior
advisers and adjunct fellows there.
Mr. Kissinger, at a colloquium in Mr. Abshire's honor in
2006, said that Mr. Abshire had a knack for getting people to
do what he wanted, ``making you feel that he's doing you a
tremendous favor for giving you that opportunity.''
From 1999 to 2012, Mr. Abshire was president and chief
executive of the Center for the Study of the Presidency &
Congress. More recently he was vice chairman. He served on
government task forces and policy study groups and wrote
seven books. He headed Reagan's foreign affairs transition
team after his election in 1980, and was often mentioned as a
candidate for national security adviser in Republican
administrations.
His job as assistant secretary of state under President
Richard M. Nixon was to be a liaison to Congress. Nixon then
appointed him chairman of the Board for International
Broadcasting, overseeing Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
As NATO ambassador, Mr. Abshire helped parlay the
deployment of American Pershing II missiles in Europe into a
treaty limiting intermediate-range nuclear weapons there.
David Manker Abshire was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., on
April 11, 1926. An imposing figure at 6-foot-4, he never lost
his courtly Tennessee drawl.
He graduated from the United States Military Academy at
West Point in 1951 and, as a platoon leader in the Korean
War, was awarded a Bronze Star and other decorations for
bravery. He earned a Ph.D. in history from Georgetown.
Mr. Abshire, who died in a nursing home in Alexandria, is
survived by his wife of 56 years, the former Carolyn Sample;
his son, Lupton; his daughters, Anna Bowman, Mary Lee
Jensvold, Phyllis d'Hoop and Carolyn Hall; and 11
grandchildren.
Reagan was not the first president to ask for Mr. Abshire's
help in dealing with a crisis. In his memoir, Mr. Abshire
wrote that Nixon had asked him to join his staff to fight the
threat of impeachment during the investigations of the cover-
up of the Watergate break-in. He tactfully said no.
He recalled that when a relative expressed amazement that
he had turned down a president, he replied: ``I don't believe
he's telling the truth.''

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