[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 59 (Wednesday, April 22, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E923-E924]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IN TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL STERN

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 22, 2009

  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Michael Stern, 
an extraordinary man who passed away on April 7, 2009 at the age of 98 
He was a journalist, author, genius and visionary, and I was deeply 
fortunate to count him as a friend.
  In 1978, he joined with his good friend Zachary Fisher, to save the 
aircraft carrier Intrepid from mothballs and use it as the base for an 
extraordinary museum situated in Pier 86 on the West Side of Manhattan. 
Since it opened its doors in 1982, the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum 
has served more than 10 million visitors. Mr. Stern knew that the 
Intrepid was one of the most successful ships in U.S. history, and that 
it would be a fitting monument to the herorism of our nation's 
military.
  Commissioned during World War II, the Intrepid served in the Pacific 
Theater, survived five kamikaze attacks and one torpedoing. In its year 
and a half of active duty, Intrepid's aircraft had destroyed 301 
Japanese airplanes and helped sink 122 enemy ships, including shared 
credit for the super-battleships Yamoto and Musashashi. The ship went 
on to serve as one of the primary recovery vessels for NASA, did three 
tours of duty off Vietnam, and assisted submarine surveillance in the 
North Atlantic during the Cold War.
  Together, Mr. Stern and Mr. Fisher also created the Fisher Center for 
Alzheimer's Research Foundation at Rockefeller University and Fisher 
Houses, a program to build houses for families of hospitalized military 
personnel to stay near to their loved ones while they are receiving 
treatment. After Mr. Fisher's death, Mr. Stern started the Michael 
Stern Parkinson's Research Foundation. I serve on the Board of Trustees 
of both research foundations and know that they support vital research 
to find cures for these devastating neurological diseases. Scientists 
tell us that the two diseases may have a common cause and, therefore, a 
common cure. Mr. Stern hoped the work he supported would eventually 
lead to that cure.
  Mr. Stern joined the United States Army in 1943 as a war 
correspondent for Fawcett Publications and the North American Newspaper

[[Page E924]]

Alliance. He was first shipped out to Algeria, and later traveled with 
American forces through Sicily and up the boot of Italy. He arrived in 
Rome just one day ahead of U.S. troops. As a young journalist from 
Brooklyn, he writes of feeling slightly provincial in the face of 
Rome's cosmopolitan ethos and rich historical past. Nonetheless, he 
relates that the city inspired him, thrilled him, made him become more 
worldly and knowledgable. He made it his home for the next 50 years.
  In the foreward to Mr. Stern's book, An American in Rome, Robert 
Ruark creates a vivid portrait of him as a journalist in Italy: 
``Michael Stern is a myth. He never really existed outside a 
scriptwriter's imagination. He dug up and lived with the most famous 
outlaw of our time when ten thousand Italian police couldn't locate 
Salvatore Giuliano. He wrote the definitive pieces on such unlikely 
people as Lucky Luciano, Virginia Hill, Dorothy DiFrasso, Geroge 
Dawson, Freddie McEvoy, Roberto Rossellini, Vincenzo Moscatello and 
Calouste Sarkis Gubenkian. . . . The reason a lot of people hate Mike 
Stern's guts is that he is a writer of harsh truth. . . . Don't get me 
wrong. Mike's an operator. He's an arranger, a dealer, and if 
necessary, a law unto himself. He does not play to lose. If he were a 
baseball player, he'd dust off his mother to protect his earned run 
average, and if he were a boxer he would unhesitatingly club you in the 
neck to win. . . . I have seen people stop by his table in a Roman 
caffe and say: ``You son of a bitch, I'll kill you for what you wrote 
about me.'' Mike doesn't even bother to scowl. So many people have been 
threatening to kill him for years that one more is only a bore. This is 
a tough boy, and he writes tough prose. I wish to Christ we had more 
like him in a soppy, soggy world of cotton-wooled halftruths.''
  Before becoming a war correspondent, Mr. Stern wrote for True Crime 
magazine and other publication, sometimes using his own name, sometimes 
employing a pseudonym. Later, he authored or co-authored a number of 
books, including Flight From Terror, Into the Jaws of Death, No 
Innocence Abroad and An American in Rome.
  In 1934, Mr. Stern married Estelle Goldstein, who died in 1995. In 
addition to his daughter, Margaret, of Manhattan, he is survived by a 
son, Michael Jr., of Juno Beach, Fla., and a granddaughter.
  Madam Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me in paying respects to 
Michael Stern, a true American hero whose work has educated, inspired 
and benefitted generations of Americans.

                          ____________________