Edward L. Rowny
Rockwell on a study on how the Clinton administration could improve the
productivity of the United States.
In March 1993 I suddenly found myself acting as an expert on base closures.
Barbara Rohde, who had interned for me at the Wilson Center, is now the
Washington representative for the State of Minnesota. Some friends of hers from
North Dakota wanted to know what I thought about the Air Force's plan to close
Grand Forks Air Force base. I said it would have undesirable consequences on
START and the ABM treaty. Accordingly, I wrote letters to Secretary of Defense
Aspin and General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General
McPeak, chief of staff of the Air Force; and General Sullivan, chief of staff of the
Army. I later talked briefly to General Powell and at length to General McPeak.
As a result, General McPeak dropped Grand Forks from its closure list. However,
in late May 1993 the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission put
Grand Forks back on the list of bases which should be further examined. I went
to Grand Forks on June 1st and 2d to testify on the spot to the commission about
the inadvisability of closing the base. At this writing [June 1993] the outcome is
uncertain.
My activities with respect to Grand Forks led Congressman Jim Courter, chairman
of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, to invite me to testify
on the Army's plan to close Fort McClellan in Alabama. During my testimony,
on April 5, 1993, I said that I thought the closure of the Chemical Warfare School
was not in the U.S. interest. Tom Graham [acting director of ACDA], and Victor
Rostow [Department of Defense] testified that the closure of Fort McClellan and
the transfer of the Chemical Warfare Training Center to Fort Leonard Wood in
Missouri would not harm our chemical warfare training program. At this writing
I do not know how the proposed closure of Fort McClellan will be resolved.
Word then spread to Monterey, California, where the Army planned to close the
Defense Language Institute [DLI] I wrote a letter to the Defense Base Closure and
Realignment Commission saying I thought this would hurt our country's language
training. I do not know how this case will come out.
I have also occupied myself with such projects as being interviewed and writing
articles about the importance of good negotiations to our economic well-being. An
interview with the editors of the Proceedings of the U. S. N a v a l Institute was
published in May 1993. An article will be printed in The American Legion
magazine in the Fall of 1993.
Otherwise, I have continued to follow events in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, China,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and other hot spots. On the situation in the Balkans, I spoke
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