A dear friend, courageous Senator, brilliant defense thinker, and one of the few politicians that always spoke in declarative sentences, left us this September 14th at his beautiful ranch home in Wyoming.
Wallop: the independent cowboy spirit
Malcolm Wallop, US senator from 1977-1995 has died. We will surely miss you sir.
I wrote many speeches for him. We argued whether he would dare say what we wrote. He always sent them back, with a notation, “Too weak!”
He was fearful of nothing. In the late 1970’s, he urged his colleagues and then Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan to pursue global missile defenses to protect the United States and its allies. Many thought his ideas impractical. But he was right and they were wrong.
Wallop: in the heat of battle to protect American security
He spoke brilliantly about the underlying contradiction in the arms control philosophy of the time that sought to protect our security by relying upon the good will of our sworn adversaries.
Long before it was accepted, he always told me that Rush Limbaugh was “the greatest satirist of our time”, perhaps this entire century. He repeatedly warned us of the looming terrorist dangers, especially those from states such as Iran, Libya, Iraq and North Korea.
RIP, Senator
I remember in early 1985, he was the deciding vote in the winning effort in the US Senate to finally approve of the deployment of the Peacekeeper missile it FE Warren USAF base in Wyoming. As he came off the Senate floor, he embraced me. He said, “Thank you”.
After an almost decade long fight with the nuclear freeze advocates, he said, “I think this may be the nail in the coffin of the nuclear freeze”. He then paused, and with that wonderful wry smile and twinkle in his eyes, said: “And in the Soviet Commies, too!”
His farewell speech in the US Senate was a conservative manifesto of the first order–where he identified social security as a Ponzi scheme and warned that our fiscal house was far from being in order. More than anything, he gave us a vision of missile defenses for free peoples everywhere and a strong national defense as an imperative for freedom and liberty.
Now, some 16 years after he left the Senate, the US does have deployed over 1000 interceptors with additional hundreds deployed by our allies and friends.
He won election to the Senate with one of the most effective political ads in history. Gale McGee was the sitting Senator from Wyoming against whom he was running. Gale McGee was a moderate Democrat whom I knew and liked. But even as a moderate Democrat, some felt he was not in touch with the Wyoming voter.
In an ad showing a beautiful evening sunset sky, with the panorama of the Rocky Mountains in the distance, to the music of the Grand Canyon Suite, a lone cowboy on his horse is slowly moving across the landscape.
Clip, clop, clip clop, in rhythm with the wonderful music.
And as the camera moved backward to a larger and larger view, there from the saddle’s pommel extends a rope, dragging behind the horse is a Porta John–the latest requirement of OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for cowboys working the range and their herds.
We will miss you, Malcolm, and your laughter, your courage and your love of this country. I feel honored to have been touched by your life.
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