[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 157 (Tuesday, November 9, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H11830-H11832]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO A.M. ROSENTHAL

  (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express our appreciation for 
the service that has been given to our country and to the world by A.M. 
Rosenthal.
  This past Friday was Mr. Rosenthal's last day at the New York Times. 
Mr. Rosenthal had a distinguished career at the New York Times 
beginning his tenure at the Times at age 21. He left his imprimatur on 
journalism and on the world through his opinion columns that exposed 
many cases of human rights violations and religious persecution.
  Mr. Rosenthal was not afraid to speak truth to tyranny. He wrote 
unabashedly and boldly for those who suffered under egregious and 
appalling situations, while others remained silent.
  Mr. Rosenthal addressed a wide spectrum of tyranny and never backed 
down. His wise words were the finest examples of speaking truth to 
abuses of power. His column spoke truth for the voiceless, freedom and 
liberty for the oppressed. His pen was truly mightier than the sword. 
Natan Sharansky, Harry Wu, Andrei Sakharov, and countless brave others 
have him to thank for stirring world opinion into forcing their 
freedom.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the following articles for the Record:

                [From the New York Times, Nov. 5, 1999]

                    Writer-Editor Ends a 55-Year Run


         A Final Column for The Times, but Don't Say Retirement

                          (By Clyde Haberman)

       After 55 years as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor 
     and columnist, A.M. Rosenthal spent his last working day at 
     The New York times yesterday packing up his memories the only 
     way he knew how: by writing about them.
       Mr. Rosenthal ended a run of nearly 13 years on the 
     newspaper's Op-Ed page with a column that appears today, 
     looking back on a career that made him one of the most 
     influential figures in American journalism in the last half 
     of this century.
       ``I've seen happier days,'' he acknowledged in an 
     interview.
       But there was one word that he said he would never use to 
     describe his new status. Don't dare to whisper 
     ``retirement,'' he said, recalling what Barbara Walters, an 
     old friend, told him a few weeks ago when it became clear 
     that his weekly column, ``On My Mind,'' was near an end.
       ``She said to me, `But Abe, you're starting fresh,' '' he 
     said, ``And I suddenly realized, of course I was. Then I 
     realized that I'm not going alone. I'm taking my head with 
     me. I'm going to stay alive intellectually.''
       Mr. Rosenthal, 77 and universally known as Abe, said he 
     intended to continue ``writing journalistically,'' though at 
     this point he had no specific plans. ``I want to remain a 
     columnist,'' he said.
       There was an unmistakable end-of-an-era feel to the 
     announcement yesterday that Mr. Rosenthal would leave a 
     newspaper that, family aside, had been his life. Indeed, 
     during his 17 years as its chief editor, until he stepped 
     down in 1986 with the title of executive editor, 
     ``Rosenthal'' and ``The Times'' were pretty much synonyms for 
     many readers--often, though not always, with their approval.
       Abraham Michael Rosenthal brought raw intelligence and 
     enormous passion to the job, qualities that were apparent 
     from his first days at The Times, as a part-time campus 
     correspondent at City College in the 1940's. The college was 
     tuition-free in those days, and a good thing, too, said Mr. 
     Rosenthal, who was born in Canada and grew up in poverty in 
     the Bronx. ``Free tuition was more than I could afford,'' he 
     said yesterday.
       After becoming a full-time reporter in 1944, he covered the 
     fledgling United Nations. Then, from 1954 to 1963, he was a 
     foreign correspondent, based in India, Poland and Japan. 
     Covering India was a personal high point. But it was in 
     Poland, whose Communist rulers expelled him in 1959, that he 
     won a Pulitzer Prize.
       It was also where he wrote an article for The New York 
     Times Magazine that, among the thousands he produced, 
     contained a passage that some quote to this day. He had been 
     to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.
       ``And so,'' he wrote, ``there is no news to report from 
     Auschwitz. There is merely the compulsion to write something 
     about it, a compulsion that grows out of a restless feeling 
     that to have visited Auschwitz and then turned away without 
     having said or written anything would be a most grievous act 
     of discourtesy to those who died there.''
       The passion in that paragraph carried into his time as 
     editor.
       On his watch, in 1971, The Times published the so-called 
     Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the Vietnam 
     War. That led to a landmark Supreme Court decision upholding 
     the primacy of the press over government attempts to impose 
     ``prior restraint'' on what it may print.
       Under Mr. Rosenthal, the once ponderous Times became a far 
     livelier paper. Major innovations were quickly copied at 
     other newspapers, notably special sections on lifestyles and 
     science that were introduced in the 1970's. But his biggest 
     accomplishment, in his view, was keeping ``the paper 
     straight,'' which meant keeping the news columns free of 
     writing that he felt stumbled into editorial judgment.
       On that score, he did not lack for critics. With his 
     passion came dark moods and a soaring temper. Mr. Rosenthal 
     made many journalists' careers. But he also undid some. Even 
     now, years after his editorship, his defenders and his 
     attackers talk about him with equal vehemence.
       Mr. Rosenthal agreed yesterday that people tended not to be 
     neutral about him. Many will be saddened by his departure 
     from The Times. ``And,'' he said, ``there'll be people 
     dancing.''
       His column on the Op-Ed page, which first appeared on Jan. 
     6, 1987, often stirred similar emotions among readers. Over 
     the years, recurring themes emerged: Israel's security needs, 
     human rights violations around the world, this country's 
     uphill war against drugs.
       He focused on those themes once more for his final column. 
     Then he turned to the mundane task of packing up mementos as 
     well as memories. Off the wall came a framed government 
     document from the 1950's attesting that the Canadian had 
     become an American. It was, he said with a cough to beat back 
     rising emotions, among his most valuable possessions.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Nov. 5, 1999]

                  A.M. Rosenthal of The New York times

       The departure of a valued colleague from The New York Times 
     is not, as a rule, occasion for editorial comment. But the 
     appearance today of A.M. Rosenthal's last column on the Op-Ed 
     page requires an exception. Mr. Rosenthal's life and that of 
     this newspaper have been braided together over a remarkable 
     span--from World War II to the turning of the millennium. His 
     talent and passionate ambition carried him on a personal 
     journey from City College correspondent to executive editor, 
     and his equally passionate devotion to quality journalism 
     made him one of the principal architects of the modern New 
     York Times.
       Abe Rosenthal began his career at The Times as a 21-year-
     old cub reporter scratching for space in the metropolitan 
     report, and he ended it as an Op-Ed page columnist noted for 
     his commitment to political and religious freedom. In between 
     he served as a correspondent at the United Nations and was 
     based in three foreign countries winning a Pulitzer Price in 
     1960 for his reporting from Poland. He came home in 1963 to 
     be metropolitan editor. In that role and in higher positions, 
     he became a tireless advocate of opening the paper to the 
     kind of vigorous writing and deep reporting that 
     characterized his own work. As managing editor and executive 
     editor, Abe Rosenthal was in charge of The Times's news 
     operations for a total of 17 years.
       Of his many contributions as an editor, two immediately 
     come to mind. One was his role in the publication of the 
     Pentagon Papers, the official documents tracing a quarter-
     century of missteps that entangled America in the Vietnam 
     War. Though hardly alone among Times editors, Mr. Rosenthal 
     was instrumental in mustering the arguments that led to the 
     decision by our then publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, to 
     publish the archive. That fateful decision helped illustrate 
     the futile duplicity of American policy in Vietnam, 
     strengthened the press's First Amendment guarantees and 
     reinforced The Times's reputation as a guardian of the public 
     interest.
       The second achievement, more institutional in nature, was 
     Mr. Rosenthal's central role in transforming The times from a 
     two-section to a four-section newspaper with the introduction 
     of a separate business section and new themed sections like 
     SportsMonday, Weekend and Science Times. Though a journalist 
     of the old school, Abe Rosenthal grasped that such features 
     were necessary to broaden the paper's universe of readers. He 
     insisted only that the writing, editing and

[[Page H11831]]

     article selection measure up to The Times's traditional 
     standards.
       By his own admission, Abe Rosenthal could be ferocious in 
     his pursuit and enforcement of those standards. Sometimes, 
     indeed, debate about his management style competed for 
     attention with his journalistic achievements. But the scale 
     of this man's editorial accomplishments has come more fully 
     into focus since he left the newsroom in 1986. It is now 
     clear that he seeded the place with talent and helped ensure 
     that future generations of Times writers and editors would 
     hew to the principles of quality journalism.
       Born in Canada, Mr. Rosenthal developed a deep love for New 
     York City and a fierce affection for the democratic values 
     and civil liberties of his adopted country. For the last 13 
     years, his lifelong interest in foreign affairs and his 
     compassion for victims of political, ethnic or religious 
     oppression in Tibet, China, Iran, Africa and Eastern Europe 
     formed the spine of his Op-Ed columns. His strong, 
     individualistic views and his bedrock journalistic 
     convictions have informed his work as reporter, editor and 
     columnist. His voice will continue to be a force on the 
     issues that engaged him. And his commitment to journalism as 
     an essential element in a democratic society will abide as 
     part of the living heritage of the newspaper he loved and 
     served for more than 55 years.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Nov. 5, 1999]

                       On My Mind: A.M. Rosenthal


                        Please Read This Column!

       On Jan. 6, 1987, when The New York Times printed my first 
     column, the headline I had written was: ``Please Read This 
     Column!'' It was not just one journalist's message of the 
     day, but every writer's prayer--come know me.
       Sometimes I wanted to use it again. But I was smitten by 
     seizures of modesty and decided twice might be a bit showy. 
     Now I have the personal and journalistic excuse to set it 
     down one more time.
       This is the last column I will write for The Times and my 
     last working day on the paper. I have no intention of 
     stopping writing, journalistically or otherwise. And I am 
     buoyed by the knowledge that I will be starting over.
       Still, who could work his entire journalistic career--so 
     far--for one paper and not leave with sadnesses, particularly 
     when the paper is The Times? Our beloved, proud New York 
     Times--ours, not mine or theirs, or yours, but ours, created 
     by the talents and endeavor of its staff, the faithfulness of 
     the publishing family and, as much as anything else, by the 
     ethics and standards of its readers and their hunger for ever 
     more information, of a range without limit.
       Arrive in a foreign capital for the first time, call a 
     government minister and give just your name. Ensues iciness. 
     But add ``of the New York Times,'' and you expect to be 
     invited right over and usually are; nice.
       ``Our proud New York Times''--sounds arrogant and is a 
     little, why not? But the pride is individual as well as 
     institutional. For members of the staff, news and business, 
     the pride is in being important to the world's best paper--
     and hear?--and being able to stretch its creative reach. And 
     there is pride knowing that even if we are not always honest 
     enough with ourselves to achieve fairness, that is what we 
     promise the readers, and the standard to which they must hold 
     us.
       I used to tell new reporters: The Times is far more 
     flexible in writing styles than you might think, so don't 
     button up your vest and go all stiff on us. But when it comes 
     to the foundation--fairness--don't fool around with it, or we 
     will come down on you.
       Journalists often have to hurt people, just by reporting 
     the facts. But they do not have to cause unnecessary cruelty, 
     to run their rings across anybody's face for the pleasure of 
     it--and that goes for critics, too.
       When you finish a story, I would say, read it, substitute 
     your name for the subject's. If you say, well, it would make 
     me miserable, make my wife cry, but it has no innuendo, no 
     unattributed pejorative remarks, no slap in the face for joy 
     of slapping, it is news, not gutter gossip, and as a reporter 
     I know the writer was fair, then give it to the copy desk. If 
     not, try again--we don't want to be your cop.
       Sometimes I have a nightmare that on a certain Wednesday--
     why Wednesday I don't know--The Times disappeared forever. I 
     wake trembling; I know this paper could never be recreated. I 
     will never tremble for the loss of any publication that has 
     no enforced ethic of fairness.
       Starting fresh--the idea frightened me. Then I realized I 
     was not going alone. I would take my brain and decades of 
     newspapering with me. And I understood many of us had done 
     that on the paper--moving from one career to another.
       First I was a stringer from City College, my most important 
     career move. It got me inside a real paper and paid real 
     money. Twelve dollars a week. at a time when City's free 
     tuition was more than I could afford.
       My second career was as a reporter in New York, with a 
     police press pass, which cops were forever telling me to 
     shove in my ear.
       I got a two-week assignment at the brand-new United 
     Nations, and stayed eight years, until got what I lusted 
     for--a foreign post.
       I served The Times in Communist Poland, for the first time 
     encountering the suffocating intellectual blanket that is 
     Communism's great weapon. In due time I was thrown out.
       But mostly it was Asia. The four years in India excited me 
     then and forever. Rosenthal, King of the Khyber Pass!
       After nine years as a foreign correspondent, somebody 
     decided I was too happy in Tokyo and nagged me into going 
     home to be an editor. At first I did not like it, but I came 
     to enjoy editing--once I became the top editor, Rosenthal, 
     King of the Hill!
       When I stepped down from that job, I started all over again 
     as a Times Op-Ed columnist, paid to express my own opinions. 
     If I had done that as a reporter or editor dealing with the 
     news, I would have broken readers' trust that the news would 
     be written and played straight.
       Straight does not mean dull. It means straight. If you 
     don't know what that means, you don't belong on this paper. 
     Clear?
       As a columnist, I discovered that there were passions in me 
     I had not been aware of, lying under the smatterings of 
     knowledge about everything that I had to collect as executive 
     editor--including hockey and debentures, for heaven's sake.
       Mostly the passions had to do with human rights, violations 
     of--like African women having their genitals mutilated to 
     keep them virgin, and Chinese and Tibetan political prisoners 
     screaming their throats raw.
       I wrote with anger at drug legitimizers and rationalizers, 
     helping make criminals and destroying young minds, all the 
     while with nauseating sanctimony.
       As a correspondent, it was the Arab states, not Israel, 
     that I wanted to cover. But they did not welcome resident 
     Jewish correspondents. As a columnist, I felt fear for the 
     whittling away of Israel strength by the Israelis, and still 
     do.
       I wrote about the persecution of Christians in China. When 
     people, in astonishment, asked why, I replied, in 
     astonishment, because it is happening, because the world, 
     including American and European Christians and Jews, pays 
     almost no attention, and that plain disgusts me.
       The lassitude about Chinese Communist brutalities is part 
     of the most nasty American reality of this past half-century. 
     Never before have the U.S. government, business and public 
     been willing, eager really, to praise and enrich tyranny, to 
     crawl before it, to endanger our martial technology--and all 
     of the hope (vain) of trade profit.
       America is going through plump times. But economic strength 
     is making us weaker in head and soul. We accept back without 
     penalty a president who demeaned himself and us. We rain 
     money on a Politburo that must rule by terror lest it lose 
     its collective head.
       I cannot promise to change all that. But I can say that I 
     will keep trying and that I thank God for (a) making me an 
     American citizen, (b) giving me that college-boy job on The 
     Times, and (c) handing me the opportunity to make other 
     columnists kick themselves when they see what I am writing, 
     in this fresh start of my life.
                                  ____



                                            Boston University,

                                     Boston, MA, January 14, 1999.
     The Pulitzer Prize Board,
     Columbia University, New York, NY.
       Dear Sirs: we respectfully nominate A.M Rosenthal for the 
     1998 Pultizer Prize for commentary, based on his columns 
     dealing with the persecution of religious minorities around 
     the world. We believe that such an award would be 
     particularly fitting, coming as it would on the 50th 
     anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
       The Rosenthal columns were the first, remain the dominate, 
     and until recently, were the singular media voices on the 
     subject of worldwide religious persecution. They were 
     instrumental in redefining the human rights agenda to include 
     the interests of religious believers in general and 
     vulnerable Christian communities in particular. They 
     energized a broad interfaith movement previously lacking in 
     knowledge about or confidence in their ability to speak up 
     for the rights of persecuted religious minorities. They built 
     bridges of trust between religious and secular human rights 
     organizations, between Tibetan Buddhist, Baha'i, Jewish, 
     Catholic, Evangelical and Mainline Protestant groups. They 
     powerfully expanded the reach of America's human rights 
     policies.
       The Rosenthal columns or religious persecution began in 
     1997, but their culminating impact occurred during this year. 
     The first and last 1998 columns, ``Feeling Clean Again'' 
     (February 6), ``Gift for Americans'' (November 27), and 
     ``Keeping the Spotlight'' (December 25), broadly validated 
     the moral and political premises of the movement against 
     religious persecution, and defined its agenda. Such 1998 
     Rosenthal columns as ``A Tour of China'' (March 13) and 
     ``Judgment of Beijing'' (July 3), forced the U.S.-China 
     summit meeting to deal with the persecution of house church 
     Christians and Tibetan Buddhists to a far greater degree than 
     either government wished. The outrage expressed by Mr. 
     Rosenthal in his May 1 column, ``Clinton's Fudge Factory,'' 
     leveraged the story of New York Times correspondent Elaine 
     Sciolino into a reshaped, reenergized political debate over 
     religious persecution legislation. See also his April 24 
     column, ``Clinton Policies Explained.'' Mr. Rosenthal's May 
     12 column, ``The Simple Question,'' framed the House debate 
     on the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act and played an 
     instrumental role in the overwhelming House vote that adopted 
     it. His August 7 and October 2 columns, ``Freedom From 
     Religious Persecution: The Struggle Continues'' and ``They 
     Will Find Out,'' played key roles in rescuing the Senate 
     version of the legislation from a demise that

[[Page H11832]]

     had been confidently predicted by the Administration and the 
     business community.
       We respectfully submit that the Rosenthal columns on 
     religious persecution merit a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary 
     if only because they broke new ground on an important 
     subject, and did so with accuracy, forcefulness and passion. 
     We also believe that related and perhaps even stronger 
     grounds exist for the award to be granted.
       First, the Rosenthal columns enhanced the institutional 
     credibility of the press with many religious believers who 
     had seen the mainline press as patronizing if not hostile. 
     They were read and cherished by millions, not only in the New 
     York Times, but also through mass recirculation in 
     denominational newsletters, religious broadcasts and actual 
     worship services. They educated many to the power and virtue 
     of a free press.
       Next, the columns played a central role in the enactment of 
     major, potentially historic legislation. As nothing else, 
     they galvanized and sustained the remarkable interfaith 
     movement that supported the legislation, and ensured 
     Congressional attentiveness to the issue. It can be 
     categorically stated: Without the Rosenthal columns, the 
     International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 would not have 
     become law.
       Finally, we believe that the Rosenthal columns legitimated 
     today's increasing coverage of anti-Christian persecutions in 
     countries like India, Pakistan and Indonesia, and generated 
     new perspectives on the coverage of countries ranging from 
     China to Egypt, from Sudan to Vietnam. Until the Rosenthal 
     columns, the notion of Christians as victims rather than 
     victimizers didn't seem quite plausible to many editors and 
     reporters. The fact that it now does is a powerful tribute to 
     what the columns have done.
       Seldom in our experience has a single voice been so 
     instrumental in raising public consciousness on an issue of 
     such major importance. The passion and integrity of the 
     Rosenthal columns on religious persecution have transformed 
     American policies and institutions, and religious liberty 
     throughout the world. American journalism has long been 
     honored by Mr. Rosenthal's work, but never more so than by 
     his pathbreaking columns on a subject that he, often alone, 
     moved a nation to care about and to act.
           Very truly yours,
         Elie Wiesel, Virgil C. Dechant, Rabbi Norman Lamm, John 
           Cardinal O'Connor, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, R. Lamar 
           Vest, Wei Jingsheng, William Bennett, Lodi G. Gyari, 
           Bette Bao Lord, Paige Patterson, James M. Stanton, 
           Commissioner Robert A. Watson.

  We thank him for his commitment to the people.

                          ____________________