[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 158 (Monday, December 12, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S13447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S13447]]
                          HONORING HUGH SIDEY

 Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, on November 21, America lost a great 
journalist and a wonderful human being when Hugh Sidey passed away at 
the age of 78. Hugh Sidey was a man I admired and read for many, many 
years. He was an observer of the world and a preeminent chronicler of 
our times. It was one of the great joys of my life that since coming to 
the Senate 9 years ago, I had the opportunity, from time to time, to 
sit-down with Hugh Sidey and get his sense of the world. He understood 
the intricacies of politics and policy but, more than that, he 
understood the human dynamic of our business. He understood people.
  Hugh Sidey approached the world with a Midwestern sensibility and a 
simple decency. Raised in a newspaper family in Greenfield, IA, he 
learned his craft at the Omaha World-Herald among other stops early in 
his career. At Time Magazine he covered every American President from 
Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush. He understood politics and the 
presidency because he understood America. In a 1979 Time Magazine 
Presidency column, Hugh Sidey said this about our political system:

       Politics, when all is said and done, is a business of 
     belief and enthusiasm. Hope energizes, doubt destroys. 
     Hopelessness is not our heritage.

  That observation hangs on the wall of my Senate office. In three 
simple sentences, Hugh Sidey summed up what is good about our country 
and what American politics can be at its best.
  President Gerald Ford paid an eloquent tribute to the life and legacy 
of Hugh Sidey in a November 26th Washington Post op-ed. Mr. President, 
I submit President Ford's tribute to this great American for the 
Congressional Record. America will miss Hugh Sidey.
  The tribute follows.

               [From the Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2005]

              The Friendship, and Toughness, of Hugh Sidey

                          (By Gerald R. Ford)

       It wasn't supposed to be this way. Like most men my age, I 
     have given a thought or two to my funeral. As a former 
     president, I'm almost required to, since the military 
     periodically updates its plans, and each presidential family 
     is solicited for personal touches. Among these is a choice of 
     eulogists. Thus it was, a few months ago, that I called Hugh 
     Sidey.
       We'd known each other forever, Hugh coming to Washington 
     just a few years after the voters of Michigan's 5th 
     Congressional District sent me there. Maybe it was our shared 
     Midwestern background, his transparent decency or the tough 
     but fair coverage he accorded me and nine other American 
     presidents; in any event, I had always regarded Hugh as a 
     friend. So I asked him if he would do me the honor of 
     speaking at Washington's National Cathedral when the time 
     came.
       I did so in part for symbolic reasons. I like reporters, 
     even if I haven't always liked what some wrote about me. I 
     figure that's a pretty minor price to pay for a free press in 
     a free society. But I also hoped to remind people in our 
     often overheated era that it is possible for a politician and 
     a journalist to enjoy mutual respect, admiration and, yes, 
     friendship, all the while understanding the necessarily 
     adversarial relationship that often exists between those in 
     power and those who report on their activities.
       Hugh Sidey died this week at the age of 78. Anyone who read 
     him knew America's presidents. Anyone who knew him knew 
     America. In a very real sense, he never left Greenfield, 
     Iowa, where four generations of Sideys practiced journalism 
     with integrity and the perspective that laughter uniquely 
     supplies. ``A sense of humor . . . is needed armor,'' he once 
     wrote of the presidency. ``Joy in one's heart and some 
     laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep 
     has a pretty good grasp on life.''
       Hugh had a sure grasp of life. An insider who never forgot 
     those on the outside, he was warm and wise about Washington 
     and its rituals. He appreciated Woodrow Wilson's observation 
     that men who arrive in our nation's capital--presidents 
     included--have a tendency to either grow or swell. But he was 
     incapable of cynicism. Hugh scored more than, his share of 
     scoops, but along with the ability to pierce official secrecy 
     went an empathy that enabled him to see the White House and 
     its occupants first and always as very human beings.
       Whether reporting of the U-2 crisis, the Missiles of 
     October or the 22nd of November; Vietnam or Watergate; 
     Richard Nixon's opening to China, or Jimmy Carter's high-risk 
     diplomacy at Camp David; Ronald Reagan's years of renewal; 
     the tumult of the '90s followed by the shattering events of 
     Sept. 11--Hugh put readers at the center of events. At the 
     same time, he made it possible for millions who might never 
     visit the White House to experience it, in good and not so 
     good times, through a President's eyes and ears.
       Over the years he became something of a Washington 
     institution himself, seemingly as much a part of the 
     presidency as Air Force One or Camp David. Yet he never 
     behaved like an institution, and I suspect he never stopped 
     pinching himself over his extraordinary good fortune.
       For his friends, and they are legion, the good fortune was 
     to know and learn from and simply enjoy Hugh's company. Now 
     he is forever part of the old house whose history he brought 
     to life. Hugh not only explained Washington to the rest of 
     America; by being the kind of person, he was, no less than by 
     setting the highest of journalistic standards, Hugh Sidey 
     also embodied the best of America in Washington.

                          ____________________