In December 2002, Alberto J. Mora, then general counsel of the United States Navy, was alerted by Navy investigators to reports that detainees held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay were being subjected to cruel and unlawful interrogation practices. Mora, whose civilian position accorded him a rank equal to that of a four-star general, soon came to learn that the cruel and abusive practices of United States military interrogators at Guantanamo were the result of significant policy shifts at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Over the next three years, Mora waged a campaign inside the Bush Administration to prevent military and civilian leaders from codifying any policy that might implicitly or explicitly sanction the mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees as part of the war on terror.
Mora, a Republican who had led a distinguished career in public service and international law prior to his appointment to the Navy, argued that a policy allowing cruelty toward prisoners at Guantanamo left the door open for American military personnel to engage in torture of the kind that was later exposed at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. Mora did not know of the abuse at Abu Ghraib when he warned Pentagon and other administration officials that the mistreatment of terror suspects and other prisoners would carry grave political consequences for the United States, and would expose U.S. interrogators and policy makers to criminal prosecution. In a 2004 internal memo to the Navy inspector general, Mora outlined his efforts to prevent the Administration from grounding policy in what he believed were flawed legal arguments that would permit the mistreatment of detainees and set off politically and morally disastrous chain reactions. The memo was made public in February 2006. Accounts of widespread prisoner abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo have continued to escalate. Earlier this year, Alberto Mora retired from his service to the U.S.government and returned to the private sector.
For his moral courage and his commitment to upholding American values, Alberto Mora was honored with the 2006 Profile in Courage Award.
Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora and U.S. Representative John Murtha Honored with the 2006 JFK Profile in Courage Award
Boston MA, May 22, 2006 – In what marked the 50th anniversary celebration of the publication of John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage, Caroline Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy today presented former U.S. Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora and U.S. Representative John P. Murtha (D-PA) with the 2006 Profile in Courage Award.
Mr. Mora was recognized for the moral and political courage he demonstrated in waging a three year behind-the-scenes battle with military and civilian leaders over U.S. military policy regarding the treatment of detainees held by the United States as part of the war on terror. Congressman Murtha was recognized for the difficult and courageous decision of conscience he made in November, 2005, when he reversed his support for the Iraq war and called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the conflict.
“Alberto Mora and Congressman Murtha’s extraordinary acts of conscience will be remembered by Americans for generations to come,” said Caroline Kennedy, President of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. “These two courageous individuals exemplify my father’s belief that each of us has the power to make a difference in our world. We are all inspired by their acts, and for standing up for what they believe despite the consequences. The United States is fortunate to have public servants with such integrity.”
"This year's award winners are two unique public officials whose courageous actions in speaking truth to power have made a significant difference for our country and have been an inspiration to all of us," said Senator Kennedy. "It's an honor to pay tribute today to Alberto Mora and Congressman John Murtha. They're profiles in courage, and I'm sure President Kennedy would be proud of their service."
The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award is presented annually to public servants who have withstood strong opposition to follow what they believe is the right course of action. The award is named for President Kennedy’s book, Profiles in Courage, which recounts the stories of eight U.S. senators who risked their careers to fight for what they believed in. The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation created the Profile in Courage Award in 1989 to honor President Kennedy’s commitment and contribution to public service. It is presented in May in celebration of President Kennedy’s May 29th birthday.
Alberto J. Mora
In December 2002, Alberto J. Mora, then general counsel of the United States Navy, was alerted by Navy investigators to reports that detainees held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay were being subjected to cruel and unlawful interrogation practices. Mora, whose civilian position accorded him a rank equal to that of a four-star general, soon came to learn that the cruel and abusive practices of United States military interrogators at Guantanamo were the result of significant policy shifts at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Over the next three years, Mora waged a campaign inside the Bush Administration to prevent military and civilian leaders from codifying any policy that might implicitly or explicitly sanction the mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees as part of the war on terror.
Mora, a Republican who had led a distinguished career in public service and international law prior to his appointment to the Navy, argued that a policy allowing cruelty toward prisoners at Guantanamo left the door open for American military personnel to engage in torture of the kind that was later exposed at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. Mora did not know of the abuse at Abu Ghraib when he warned Pentagon and other administration officials that the mistreatment of terror suspects and other prisoners would carry grave political consequences for the United States, and might expose U.S. interrogators and policy makers to criminal prosecution. In a 2004 internal memo to the Navy inspector general, Mora outlined his efforts to prevent the Administration from grounding policy in what he believed were flawed legal arguments that would permit the mistreatment of detainees and set off politically and morally disastrous chain reactions. The memo was made public in February 2006. Accounts of widespread prisoner abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo have continued to escalate. Earlier this year, Alberto Mora retired from his service to the U.S. government and returned to the private sector.
For his moral courage and his commitment to upholding American values, Alberto Mora is honored with the 2006 Profile in Courage Award.
John P. Murtha
In November 2005, John P. Murtha, a Vietnam War veteran and the ranking Democrat and former chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, galvanized debate about the war in Iraq by calling for the phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from the conflict. Murtha, who had voted in favor of the Iraq war, argued that American soldiers had become targets and “a catalyst for violence” in Iraq. His unexpected and dramatic reversal of support for the war put him at odds with military leaders, the Bush Administration, and many members of his own party.
While he was cheered in some quarters, Murtha’s call for an exit strategy sparked an angry backlash from war proponents, who accused him of wanting to “surrender to the terrorists.” Some complained that his comments were demoralizing to American troops serving in the conflict. Many of his fellow Democrats were reluctant to support him as long as public sentiment about the Iraq war remained opaque. Some critics publicly questioned whether Murtha deserved his Vietnam War decorations and demanded that his military records be opened to public inspection. Murtha refused to back down, instead stepping up his critique of the Administration’s handling of the Iraq war and demanding accountability.
As a combat veteran and a retired Marine Corps colonel with 37 years’ service in the U.S. military, Murtha’s decision to withdraw his support for the Iraq war carried particular weight. His decision to speak out against a protracted conflict shifted public sentiment about the war and generated a substantive national debate on the progress, policies and objectives of the U.S. presence in Iraq. Murtha continues to call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. He will seek re-election to the U.S. Congress in November 2006.
For his political courage and his dedication to principled public service, John P. Murtha is honored with the 2006 Profile in Courage Award.
Described by one recipient as the Nobel in Government, the Profile in Courage Award is represented by a sterling-silver lantern symbolizing a beacon of hope. The lantern was designed by Edwin Schlossberg and crafted by Tiffany & Co.
In selecting a recipient, the Profile in Courage Award Committee considers public servants who have demonstrated the kind of political courage described by John F. Kennedy in Profiles in Courage. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Kennedy wrote:
In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient – they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.
Mora and Murtha were chosen as the recipients of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s prestigious award for political courage by a distinguished bipartisan committee of national, political, and community leaders. John Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, chairs the 13-member Profile in Courage Award Committee. Committee members are Michael Beschloss, author and presidential historian; David Burke, former president of CBS News; U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi); Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund; Antonia Hernandez, president and chief executive officer of the California Community Foundation; Al Hunt, Washington managing editor of Bloomberg News; Elaine Jones, former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; Caroline Kennedy, president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts); Paul G. Kirk, Jr., chairman of the board of directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine); and Patricia M. Wald, former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. John Shattuck, chief executive officer of the Kennedy Library Foundation, staffs the Committee. Mr. Shattuck is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic.
Past recipients of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award are Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko; United States Army Sergeant Joseph Darby; Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin; former Texas Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff; Afghan physician and human rights activist Dr. Sima Samar; former North Carolina State Representative Cindy Watson; former Oklahoma State Senator Paul Muegge; former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes; former South Carolina Governor David Beasley; former Georgia State Representative Dan Ponder, Jr.; United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan; former Palos Heights, Illinois, Mayor Dean Koldenhoven; former U.S. President Gerald Ford; former California State Senator Hilda Solis; U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona; U.S. Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin; Garfield County, Montana Attorney Nickolas Murnion; Circuit Court Judge of Montgomery County, Alabama Charles Price; former Calhoun County, Georgia School Superintendent Corkin Cherubini; former U.S. Congressman Michael Synar of Oklahoma; U.S. Congressman Henry Gonzalez of Texas; former New Jersey Governor James Florio; former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker, Jr.; former U.S. Congressman Charles Weltner of Georgia; and former U.S. Congressman Carl Elliott, Sr. of Alabama.
Special Profile in Courage Awards have been presented to the Irish Peacemakers, eight political leaders of Northern Ireland and the American chairman of the peace talks, in recognition of the extraordinary political courage they demonstrated in negotiating the historic Good Friday Peace Agreement and America’s public servants who demonstrated extraordinary courage and heroism in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. A Profile in Courage Award for Lifetime Achievement has also been presented to U.S. Congressman John Lewis of Georgia.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and supported, in part, by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization. The Kennedy Presidential Library and the Kennedy Library Foundation seek to promote, through educational and community programs, a greater appreciation and understanding of American politics, history, and culture, the process of governing and the importance of public service. For more information about the Profile in Courage Award and the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, visit www.jfklibrary.org.
--30--
Further Information:
Brent Carney: (617) 514-1662
Click here to listen to the speech.
Caroline and Senator Kennedy, Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Chairman Murtha, family, colleagues, and friends.
Today, the Foundation accords me a great honor. The value and significance I give to the Profile in Courage Award is amplified both because it carries President Kennedy’s name and because it recognizes courage – that rarest of virtues that was, as Robert Kennedy told us, the one the President admired most. I thank you most humbly and gratefully for this award.
Today, we all remember President Kennedy and his life’s meaning. We remember his humor and contagious smile, his elegance, and the grace of his bearing and language. We remember his courage as a naval officer in combat at sea, his courage in public office, and his courage in the face of the pain and physical infirmities that accompanied much of his life. We remember his ideals, and his uncompromising defense of our liberties and national values.
And, today, we feel the heat of a small eternal flame burning on an Arlington hillside. Today, just as when first lit more than forty years ago, that testament of fire eloquently expresses both our Nation’s continuing sense of loss and – equally – our celebration of a life of exuberance, excellence, achievement, and service that is of lasting consequence and meaning for our future.
The Foundation recognizes me for certain actions that are generously, too generously, classified as “courageous.” These actions were in response to policies adopted by our Nation that permitted the infliction of cruelty upon captive human beings. Please allow me to say a few words about courage – and cruelty.
For over four years I had the privilege of serving as Navy General Counsel, where I worked with men and women who embody real courage. They were easy to spot because they wore the uniform of the Navy or Marines or of the other services. By now, most have served in the battlefields of the Middle East. Many have been there more than once and many bear the scars of combat. Despite the name of the award you give me today, I want you to know I have difficulty applying the same word of distinction to my actions. When I hear the word “courage,” I think of them.
All of us understand physical courage. Few of us here may be veterans of combat, but all of us are veterans of the schoolyard. And each of us remembers moments – even if only from childhood – when our knees were knocking because this type of courage was demanded of us. We know what it takes to summon physical courage, so we honor our men and women in uniform because their courage, routinely, is put to the ultimate test. Yet what I never understood until I started working with our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines is that their service to their country requires far more than physical courage. They have other types of courage that are less visible to those of us who have never worn the uniform.
A large painting hangs on the wall above the marble staircase leading to the Secretary of Defense’s office in the Pentagon. It depicts an Air Force officer and his family in church, kneeling at the altar. Soft light flows from a stained glass window behind them. Devoutly kneeling beside the officer are his wife and their young son and daughter. They are all praying, heads bowed, their faces partially hidden.
During my first days at the Pentagon, I found the painting to be almost incomprehensible. Why should this painting, from the hundreds that hang in that building, be given such prominence? As a work of art it is not particularly distinguished. Its surface theme of military faith seemed to me to be of lesser importance, and certainly less heroic, than many of the other topics captured in the large body of art collected during our military history.
There is, however, a plaque below and along the length of the painting that provides meaning and transforms it into something moving and eloquent. The plaque, which had at first escaped my attention, bears the inscription from the Bible – Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 8 – in which God asks the question: “Whom shall I send. And who will go for us?”, and to which Isaiah answers: “Here I am. Send me!” The coupling of this biblical passage to the scene of the military family at prayer changed my entire understanding of the painting. It also changed my comprehension of the courage demanded every day of our men and women in uniform and of their families. From that painting, two lessons will stay with me, always.
First, it taught me that our soldiers’ courage is tested outside of military actions. Their courage, the painting taught me, is not first called for in battle. It is first demonstrated when a person decides to become a soldier, when he or she stands up, answers the Nation’s call, and says, “Here I am. Send me.” Courage is also demonstrated in the moment depicted in the painting – the departure. This is that moment in every soldier’s life when he or she, departing for duty or combat, says goodbye to the family; when they say goodbye; and when the soldier breaks the family’s embrace and turns to go. These moments occur and have occurred countless times since the first days of our Nation. We know it took place in the histories of the Kennedy and Murtha families, as it did, no doubt, in the lives of others in this room. At that moment, all the family members know they may never see each other again. Yet the soldier still turns, and leaves. “Here I am. Send me.” And the spouse and the son and the daughter – or perhaps it is the father and mother – let the soldier go. After the screen door slams and the sound of the footsteps fade, the family then endures the separation, and the loneliness, and the fears. They, too, say, “Here I am. Send me.”
This is courage.
The second lesson I drew from this painting comes from the bowed head of the Air Force officer. Many in the military services are devout; for them, their faith is an important and sustaining part of their lives in the military. Many others find less importance in religion or no importance at all. This is equally respected. But devout or not, every soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine pledges his or her allegiance to our Constitution and to the values protected by this document. The officer’s bowed head reminds us that American military power, indeed, any use of force by our Nation, should always be subordinated to our laws and values. Without such subordination, our power is purposeless and unconstrained, and may become illegitimate.
In response to the 3,000 murders on September 11, our Nation went to war. In Afghanistan, our targets were the Al Qaeda perpetrators and the Taliban regime that aided and abetted them. In Iraq, the target was an unstable tyrant who had a history of using chemical weapons and who could be trusted to cheat on and retreat from his international commitments. I supported both engagements as Navy General Counsel. I support them still as a private citizen. I regard each as a prudent and even necessary use of force. The terrorist threat, and the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction in reckless hands, can never be underestimated: I subscribe to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England’s view that the only reason Al Qaeda killed 3,000 individuals was because they couldn’t kill three million. These threats dictated an aggressive response, and President Bush and our Nation responded accordingly.
And yet, there have been times in our Nation’s history when, in our quest for security, our fear momentarily overcomes our judgment and our power slips the discipline of the law and our national values.
One such moment occurred in 1942 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In what will always be regarded as an act of national shame, military authorities rounded up 120,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry and incarcerated them on the presumption of disloyalty. These citizens were stripped of their rights and held in detention camps for the duration of the war. Many lost businesses and property. When we recall this event – and it is relevant to our current situation – we also recall with shame the Supreme Court’s abdication of its judicial responsibilities in the notorious Korematsu decision, where it endorsed the legality of the patently unconstitutional detention.
Korematsu reminds us that when threats and fear converge, our laws and principles can become fragile. They are fragile today. In the summer of 2002 – sixty years after Korematsu and only four years ago – at Guantanamo and elsewhere, U.S. authorities held in detention individuals thought to have information on other impending attacks against the United States. Unless this information was obtained, it was believed, more Americans – perhaps many more – would die. In this context, our government issued legal and policy documents providing, in effect, that for some detainees labeled as “unlawful combatants,” interrogation methods constituting cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment could be applied under the President’s constitutional commander-in-chief authorities. Although there is continuing debate as to the details of how, when, and why, we know such cruel treatment was applied at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other locations. We know the treatment may have reached the level of torture in some instances. And there are still questions as to whether these policies were related, if at all, to the deaths of several dozen detainees in custody.
It is astonishing to me, still, that I should be here today addressing the issue of American cruelty – or that anyone would ever have to. Our forefathers, who permanently defined our civic values, drafted our Constitution inspired by the belief that law could not create, but only recognize, certain inalienable rights granted by God – to every person, not just citizens, and not just here, but everywhere. Those rights form a shield that protects core human dignity. Because this is so, the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel punishment. The constitutional jurisprudence of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments outlaws cruel treatment that shocks the conscience. The Nuremberg Trials – that triumph of American justice and statesmanship that launched the modern era of human rights and international criminal law – treated prisoner abuse as an indictable crime. The Geneva Conventions forbid the application of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment to all captives, as do all of the major human rights treaties adopted and ratified by our country during the last century. There should have been no doubt or ambiguity about the standard of conduct that our laws require of us. And even if laws have jurisdictional limits, there could have been no doubt about what our values forbade.
Despite this, there was abuse. Not all were mistreated, but some were. For those mistreated, history will ultimately judge what the precise quantum of abuse inflicted was – whether it was torture or some lesser cruelty – and whether it resulted from official commission, omission, or whether it occurred despite every reasonable effort to prevent the abuse. Whatever the ultimate historical judgment, it is established fact that documents justifying and authorizing the abusive treatment of detainees during interrogation were approved and distributed. These authorizations rested on the three beliefs: that no law prohibited the application of cruelty; that no law should be adopted that would do so; and that our government could choose to apply the cruelty – or not – as a matter of policy depending on the dictates of perceived military necessity. Some officials may also have believed that, if this abuse were disclosed or discovered, virtually no one would care. The resulting, inescapable truth is that – no matter how circumscribed these policies were, or how short their duration, or how few the victims – for as long as these policies were in effect our government had adopted what only can be labeled as a policy of cruelty.
The fact that we adopted this policy demonstrates that this war has tested more than our Nation’s ability to defend ourselves. It has tested our response to our fears, and the measure of our courage. It has tested our commitment to our most fundamental values and our constitutional principles. It has tested the depth of our commitment to those certain truths that our forefathers held to be self-evident. It has tested our understanding of what the terms “justice,” “the law,” “the rule of law,” and “human rights” are. It has tested our vision of what the relationship should be between the individual and the government. And, no less important, this war has tested our definition of human dignity. In this war, we have come to a crossroads – much as we did in the events that led to Korematsu: Will we continue to regard the protection and promotion of human dignity as the essence of our National character and purpose, or will we bargain away human and national dignity in return for an additional possible measure of physical security?
We need to be clear. Cruelty disfigures our national character. It is incompatible with our constitutional order, with our laws, and with our most prized values. Cruelty can be as effective as torture in destroying human dignity, and there is no moral distinction between one and the other. To adopt and apply a policy of cruelty anywhere within this world is to say that our forefathers were wrong about their belief in the rights of man, because there is no more fundamental right than to be safe from cruel and inhumane treatment. Where cruelty exists, law does not.
Why should we still care about these issues? The Abu Ghraib abuses have been exposed; Justice Department memoranda justifying cruelty and even torture have been ridiculed and rescinded; the authorizations for the application of extreme interrogation techniques have been withdrawn; and, perhaps most critically, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, has been enacted, thanks to the courage and leadership of Sen. John McCain, a former Profile in Courage award recipient.
We should care because the issues raised by a policy of cruelty are too fundamental to be left unaddressed, unanswered, or ambiguous. We should care because a tolerance of cruelty will corrode our values and our rights and degrade the world in which we live. It will corrupt our heritage, cheapen the valor of the soldiers upon whose past and present sacrifices our freedoms depend, and debase the legacy we will leave to our sons and daughters. We should care because it is intolerable to us that anyone should believe for a second that our Nation is tolerant of cruelty. And we should care because each of us knows that this issue has not gone away.
The years ahead will continue to test our national security. We again will be tempted to violate our values in the mistaken belief that we will be made more secure by doing so. When that test comes again – and it certainly will – we must muster the courage to defend our principles more firmly. We will have to be prepared – as President Kennedy said in his inaugural speech of his own, “new generation” of Americans – to be, also, a generation “unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”
It would be inappropriate for me to conclude without acknowledging those former colleagues whose work contributed to all I did at the Department of the Navy and, in some cases, to the very acts you recognize this morning. I am indebted to Secretary England for his superb leadership and superb leadership team; to my colleagues at the Navy Office of General Counsel, personified by Bill Molzahn, Art Hildebrant, and Peter Murphy; to the Navy Judge Advocate General Corps, which was led on my watch by RADMs Don Guter, Mike Lohr, and Jim McPherson; to the Judge Advocate Division of the Marine Corps and its commander, BG Kevin Sandkuhler; and to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, led by Dave Brant. Each of them – and many others – has my gratitude and admiration. They deserve the thanks of all for their service, and for what they have done to protect our Nation and the values upon which it stands.
Once more, I thank you –– for this award; for your many courtesies to me, my wife Susan, and my son Alex; and for allowing me to discuss with you why courage, in a time of cruelty, matters more than ever.
Remarks made by Alberto J. Mora, former U.S. Navy General Counsel, on accepting the 2006 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, May 22, 2006.
Click here to watch the acceptance speech by Alberto Mora on YouTube
(Part I) & (Part II)
In Search of Political Courage
It takes a lot of courage these days for a government official to stand up for the rule of law.
On December 17, 2002 Alberto Mora received information from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service that prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base were being abusively interrogated. Mora, a loyal conservative, had been appointed by President Bush in 2001 to serve as General Counsel of the Navy. Since the Navy had no responsibility for Guantanamo interrogations, Mora could have referred the report to others in the Pentagon, or simply decided to ignore it. Instead, he chose to investigate. What he discovered was deeply disturbing.
As he wrote in a recently declassified memo to the Navy’s Inspector General, Mora learned that his boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, had authorized interrogation techniques that “could rise to the level of torture.” Mora told the Pentagon’s General Counsel, William Haynes, that Rumsfeld’s memorandum “could have severe ramifications unless the policy was quickly reversed.” He warned that the interrogation policy was “unlawful” and that its consequences could be “incalculably harmful to U.S. foreign, military and legal policies.”
When nothing happened, Mora set out to change the policy. He knew he had to find allies in the Pentagon, and he began to recruit them by openly debating the Rumsfeld memorandum with other officials. A small bureaucratic victory came when the Department of Defense created a “Working Group” to develop new recommendations. But this process was overwhelmed by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which weighed in with its own memo expanding the original Rumsfeld policy.
Mora challenged the Justice Department. He charged that the policy allowed “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees,” and expressed deep disagreement with its “extreme and virtually unlimited theory of the extent of the President’s authority.” Mora confronted the author of the memo, OLC Deputy Director John Yoo, asking him “whether the President could order the application of torture.” Mora wrote in his memo to the Inspector General that “Yoo responded, ‘Yes.’”
Mora was shocked. He worked hard to get the Pentagon to shelve what he called this “deeply flawed” policy that now had been hijacked by the Justice Department. For nearly a year Mora thought he had succeeded in persuading his superiors to block the policy, because the Rumsfeld and OLC memoranda were never finalized.
Then in April 2004 the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke. Mora learned the bitter truth -- the torture policy he and others inside the Pentagon had fought so courageously to stop had secretly been kept in place all along, and the horrors they had warned against had come to pass.
Mora did not prevail in his bureaucratic battle, but his defense of the law and the Constitution demonstrated great political courage. That’s why the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation today will recognize Alberto Mora with its Profile in Courage Award, together with John Murtha, a senior Member of Congress and Vietnam combat veteran who made a difficult decision of conscience last year when he reversed his support for the Iraq war and sparked a national debate by calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the conflict.
“To be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications,” wrote then-Senator John F. Kennedy in his 1957 Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage. “It is an opportunity sooner or later presented to us all.”
We need leaders today who dare to defend the rule of law and the role of debate in our government against those who would suppress or circumvent them. At a time when the proscription against torture has been undermined, when a secret domestic spying program has been carried out in apparent violation of federal law, when the President has claimed the authority to disregard hundreds of other statutes passed by Congress, and when the country has been taken to war under an erroneous pretext, we should follow the example of those who stand up for democracy. That’s the message of Alberto Mora and John Murtha.
# # #
John Shattuck, CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, is the author of Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America’s Response, and a former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic.
Publised in part by The Boston Globe, May 22, 2006
Thank you, John Seigenthaler, for that wonderful introduction. John is a dear friend and a long-standing icon in the world of journalism, and he continues to do an outstanding job as Chairman of the Profile in Courage Award Committee.
This year’s ceremony is very special to all of us in the Kennedy family, because it marks the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s book, Profiles in Courage. My brother was a Senator at the time, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for the book. It’s been a classic ever since, and I’m sure he’d be especially proud of this year’s honorees.
Five years ago, as we all know, America was shocked and our complacency was shattered by the worst terrorist attack in our history. But we emerged united together, and we rallied around our leaders, ready to fight back.
That unity has receded drastically since then, because of the war in Iraq. Our country has become deeply divided – with most of our people deeply concerned that our policies have not been adequate to the challenge and in fact have made the danger even more serious.
Our honorees today are two courageous officials on that issue – one appointed and one elected – who prove that dissent, even in wartime, may well be the ultimate act of patriotism.
Both are true profiles in courage. Our first honoree, Alberto Mora, was a well-respected attorney specializing in international law at a prominent firm when he was appointed General Counsel of the Navy at the beginning of the Bush Administration, and in the months after 9/11, he was a strong supporter of the war on terrorism.
But by the end of 2002, he realized that the Administration was going wrong in approving harsh and extreme interrogation techniques used on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He assumed that the abuses would stop when he called attention to them, but he was wrong.
And so he began a quiet, behind-the-scenes battle to challenge these techniques and the misguided legal analysis that supported them.
He was determined to fight for the rule of law, even against powerful opponents and the chief champions of the torture policy at the highest levels of government. He took on William Haynes, the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, calling his legal analysis “wholly inadequate.” He challenged David Addington, the Counsel to Vice President Cheney. He took his concerns directly to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
He had learned the importance of living up to his principles in his own early years. Both of his parents had fled from repressive regimes. His mother grew up in Hungary and came to the United States. His father had come from Cuba to study medicine at Harvard. Alberto was born here in Boston in 1952 and a year later, the family moved back to Cuba. When Castro came to power in 1959, they narrowly escaped to the United States and settled in Mississippi.
Alberto later graduated from the University of Miami Law School and began his impressive career in the law. He retired from the Navy at the end of last year, and is now back in private law practice as counsel for Wal-Mart’s international operations.
In standing up for his beliefs against torture as Counsel for the Navy, Alberto Mora embodied Edmund Burke’s famous words, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Faced with irrefutable evidence that by condoning torture, the government was acting, he said, in a way “clearly contrary to everything we were ever taught about American values,” and he felt compelled speak truth to power.
He said, “The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America—even those designated as ‘unlawful enemy combatants.’ If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles.”
It’s an honor to have Alberto Mora here today. His courage is an example to us all, and in a moment, Caroline will present him with the lantern symbolizing the award.
Our second honoree is a highly respected conservative Democrat in the House of Representatives from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, whose decision to speak out on Iraq electrified the country.
John Murtha is a vivid example of the words of President Kennedy in Profiles in Courage, “A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.”
His family has a long tradition of military service. One of his mother’s ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. Another served in the Union Army in the Civil War and actually guarded the Capitol Building where John Murtha serves today. The widow of that Union soldier lived to be 96, and John remembers her telling him as a child, “One person can make a difference.”
We may even be distantly related. John’s father’s ancestors emigrated from Ireland, as did mine, during the Great Potato Famine of the mid-19th century.
John himself has a long history of patriotism and courage, despite the personal consequences or dangers.
When he graduated from high school in 1950, the Korean War had just begun, and he wanted to join the Army. His family insisted he go to college, but he felt so uncomfortable on campus sitting out the war that he left after freshman year and enlisted in the Marines. He became a drill instructor at Parris Island, and went on to Officer Training School at Quantico.
When he graduated, he volunteered to serve in Korea and received orders to do so. But the truce ending the war was declared, and he went to Camp Lejeune instead to complete his service.
A decade later, he volunteered to serve in Vietnam and again showed his extraordinary dedication. He was wounded twice, received two Purple Hearts, and earned the Bronze Star and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry for his bravery.
At boot camp, he had done so well that he was given the American Spirit Medal whose citation reads “for the display of outstanding qualities of leadership best expressing the American Honor, Initiative, Loyalty, and High Example to Comrades in Arms.” He says today that of the sixteen military awards he’s received, he’s proudest of all of that one.
His patriotism and commitment to the armed forces continued strong after he left the military. When he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1974, he became the first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress. Five years later, he was honored with an appointment to the House Appropriations Subcommittee with oversight of the Pentagon, and since 1989, he has served as Chairman of that Subcommittee or as its senior Democrat.
All of us involved in national security issues know that John Murtha has worked brilliantly for over thirty years in Congress to defend and strengthen our armed forces and protect our national security. He’s the voice of our troops in Congress. He knows what they’re going through, and he cares deeply about them. As he’s said so eloquently, “Anybody that’s been in combat knows it sears your soul.”
He consistently avoids partisanship. He’s earned the respect of the military, and become a confidant of generals and senior defense officials in both Republican and Democratic Administrations. Without doubt, he’s one of most respected leaders on military issues in Congress.
After 9/11, he initially became a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, and the White House cheered him on.
But he soon began to feel he could not stay silent after what he began hearing from our troops and senior military officials. He criticized the inadequate armor and other supplies for our troops. In September 2003, he said he’d been misled into voting for the war the year before.
Finally, last November, he decided as a matter of conscience to speak the unvarnished truth. He stated publicly that our troops in Iraq had done all they could, and it was time for them to come home.
You could feel the earth move in Washington, and the White House knew it. Their political operation went into overdrive, the attack dogs were sent out, and the “Swift Boat” tactics were dusted off. His military record was wrongly and irresponsibly called into question. He was accused of surrendering to the terrorists and “endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party.”
It was a familiar response from an Administration with a pathological aversion to thoughtful criticism – or any criticism – of its policy on Iraq.
They couldn’t fire or demote him, as they did with critics of their policy. They couldn’t ignore him or marginalize him, as they did with Alberto Mora.
Through all the attacks on his patriotism, he never wavered or backed down from his strong view. His courage in speaking out touched the entire nation, and he continues to do so.
Last week, he called on the Marine Corps to disclose the full truth about a shocking incident involving the death of a Marine followed by the death of numerous civilians supposedly in a bus in Haditha last November. The casualties were initially attributed to an I.E.D. explosion and shrapnel and firefight, but Murtha said he kept hearing reports from Marines in the field that something much worse had happened.
As he stated, “There was no firefight. There was no explosion that killed civilians in a bus. There was no bus. There was no shrapnel. There were only bullet holes inside the homes where the Marines had gone in….Our troops over-reacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” he said. That’s John Murtha, telling the war like it is.
As Andrew Jackson said, “One man with courage makes a majority,” and John Murtha has proved the truth of those words in our own time.
More than a century ago, a biographer of Andrew Jackson wrote that Jackson “was the most American of Americans – an embodiment of the Declaration of Independence – the Fourth of July incarnate.” You could say the same thing about Congressman John Murtha.
The nation owes him a huge debt for refusing to stay silent. It took immense courage for him to do what he did, and he eminently deserves this year’s Profile in Courage Award.
Now it’s my privilege to introduce another person who, like our honorees this year, is a great patriot. She’s a woman of special grace and courage in her own right. I know President Kennedy would be prouder than ever of her today, and so are all of us in our family – Caroline Kennedy.
Remarks by Senator Edward M. Kennedy on presting the 2006 Profile in Courage Award to Alberto Mora and Congressman John Murtha, May 22, 2006.