[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 52 (Monday, April 22, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3790-S3792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      KATHRYN HOFFMAN AND GAIL DOBERT--LIVES OF PROMISE CUT SHORT

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the tragic plane crash in Croatia on 
April 3 that took the life of Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown also took 
the lives of 34 other men and women of great talent, promise, and 
dedication, including 11 other employees of the Department of Commerce.
  Since that tragedy, many eloquent words have been spoken and written 
about all of the victims. In two of the most eloquent articles I have 
seen. Michael Wilbon wrote extremely movingly in the Washington Post on 
April 5 about his friend Kathryn Hoffman, and Cindy Loose wrote equally 
movingly in the Post yesterday about the

[[Page S3791]]

life of Gail Dobert. Sadly, these two lives of great promise have been 
suddenly and tragically cut short. I know that many others will be 
interested to learn more about the lives of these two dedicated 
employees, and I ask unanimous consent that the articles be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the article were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, Apr. 5, 1996]

                   The Death of My Friend Is Our Loss

                          (By Michael Wilbon)

       One of my dearest friends, Kathryn Hoffman, was on that 
     plane. I have no idea of her official Commerce Department 
     title, but I do know she was Ron Brown's right hand, his 
     scheduler. When he went to Africa, she went with him. When he 
     went to Asia, she went with him. I have her postcards from 
     South America and Eastern Europe and other corners of the 
     world in a kitchen drawer.
       Kathryn was the girl you dreamed about meeting as a little 
     boy: stunningly pretty, smart, quick with a comeback, and a 
     sports enthusiast. Okay, she wasn't perfect; she was a Knicks 
     fan. But Boys Night Out often was amended to Boys & Kathryn. 
     Never Kathy. Kathryn. I called her from the 1988 Summer 
     Olympics in Seoul and made her give me play-by-play on the 
     fourth quarter of a Bears game, and she was seamless. Another 
     time we drove from Chicago to Capital Centre in 10 hours, 
     just in time to see Tyson knock out Spinks in the first round 
     on closed circuit. She used to say I had the greatest, most 
     glamorous job--traveling the world in search of games, but 
     last week there was this late-night phone call. I was going 
     to the Final Four; she was going to France, then Bosnia. I 
     told her I couldn't believe a basketball fan such as Ron 
     Brown was leaving during the Final Four, and she laughed.
       She had taken her dogs, Max and Bo, to Fredericksburg to 
     the breeder where they stay when she's traveling. She had a 
     house now and a four-wheel drive vehicle and a garden, for 
     crying out loud, and I couldn't help but ask if finally, 
     having seen the entire world and then some, if she still 
     thought this life of hopping planes was so glamorous. And 
     she said, no, not anymore, but there are people who love 
     their work and are addicted to excitement in a way no desk 
     job can satisfy. It's the truth. We made the promise we 
     always made about getting more balance in our lives, about 
     traveling less. We planned dinner for Saturday--tomorrow 
     night.
       Most of us who live our lives this way don't think about 
     dying on a plane, not when you're single and 35 has yet to 
     come and the career--in Kathryn's case, public service--keeps 
     you on a high. You get on the plane and read, work, go to 
     sleep. It becomes, perversely enough, the place you can 
     relax. I never, not for one split second, thought a U.S. 
     military jet would fail to bring her back alive.
       Four of my closest friends have worked for Ron Brown at 
     Commerce, which made the moments immediately following the 
     news of the crash, well, numbing. Through them, I got to 
     know. ``The Secretary'' (as they'd call him) a little bit and 
     to admire him a lot. His death, and the recent deaths of 
     Arthur Ashe and entrepreneur Reginald Lewis, depress me to 
     the point of despair, not just because inspired and 
     productive men were snatched from earth in the primes of 
     their lives, but because they were the hedge against 
     hopelessness. They were the healers, the men who could 
     negotiate any situation--men who looked at bigots and fools 
     and laughed inside while brushing them aside. It's sick, 
     debating whether Michael Irvin or Mike Tyson is a role 
     model when Ron Brown was on TV every night, dressed up, 
     looking good, sounding even better, jetting hither and 
     yon, networking with world leaders and businessmen to do 
     work that mattered, helping save the Democratic Party from 
     itself, being a patriot. No, you couldn't find him on 
     ``SportsCenter,'' and he didn't have stats or a trading 
     card, but he was a role model. He defined it.
       I wonder, in the wake of his death, how many Division I 
     scholarship football and basketball players (outside of 
     Washington) can tell you what Ron Brown did for a living, why 
     he needed to go to Dubrovnik and why his death has caused so 
     much anguish among people who never met him. No Ashe, no 
     Lewis, no Brown. Sports, business and government. Are there 
     people in the ranks like them? Can we be certain the 
     intellect and relentless work they provided will be 
     replenished in the near future? Perhaps the worst thing about 
     the crash is that it deprived us not only of the general, but 
     of his lieutenants such as Carol Hamilton and Bill Morton and 
     Kathryn Hoffman, people who had made public service their 
     lives, their passion. We have to hope there's no shortage of 
     worthy candidates to take up their missions.
       This was to be a festive weekend, and not just because of 
     Easter. For the first time since last August, just about all 
     the members of the crew going to be off the road, off the 
     planes and out of the hotels. Many of us made plans here in 
     Washington. Age 35, which Kathryn would have been in August, 
     is about the time you start to realize life isn't 
     everlasting, when you become more serious and consistent 
     about those silent prayers for your friends in flight, when 
     it first hits you that just because you planned dinner 
     doesn't mean everybody's going to be there.
       I joined a couple of my friends from Commerce late last 
     night because sleep wasn't coming, and misery needs company 
     most when nobody's got any answers. I tried to think of all 
     the safe, productive trips abroad that Kathryn made with The 
     Secretary, all the trade and business their missions helped 
     generate, all the goodwill their junkets created for the 
     country. But the head is never any match for the heart, and 
     that didn't change last night. What I wanted was another 
     postcard in the mailbox, one from Singapore or Venezuela that 
     let me know she was safe, one signed, like so many others, 
     ``Be home soon, Love, Kathryn.''
                                                                    ____


               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 15, 1996]

                            (By Cindy Loose)

  After Funeral, a Celebration of a Rich Life--Birthday Party Becomes 
                       Tribute to Croatia Victim

       Gail Dobert was always up to something. She was the one to 
     organize the beach house rental at Rehoboth Beach, Del., 
     every summer, inviting so many people that you never got your 
     own room--and felt lucky if you got a bed.
       She could get tickets to anything and persuade her friends 
     to go anywhere, even a business dinner. ``I have to go talk 
     to a Bonsai tree woman,'' she once told her friend Krista 
     Pages. ``Come on, you'll have a great time.'' Believe it or 
     not, it turned out to be fun, Pages said.
       If she could have been at her 35th birthday party, which 
     she organized before leaving for Bosnia with Commerce 
     Secretary Ronald H. Brown, she would have loved it.
       The barbecue and keg party took place Saturday, just as she 
     had planned, a few hours after her burial in a Maryland 
     cemetery. Dobert, the acting director of the Commerce 
     Department's Office of Business Liaison, was among the 35 
     people who died when Brown's airplane crashed into a Croatian 
     hillside. Like her, several of the victims were young and 
     most were in the middle ranks of government service.
       Her friends and family memorialized her in all the 
     traditional ways. On Friday, the anniversary of her birth, a 
     funeral was held in her home town on Long Island. On Saturday 
     morning, hundreds gathered at St. Peter's Church on Capitol 
     Hill to eulogize her, then followed the hearse for a 
     graveside service.
       It might seem strange to follow that with a party, conceded 
     her friend Chris Wilson. But if you knew Gail Dobert, he 
     said, it would not seem that extraordinary. She was, he 
     explained, a festive, life-loving person who would have 
     wanted her family and friends--well in excess of 100, it 
     turned out--to hold the party she had planned for them.
       Besides, they couldn't just all go home alone. What else, 
     then, could they do? ``This party has got to be the beginning 
     of getting better--her death has been so hard, it just has to 
     be,'' Wilson said.
       Despite working grueling hours at the Commerce Department, 
     Dobert was always the life of the party. If anyone could 
     persuade a shy person to sing along at a karaoke bar, belting 
     out, ``These boots were made for walking,'' it would be 
     Dobert.
       ``There is so much to celebrate about Gail's life and so 
     many fun things to remember,'' Pages said. ``For her to live 
     on, you have to talk about the good times.''
       So there they were, eating and drinking and sharing 
     pictures in the Alexandria home and back yard of Chip 
     Gardiner, a congressional aide.
       ``This is such a tribute these young people are paying our 
     Gail,'' said Dobert's mother, Maureen. ``When people think of 
     Washington, they think of a huge bureaucracy. I wish they 
     knew how many idealistic, hard-working young people there 
     are. The politics in the halls of Congress may be the engine, 
     but the train is run by them.''
       ``She made us very proud,'' said Dobert's father, Ken. ``We 
     always said that if parents got paid, we'd have to take half 
     pay because she and her brother made our job so easy.'' 
     Dobert's brother, Ray, turned 33 the day of his sister's 
     burial. There was a cake for him at her birthday party, just 
     as she had intended.
       Small groups at various times surrounded photo albums, 
     laughing. ``There's the famous raincoat,'' someone said, 
     pointing at a photo snapped at a wedding reception as the 
     band played ``It's Raining Men.'' No one was dancing until 
     Dobert decided to enliven things by hopping on the dance 
     floor with a tambourine and the bright pink and iridescent 
     yellow coat.
       Eileen Parise had a picture from the time she got Dobert 
     and two other friends tickets to the Baltimore reception Vice 
     President Gore gave in honor of Pope John Paul II. As 
     happened not infrequently, Dobert's battered car broke down, 
     this time on Route 50 near the Baltimore airport.
       ``The other people in the car were praying and saying Hail 
     Marys,'' Parise said. ``Gail starts schmoozing the state 
     trooper that came by. He not only had the car towed but then 
     drove everyone to the reception.''
       From inside, someone shouted, ``Here's Gail,'' and about a 
     dozen people, expecting to see a vacation videotape from 
     Rehobeth, ran inside. Instead, it turned out to be the 
     evening news, with a snippet of Dobert's memorial service 
     that day. The clip went by quickly, segueing into another 
     memorial for another crash victim. There was pained silence. 
     Then someone moved to turn off the television, and another 
     guest arrived.
       ``We brought a semi-good bottle of wine,'' the new guest 
     told Gardiner.
       ``You can drop the semi--it's full isn't it?'' Wilson 
     asked. ``Hey, it even has a cork.''

[[Page S3792]]

       The celebration and jocularity were real, but so were the 
     moments of pain expressed on every face at some point. 
     Maureen Dobert sang along when a birthday cake was brought 
     out for her son and another guest with an April 13 birthday. 
     But she confided that she was using her public face. The 
     private one, she said, gives into grief sometimes.
       ``You know, one day they go to kindergarten, and you have 
     to let them go,'' she said. ``Then they want to ride their 
     bike around the corner, and you tell them to be careful and 
     let them go. Before you know it, they're adults and you say, 
     okay, I'm going to let them go.
       ``But this is the hardest letting go you ever have to do. I 
     wanted her longer, but it's not going to work. It's the 
     hardest letting go, but somehow you have to do it.''

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