[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 99 (Tuesday, July 17, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S7799]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      THE LIFE AND EXTRAORDINARY CONTRIBUTIONS OF KATHARINE GRAHAM

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in expressing my 
great admiration for Katharine Graham and my profound sadness on her 
passing.
  I also convey my regrets to Mrs. Graham's family and friends. Our 
thoughts and prayers are with them on this very sad day.
  America lost a legend this afternoon.
  Katharine Meyer Graham was a woman of great dignity, intelligence, 
and wit. She was a pioneer. She was a patriot who believed deeply in 
the strength of our democracy, and in the indispensability of a free 
press in preserving this democracy.
  Much has been made of Mrs. Graham's gender--and rightly so. No woman 
has ever achieved what she achieved in journalism, and her 
accomplishments helped change people's perceptions about the role women 
could play in journalism, in business, and in the world. But Katharine 
Graham needs no modifiers.
  She was not simply one of the best woman newspaper publishers in the 
country; she was one of the best newspaper publishers America has ever 
seen--period.
  Katharine Graham was a 46-year-old widowed mother of four when she 
took over as president of the Washington Post in 1963.
  At the time, the Post was one of three daily papers in Washington and 
not even the best or most widely read of the bunch.
  A decade later, largely because of the courage and the extraordinary 
talent of Katharine Graham and editor Ben Bradlee, the Post was not 
only indisputably the best newspaper in Washington; it was one of the 
best newspapers in the world.
  In June 1971, with Katharine Graham's backing, the Washington Post 
joined the New York Times in fighting a court order banning publication 
of the so-called Pentagon Papers.
  Thirty years later, the Supreme Court decision overturning that 
injunction remains one of the most important decisions in first 
amendment law.
  One year later, in June 1972--again with Katharine Graham's 
blessing--the Post began its coverage of the Watergate break-in and 
cover-up. She never wavered in her support of her reporters and their 
quest for the truth.
  Mrs. Graham was modest about her professional achievements. She once 
said of her paper's Watergate coverage:

       The best we could do was to keep investigating . . . to 
     look everywhere for hard evidence . . . to get the details 
     rights . . . and to report accurately what we found.

  She made it sound almost like a routine story. It was, of course, 
anything but routine.
  It led eventually to the resignation of a President of the United 
States, and it earned the Post the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
  Over the next nearly three decades, there would be many other awards 
and accolades for Katharine Graham, including a Pulitzer of her own--
the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for her 1998 autobiography, ``Personal 
History.''
  We are so fortunate that in what would be the last years of her life, 
she took the time to sit down and write an incredible story that had 
largely gone untold--her story.
  In recalling her sudden ascendancy as president of the Post, she 
remarked:

       What I essentially did was to put one foot in front of the 
     other, shut my eyes and step off the ledge. The surprise was 
     that I landed on my feet.

  For those who knew her, for those who loved her, and for those of us 
who were simply lucky enough to have met her and seen her work, 
Katharine Graham's success seems no surprise at all. She was a woman of 
remarkable insight and remarkable strength.
  My deepest sympathies go out to her children, Donald, Lally, William, 
and Stephen, her many grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren.
  Our Nation's Capital will not be the same without her and neither 
will American journalism.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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