BANGOR – In 1996, the last time William S. Cohen was coming back to Bangor from Washington, D.C., he bore a gift for the University of Maine – his personal and official papers from serving 24 years in the Congress. The papers came in 1,400 boxes.

Now leaving public service after four years as U.S. defense secretary, Cohen again bore a gift for UMaine: his official papers from the Pentagon. But this time around, the 70,000-plus documents he gave to the school came on a dozen CD-ROMs.

The 60-year-old Bangor native officially handed over his Pentagon papers at a “valedictory” tribute dinner hosted by UMaine in Norumbega Hall in Bangor, a 300-person event of specially invited friends and family.

Cohen said that the gift of his papers would allow students “to see the issues I had to contend with … and to see what one person can do …”

The Pentagon documents will be housed along with his congressional papers in the William S. Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce at the university. The center was founded in 1996 with the donation of the first set of papers. The center’s purpose is to foster discussion of international policy issues, and to enhance the international competitiveness and accelerate the global development of Maine and U.S. businesses.

Most of the event was a homecoming from 28 years in Washington, D.C., for Cohen. He greeted and hugged friends and family, and made small talk, like the relative who is seen only at the holidays and has only a short amount of time to talk to a lot of people.

Tim Woodcock, a Bangor lawyer and personal friend of Cohen’s, paid tribute to him.

Woodcock pointed out that if one were charting a course to one of the most powerful positions in the country, you probably wouldn’t have done some of the things Cohen did.

Cohen voted to impeach a sitting president from his own party during the Watergate crisis, Woodcock noted. Later, during Iran-Contra, Cohen bucked his own party again, voting in favor of the opposing party’s report on the arms-deal scandal.

And one probably wouldn’t chart a career by putting aside partisan politics for dealing “with the issues on their merits,” Woodcock said.

“Bill, you have made us proud,” he said summing up. “We’re proud. We remain proud and we will always be proud.”

Cohen responded that he is just a person from Maine, and people from Maine “have a sense of rightness and righteousness.”

Then Cohen talked about his tenure as defense secretary, saying President Clinton gave him an extraordinary opportunity by setting a precedent of reaching across the aisle to chose a Cabinet member from the opposing party.

Touching on the themes laid out in the foundation of the Cohen Center, he talked about the importance of the United States remaining engaged in the world and not withdrawing into isolationism.

“Business follows the flag,” he said. “Business goes to where it’s stable. As soon as there is a sign of instability, capital flows out.”

And it is the U.S. military forces deployed overseas, for example in East Asia, that help keep the peace and maintain stability, Cohen said. A stable Asia is important to Maine because Malaysia is one of the state’s largest trading partners.

Ever conscious of the welfare of U.S. military personal, Cohen said the United States must be selective where it stations troops abroad so as not to “over-stretch or overstress” them. To retrench, however, would mean the loss of American status and the creation of a vacuum, he said. “Geopolitics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. When there’s instability … there’s loss of [economic] opportunity.”

Cohen has said that after he leaves the Pentagon in a week, he plans to remain involved with national security and defense matters through a small consulting firm he is in the process of forming with two of his longtime staff members, Bob Tyrer and Jim Bodner.

Cohen, who has written books of poetry, finished his speech by quoting T.S. Eliot’s “The Four Quartets.” Cohen said it was fitting that he return to Bangor where he began his public service because according to Eliot, “We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.”