[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 22 (Wednesday, February 26, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S1684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO SIDNEY W. DEAN

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Sidney W. Dean was a man devoted 
at once to the public and to the private. Before he passed away last 
month at the age of 91, he had worked for 41 years toward the cause of 
good government in New York, while at the same time becoming one of the 
city's strongest advocates of free speech and the right to privacy.
  He will doubtless be remembered as longtime trustee, president, and 
chairman of the City Club of New York, but perhaps as much so as an 
advocate of using the emerging technology of cable television as a way 
for those who are poor and ignored to be seen--and heard.
  Long before most others, he saw the potential power of television 
pressing the city to require cable companies to provide public access 
channels. He met with some success, though perhaps not exactly what he 
had envisioned. Few things turn out that way.
  His devotion to free speech was instilled in him by his father, a 
newspaper editor. A member of the American Civil Liberties Union and 
Americans for Democratic Action, he took up the cause, helping to keep 
New York what it has always been: the center of the world of ideas and 
the free exchange of information.
  I ask that the full text of the New York Times obituary of February 3 
be included in the Record.
  The obituary follows:

                [From the New York Times, Feb. 3, 1997]

      Sidney W. Dean Is Dead at 91; Served as Trustee of City Club

                        (By David Cay Johnston)

       Sidney W. Dean Jr., a longtime trustee of the City Club of 
     New York and a strong advocate of free speech who fought for 
     years to make cable television a positive force for the city, 
     died on Jan. 24 at his Greenwich Village apartment.
       He was 91 and died after suffering a stroke, his wife, 
     Eugenia, said.
       Mr. Dean was an advertising and marketing executive who in 
     1952 became a trustee of the City Club of New York, the 
     city's oldest good-government organization. For the next 41 
     years he used his roles as trustee, president and chairman of 
     the City Club, as well as volunteer positions with the 
     American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Democratic 
     Action, to argue for municipal policies favoring free speech.
       ``He was on the forefront of telling us about the privacy 
     and First Amendment issues and teaching us about 
     communications and communications technologies,'' said Amy 
     Isacs, national president of Americans for Democratic Action.
       In 1970, when cable television franchises were first being 
     proposed for New York City, Mr. Dean began pressing the city 
     to require numerous public access channels and to prevent 
     cable operators from having any financial interest in 
     programs or channels they carry.
       ``So long as cable systems can control their content they 
     will attempt to deny market access to all other producers and 
     distributors of print and electronic communications,'' Mr. 
     Dean wrote in a 1973 letter to The New York Times. Such 
     issues persist today as Rupert Murdoch tries to get his new 
     24-hour news channel onto the cable system operated by Time 
     Warner, his rival in the news and entertainment business and 
     the owner of CNN.
       Today Time Warner owns many of the channels on its system 
     and so does Cablevision, the other cable franchise holder in 
     the city.
       In 1980 Mr. Dean criticized the city's process for awarding 
     cable television franchises as a ``blind man's bluff-
     purchasing agent act'' in which the city was ``settling for 
     too little from the cable companies.'' He said that nothing 
     in the city's franchise award plans ``holds out any hope of 
     cable reaching out to the poor, ghettoized and handicapped.'' 
     Today, fewer than half the households in the city subscribe.
       During the debates over awarding cable franchises, Mr. Dean 
     was once invited to a private meeting of city officials and 
     representatives of the franchise seekers, but declined. ``I 
     will never go into a backroom discussion,'' he told Sally 
     Goodgold, another City Club trustee.
       Mr. Dean was the son of a Boston newspaper editor who 
     constantly preached the First Amendment's virtues to his son.
       After graduating from Yale University in 1926, Mr. Dean 
     joined J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency, and later 
     worked with other marketing companies.
       During World War II, as an Army Air Force officer, he 
     analyzed photographs of bomb damage. He volunteered to fly on 
     some bombing runs because he felt it would make his analysis 
     more accurate, his friend Peter Stanford said.
       Mr. Dean is survived by his wife and a son, Ronald Stowe, 
     who lives in the Philippines.

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