[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 27, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S6987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        DEATH OF ROBERT McKINNEY

 Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, earlier today I sent a letter to 
the oldest daily newspaper in the West, ``The New Mexican'' regarding 
the death of its publisher, Robert McKinney.
  Robert McKinney was well known to the Senate. His decades of service 
to this country, in one capacity or another, and his remarkable career 
in business and publishing brought him into contact with many of us, 
and with colleagues who have preceded us in this body. He and Clinton 
Anderson, late a Senator for New Mexico, were great friends, and worked 
together on the San Juan-Chama water project for our State.
  Five presidents called on him for service from Harry Truman through 
Richard Nixon. He put his prodigious skills to work at various times at 
the Department of the Interior, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the 
Department of the Treasury. Under President Kennedy, he served as our 
Ambassador to Switzerland.
  He was a fine citizen, and a good friend who will be missed, but 
whose influence, I know, is ``a widening ripple, down a long 
eternity.'' The world is a better place for his having lived.
  I ask that my letter be printed in the Record.
  The letter follows:

              Letter to the Editor of ``The New Mexican''

       To the Editor: With so many others, I was saddened earlier 
     this week when word came of the death of Robert McKinney 
     whose American life made him one of the world's distinguished 
     citizens. When he died in New York on Sunday night, this man 
     of the American West had forged great successes in business, 
     journalism, international diplomacy, public service and 
     public policy in the course of his ninety years. His was the 
     ``life well lived'' and much of it was lived in New Mexico 
     where he was the deeply respected publisher of this 
     newspaper.
       He was a singular individual with a wide-ranging mind, vast 
     talents, and varied interests. He brought his considerable 
     energy to bear on issues from architecture to atomic energy, 
     war to peace, land use to poetry. He was most certainly a 
     force for good in this world. I was honored to have the 
     benefit of his counsel and the gift his friendship. I will 
     miss him.
                                                    Jeff Bingaman,
     United States Senator.

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