[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 15, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S742]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    REMEMBERING SAADALLA MOHAMED ALY

 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to take a moment today to 
mark the quiet passage of a Washington institution a gentle and elegant 
man named Saadalla Mohamed Aly, but who was known to most of us simply 
as ``Mr. Aly.''
  Few Americans outside of Washington have heard of ``Mr. Aly,'' and 
Mr. Aly was just fine with that--but for 35 years he was a very 
welcomed sight to everyone and anyone who appeared on ``Meet the 
Press'' and spent time in what was very much ``his'' Green Room.
  From 1976 until his death last month at age 79, Mr. Aly was a proud 
fixture off-camera at America's longest-running news program. He was 
the tuxedoed figure who greeted the guests, and implored them and their 
staffs to dig into coffee or orange juice before the show--and to stay 
for the post-show meal afterwards. He was the quiet, supportive 
presence who always put you at ease before the grilling interviews and 
roundtable discussions began. And he was a kind man who--in gestures 
large and small--harkened back to a time when Washington was more 
civil, back to an era when people here in Washington really took the 
time to know each other.
  In the 22 years that I knew him, from my very first appearance on the 
show as a very junior Senator in 1988, to the cold winter morning in 
December of 2002 when I went on with Tim Russert to announce for 
President, I never once asked Mr. Aly his political affiliation. He was 
just a gentle soul in a tuxedo who was unfailingly kind to all the 
guests, Democrat or Republican.
  But I will never forget how he greeted me when I came back to the 
show in January of 2005 after I lost. When I arrived at the studio, 
with the snow falling, Mr. Aly was waiting at the front door, and the 
first thing he did was give me a great big hug. He asked my staff how I 
was doing. I still don't know whether he cast a vote in that election, 
but I do know that I was lucky to have a friend like Mr. Aly, who in 
his quiet, considerate way voted with his actions, not his words.
  Like many of us, I learned in the Washington Post that Mr. Aly passed 
away in December after contracting pneumonia on a trip to his native 
Egypt. It is fitting that his daughter Dalia arranged for his burial in 
Washington, because Washington is the place he loved. And Washington is 
the city that came to love him.
  These are years which have seen us lose some special friends at 
``Meet the Press,'' starting of course with Tim Russert. But if Tim was 
the soul of ``Meet the Press,'' Mr. Aly was its heart. Through all 
these years, as Tim said, if it was Sunday, it was ``Meet the Press.'' 
And if it was ``Meet the Press,'' it was a warm and friendly greeting 
from a true gentlemen, ``Mr. Aly.'' Mr. President, I will miss 
him.

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