[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14221-14222]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      TRIBUTE TO KATHARINE GRAHAM

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a 
wonderful American, an absolute giant in the field of journalism, and 
someone who broke through barriers for women all across this country, 
Washington Post publisher Katharine Meyer Graham.
  There is little that has not been said over the last few days about 
Kay Graham and the remarkable life she led as a citizen of the Nation's 
Capital and the world. Although she was born into a well-off family and 
attended exclusive schools, Kay Graham did not retreat into a world of 
privilege and leisure. After graduating from the University of Chicago 
in 1938, she worked as a reporter for the San Francisco News. Not able 
to stay away from Washington for long, she returned the following year 
and took a job in the editorial and circulation departments of the 
Washington Post.
  Kay Graham then began the next phase of her life, marrying Philip 
Graham who had clerked in the Supreme Court. Soon after their marriage, 
Phil Graham joined the Army Air Corps and Katherine followed him to 
military posts in South Dakota and Pennsylvania. A devoted wife and 
mother, she dedicated the next 20 years to her family as she brought up 
her four children: Lally, Donald, William, and Stephen.
  Tragedy thrust Kay Graham into a role she never envisioned for 
herself. After the death of her husband in August of 1963, she took 
over the helm of the Washington Post and then proceeded to build the 
company into one of the finest news organizations and businesses in our 
country. When she took over as president of the Post, it was still a 
relatively small organization consisting of the newspaper, Newsweek 
magazine, and two television stations. It was Kay Graham and her 
associates who built the company into the publishing giant it is today. 
By emphasizing both scrupulous news reporting and attention to the 
bottom line, she was able to attract advertisers, investors, and 
readers alike, all while adhering to the highest journalistic 
standards. Kay Graham built the Washington Post into a Fortune 500 
company and she was the first woman to lead a Fortune 500 enterprise.
  Despite, or perhaps because of, her dedication to the family 
business, Kay Graham was willing to risk it all in pursuit of a news 
story that needed to be told. Many have spoken of the courageous 
editorial decisions she made when the Washington Post published the 
Pentagon Papers, and later when it led the investigation into the 
Watergate break-in. In both cases, Kay Graham bravely stood up to 
pressure and, indeed, intimidation from the highest levels of 
Government, risking in a sense her livelihood to ensure that the public 
learned the truth.
  It is sometimes now difficult, being beyond that period, to 
appreciate the import and significance of those decisions. But at the 
time, her decision to pursue those critical stories was filled with 
peril, and she set an example for the country by coming through that 
difficult period like the true champion she was.
  Kay Graham was an irreplaceable participant in the Washington 
community and on the world stage. She formed close friendships with 
political leaders on both sides of the aisle, with business leaders, 
with world dignitaries. Many of us had the privilege, on occasion, to 
discuss complicated and complex policy issues with Kay Graham, and we 
deeply appreciated her keen intellect and her thoughtful insights into 
the problems of the day. And throughout her life, she maintained a 
grace and sense of humor that endeared her to all that had the 
privilege of knowing Katherine Graham. She will be missed, not only as 
a reporter of the news but also as someone who truly contributed to the 
dialog of world affairs.
  In 1991, she stepped down as chief executive of the Washington Post, 
and in 1993 resigned her position as chair. Yet even ``in retirement'' 
she remained an active member of the Post's board of directors, 
chairing its executive committee and maintaining an office at the 
Washington Post until her death last week. She also found time during 
this period to write her memoirs, an exceedingly moving story entitled 
``Personal History,'' which won the Pulitzer prize for biography in 
1998.
  The achievements of Kay Graham were tremendous and her dedicated 
service to the Washington Post, to our Capital City, and to our Nation, 
are great indeed. She will be sorely missed by all of us. She kept us 
informed, led our community, shared her wisdom, and was our friend.
  I extend my deepest sympathies to her family and her many devoted 
colleagues at the Washington Post.
  Mr. President, I have an editorial which appeared in the Baltimore 
Sun about Kay Graham entitled ``Industry Titan, Publishers courage and 
judgment made one newspaper great, others stronger.'' It is a wonderful 
tribute, as it is from a peer. I ask unanimous consent that it be 
printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I close with this thought. It is 
indicative of her wonderful accomplishments with respect to the 
Washington Post that one can say, as I say now with confidence, that 
the Post will continue to be a great newspaper. Kay Graham 
institutionalized the Washington Post as a great organ for truth and 
for responsible journalism. As one thinks back on her legacy, perhaps 
one of its most significant aspects is that we can look forward in the 
expectation that the newspaper she built will continue to be one of the 
world's great newspapers because of the standards she established and 
the legacy she has left.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                [From the Baltimore Sun, July 18, 2001]

                          Katharine M. Graham

       Industry titan: Publisher's courage and judgment made one 
     newspaper great, others stronger
       U.S. newspapers are better and stronger because of what 
     Katharine M. Graham did at the Washington Post. Her death at 
     84 deprives the industry of a giant.
       The core of her achievement was in three gut-wrenching, 
     high-risk decisions made from 1971 to 1975.
       In the first, she agreed over legal advice that the Post 
     would print the Pentagon Papers, prepared from government 
     documents detailing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, 
     after the New York Times was enjoined from doing so. Other 
     papers followed, and the precedent of prior censorship was 
     undone.
       The second was to support dogged investigative reporting of 
     the burglary of the burglary of the Democratic National 
     Committee, in behalf of President Richard Nixon,

[[Page 14222]]

     as it turned out, during the 1972 election campaign. What the 
     Post, courts and Congress learned forced Mr. Nixon's 
     resignation.
       The third, in 1975, was to respond to sabotage of presses 
     by striking pressmen with a determination to publish with 
     nonunion pressmen and defeat such tactics.
       The decision were connected. Without the first, she might 
     not have stuck with the second, or without that triumph, the 
     third.
       Katharine Meyer, born in 1917, never intended such a role 
     in national life. Her financier father bought the failing 
     newspaper in 1933. She married a brilliant young lawyer, 
     Philip Graham, whom her father made associate publisher, 
     later publisher.
       His progressive mental illness and suicide in 1963 
     propelled her timidly into his shoes if only to save the 
     newspaper for the family. The rest is not merely history; it 
     is her 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Personal History.
       As publisher and chief executive until turning power over 
     to her son, Donald, in 1991, Mrs. Graham built a media 
     empire. At its heart was a newspaper that penetrated its 
     market as no other and that grew into one of the world's 
     best.
       Mrs. Graham was a power in Washington, and a force in 
     publishing--positive in both spheres--until her death 
     following a fall in Sun Valley, Idaho. Her good works survive 
     her.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I intend to speak on the pending Murray 
amendment. I ask unanimous consent to take as much time as I might 
consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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