http://www.clw.org/election/2002profiles/cleland.html-snip-
As a 21-year old congressional intern, Max Cleland watched the U.S. Senate debate and approve President John F. Kennedy's above-ground nuclear test ban. The year was the fateful 1963. Young Max Cleland took the arguments to heart.
As a U.S. Senator in 1999, Max Cleland fought hard but unsuccessfully for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by President Bill Clinton. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he emphasized the important non-proliferation benefits of the Treaty, but he could not overcome a Republican leadership determined to defeat the Treaty.
Born in Atlanta in 1942, Cleland grew up in the small Georgia town of Lithonia. He earned his B.A. from Florida's Stetson University and his Master's degree in American history from Emory in Atlanta.
In 1967, Cleland volunteered for combat duty in Vietnam. After rising to the rank of Captain, he was badly injured by an exploding grenade near Khe Sahn in 1968, and spent the next 18 months in rehabilitation hospitals. At his low point, he brooded that he had no income, no job, no hope and no future.
In an incredible display of inner strength, Max Cleland pulled himself back from adversity. In 1970, only two years after his injuries, only months after being released from the hospital, he won a seat in the Georgia state senate. At the age of 28, he became the youngest member and the only Vietnam veteran in that legislative body.
President Jimmy Carter appointed Cleland to head the U.S. Veterans Administration. Cleland was the youngest V.A. administrator and the first veteran of Vietnam in that post. He scored another first in 1982: Georgia voters made him the youngest Secretary of State in history. When Senator Sam Nunn announced his retirement in 1996, Cleland entered the race and won by only 30,000 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast.
Cleland has been one of the most vocal critics of a premature deployment of a national missile defense system. Without reservation, Cleland has pointed out that the technology is unproven, the threat unclear, the financial cost extravagant and that U.S. security will be undermined.
When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 21, 2001, Cleland launched this broadside:
"National missile defense is an uncertain trumpet at this point, and we ought not to blow it before we test it and fully make sure it is deployable. It doesn't make sense to deploy this system without that guarantee. Moving down that road without that kind of testing does not improve the security of the people of the United States."
Three weeks later, when Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz tried to defend the program, Cleland responded:
"All it takes is one nuclear warhead to ruin our day. Now, isn't it true, in the history of warfare there was no defense system that couldn't be overwhelmed. So is it not true the deployment of this national missile defense system won't be a hundred percent effective? I mean, there's no such thing out there as some 100 percent security that we're going to get from that in terms of incoming missiles. Isn't it true?
Cleland has been a strong advocate of deep negotiated reductions of nuclear weapons, maintaining the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention and adding funds to the non-proliferation program helping Russia to safeguard and dismantle its nuclear weapons. He is prodding our government to encourage all countries to adopt comprehensive safeguards for nuclear materials equivalent to those of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has voted to transfer money from the military budget to veterans needs and to cut funding for the space-based laser program. He has worked hard to improve the quality of life of our nation's soldiers.
-snip-
i think there's really something to this Cleland idea
As a professional political consultant, I can only think of
30 million disabled voters and a triple amputee saying he will get all healthcare!
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