[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20895-20899]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO STEPHEN E. AMBROSE

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 342; that the 
resolution and the preamble be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider 
be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the 
resolution be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 342) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:

                              S. Res. 342

       Whereas Stephen E. Ambrose dedicated his life to telling 
     the story of America;
       Whereas Stephen Ambrose's 36 books form a body of work that 
     has educated and inspired the people of this Nation;
       Whereas President Bill Clinton awarded Stephen Ambrose the 
     National Humanities Medal for his contribution to American 
     historical understanding;
       Whereas Stephen Ambrose made history accessible to all 
     people and had an unprecedented 3 works on the New York Times 
     Bestsellers list simultaneously;
       Whereas Stephen Ambrose served as Honorary Chairman of the 
     National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial and lent 
     his name, time, and resources to innumerable other 
     philanthropic endeavors;
       Whereas Stephen Ambrose committed himself to understanding 
     the personal histories of the men and women often referred to 
     as the ``greatest generation'';
       Whereas Stephen Ambrose's groundbreaking work on the 
     history of World War II and the D-day invasion culminated in 
     the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans; and
       Whereas all Americans appreciate the contribution Stephen 
     Ambrose has made in recapturing the courage, sacrifice, and 
     heroism of the D-day invasion on June 6, 1944: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) mourns the death of Stephen E. Ambrose;
       (2) expresses its condolences to Stephen Ambrose's wife and 
     5 children;
       (3) salutes the excellence of Stephen Ambrose at capturing 
     the greatness of the American spirit in words; and
       (4) directs the Secretary of the Senate to transmit an 
     enrolled copy of this resolution to the family of Stephen 
     Ambrose.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, this resolution is to honor--I am not 
sure words can actually do appropriate justice--a great American who 
passed away this last weekend. That American is Stephen Ambrose, the 
author of a number of books, a man who helped our Nation understand the 
dynamics of war, the spectacular strengths of the American infantry men 
and women in uniform.
  He passed away quite a young man in his midsixties. He was a 
professor of history, known by many of us personally, and was a 
personal friend of the Senator from Alaska. I submit for the Record 
this resolution, to have it appear in the Congressional Record to honor 
a great American, someone Louisiana has lost and the Nation has lost. I 
am not sure we can ever replace him.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Louisiana allow me to 
be a cosponsor of this resolution.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Louisiana, I love to 
read. I have very few extracurricular activities outside the Senate, 
but one is reading. I have received so much pleasure from ``Undaunted 
Courage,'' the great book about the Lewis and Clark expedition, which 
changed my view of our country. Of course, the work he did on World War 
II is something that will forever be in my mind and the mind of anyone 
who knows anything or cares about the history of this country. And to 
have the pleasure of being able to talk with him on a number of 
occasions when he came to speak to groups of Senators, I consider one 
of the pleasures of this job.
  I compliment the Senator from Louisiana for submitting this 
resolution. It is a resolution I will remember as having been a part of 
because he allowed me to have so much pleasure in traveling to places 
in my mind's eye I would never be able to reach but for his great 
ability to write the English language.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator, and I am pleased to have him 
cosponsor this resolution. It has been said Stephen Ambrose was not a 
historian's historian, but he was a student's historian. He was truly 
an exceptional teacher. In my mind, when I think of an exceptional 
teacher, it is not someone who just communicates facts but someone who 
teaches in a way that inspires one to be better, to help one understand 
the context in which one lives. He was not an exceptional teacher just 
for the brightest kids in the class but for every kid in the class.
  He taught--I used to say he taught at UNO--at the University of New 
Orleans, and kids would say their whole life was changed hearing him 
lecture. He lectured in the Senate, which changed many of our lives and 
outlooks.

[[Page 20896]]

  He was an extraordinary man and left us way too soon. He left a 
number of works and disciples, if you will, of his work. He certainly 
will live on, and we were blessed to know him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I inquire of the Senator from 
Alaska, who is standing to be recognized, I have a major speech I wish 
to make. If the Senator has a few remarks, I will certainly defer to 
let him go first.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my intention to make some remarks 
as a cosponsor of the Ambrose resolution, not to exceed 10 or 12 
minutes at the most.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I 
be recognized upon the conclusion of the Senator's remarks, and I defer 
to the Senator from Alaska.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his courtesy, and 
I thank Senator Landrieu for submitting this Ambrose resolution.
  I thought Stephen Ambrose's book ``Undaunted Courage'' was one of the 
best books I ever read in my life. A few years back, my secretary said 
Stephen Ambrose wanted to come talk to me. Of course, being sort of a 
provincial type, I got out my book and had it on my desk ready for him 
to autograph when he arrived.
  We talked about his dream. He had a dream of a museum for World War 
II. He talked with me at length about that. As a member of the 
Appropriations Committee, he was openly seeking money from the 
taxpayers of the United States for this museum. It was my privilege to 
convince the Congress to aid him in that effort. It is in New Orleans, 
and I say to any American who wants to understand World War II, they 
should go to New Orleans and see this marvelous museum.
  It was my privilege to years later go through the museum with him the 
day before it opened. It is a fantastic living memorial to those others 
have called our greatest generation.
  I happen to be one of that generation, one significantly honored by 
the fact I never suffered a scratch or had a crash or did anything I 
did not really enjoy in World War II. Being a pilot was my dream, and I 
was a pilot. We talked at length about that. As a matter of fact, 
Stephen Ambrose and I talked about a book he was going to write. He did 
write about the squadron of which former Senator George McGovern was a 
part.
  I am here today to try to tell the Senate about a person I learned to 
love. He was not only a distinguished author, he was a man's man.
  He came to Alaska probably three or four times in the last 5 or 6 
years to go fishing, and we have had time where we sat around and 
talked. I tried to talk to him about smoking so many cigarettes, and 
unfortunately I think that is what caught up with him.
  He really understood America. He told me of how he wrote that book 
``Undaunted Courage''; how he took his boys and went down the trail 
that Lewis and Clark took. They camped out through the summertime 
several summers in a row. He told me how he had lived the history. I 
remember him telling me he felt that book.
  He has now become the person who has been the chronicler of the 
Eisenhower period of our history. I think he wrote nine different books 
about Eisenhower's participation. He was called by President Eisenhower 
to be his official biographer. He told me personally about that and how 
he had not expected that.
  He has now completed his life, unfortunately early. He has left a 
mark for historians to envy because he was a popular historian. I 
challenge anyone to read one of his books and not want to read the next 
one written by Steve Ambrose. For instance, he wrote his own biography.
  I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record following my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1).
  Mr. STEVENS. It is one of the most interesting biographies a person 
could read because he personally wrote it. It is sort of a roaming 
history about a man who enjoyed life.
  His books about World War II, of course, will live in history. Of all 
of them, I enjoyed ``Band of Brothers'' more than any others because 
that was made into the series I hope many in the Senate had an 
opportunity to see.
  I have gotten copies of his books and given them to so many friends 
because they represent to me an understanding of the Eisenhower period. 
I truly believe those of us who served in World War II worshiped our 
President then, and he showed that worship when he wrote about 
Eisenhower. He had the honor to go through all of the Eisenhower 
papers. He edited and issued five different volumes of the Eisenhower 
papers. If one wants to know the period of World War II and the time 
that has followed in terms of people who reviewed the history of World 
War II, they have to turn to one of Steve Ambrose's books, and think 
about some of them.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Associated Press' list of the 39 
books that Steve Ambrose wrote in his lifetime appear following my 
remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 2).
  Mr. STEVENS. Think of these things he wrote about: ``Eisenhower and 
the German POWs: Facts Against Falsehood''; ``Nixon: The Ruin and 
Recovery of a Politician''; ``Eisenhower: Soldier and President''; 
``Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician''; ``Nixon: The Education of a 
Politician''; ``Pegasus Bridge''; ``Eisenhower: The President''; 
``Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect''; ``Milton 
Eisenhower''; ``Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage 
Establishment''; ``Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two 
American Warriors''; ``General Ike: Abilene to Berlin''; ``The Military 
in American Society''; ``The Supreme Commander: The War Years of 
General Dwight D. Eisenhower''; and ``The Papers of Dwight D. 
Eisenhower.''
  He wrote on Eisenhower in Berlin. Before he even got to the 
Eisenhower books he wrote ``Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West 
Point.'' He also had a series of books about Lincoln, ``Halleck, 
Lincoln's Chief of Staff,'' the one he personally gave me, his own 
``Wisconsin Boy in Dixie.''
  For those of us who are in the Senate, I hope they have read one of 
the last books he wrote, and that is ``The Wild Blue,'' which is really 
the story of George McGovern and the B-24 squadron in World War II. I 
think that reads better than any of the Ambrose books, particularly 
because those of us who knew George could understand him even more as a 
Senator once we realized what he went through as a bomber pilot.
  I thank Ms. Landrieu for submitting this resolution because I think 
the country should honor Stephen Ambrose. I know President Clinton 
honored him in 1999 with the National Humanities Medal, but very 
clearly this man has left his mark on our country. Americans for 
centuries to come will know more about the period in which some of us 
have lived because Steve Ambrose dedicated his life to writing history.
  I send my thoughts and my best to Moira, his wife, who traveled with 
him at times to Alaska. I shall miss him. He was scheduled to come up 
again this year and go fishing with me.
  I ask unanimous consent that another item from Stephen Ambrose's 
history be printed in the Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 3).
  Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator for yielding to me. I commend all of 
the Ambrose books to anyone who wants to understand the period of World 
War II. He was an author and a great personal friend.

                               Exhibit 1

       I was born in 1936 and grew up in Whitewater, Wisconsin, a 
     small town where my father was the M.D. My high school had 
     only 300 students but was good enough to offer

[[Page 20897]]

     two yeas of Latin, which taught me the centrality of verbs--
     placement, form, tense.
       At the University of Wisconsin, I started as a pre-med, but 
     after a course on American history with William B. 
     Hesseltine, I switched my major. He was a great teacher of 
     writing, with firm rules such as abandon chronology at your 
     peril; use the active voice; avoid adverbs whenever possible; 
     be frugal with adjectives, as they are but the salt and 
     pepper for the meat (nouns).
       On to L.S.U., where I studied for M.A. under T. Harry 
     Williams, another fine historian who stressed the importance 
     of writing well. After getting my M.A. degree in 1958, I 
     returned to Wisconsin to do my Ph.D. work under Hesseltine.
       Funny thing, Harry Williams was a much better writer than 
     Hesseltine, but Hesseltine was the better teacher of writing. 
     We graduate students once asked him: ``How can you demand so 
     much from us when your own books are not all that well 
     written,'' as we confronted him with a review of one of his 
     books that praised his research and historical understanding 
     but deplored his writing. Hesseltine laughed and replied, 
     ``My dear boys, You have a better teacher than I did.''
       From 1960 to 1995 I was a full-time teacher (University of 
     New Orleans, Rutgers, Kansas State, Naval War College, U.C. 
     Berkeley, a number of European schools, among others), 
     something that has been invaluable to my writing. There is 
     nothing like standing before 50 students at 8 a.m. to start 
     talking about an event that occurred 100 years ago, because 
     the look on their faces is a challenge--``let's see you keep 
     me awake.'' You learn what works and what doesn't in a hurry.
       Teaching and writing are one to me-- in each case I am 
     telling a story. As I sit at my computer, or sand at the 
     podium, I think of myself as sitting around the campfire 
     after a day on the trail, telling stories that I hope will 
     have the members of the audience, or the readers, leaning 
     forward just a bit, wanting to know what happens next.
       Some of the rules of writing I've developed on my own 
     include: never try to write about a battle until you have 
     walked the ground; when you write about politicians, keep in 
     mind that somebody has to do it; you are a story-teller, not 
     God, so your job is not to pass judgments but explain, 
     illustrate, inform and entertain.
       The idea for a book comes in a variety of ways. I started 
     as a Civil War historian because Hesseltine taught the Civil 
     War. I wrote about Eisenhower because he asked me to become 
     his biographer, on the basis of a book I had done on Henry 
     Halleck, Lincoln's Chief of Staff. I never wanted to write 
     about Nixon but my editor (Alice Mayhew at Simon and 
     Schuster) made me do it by saying. ``Where else can you find 
     a greater challenge?'' I did Crazy Horse and Custer because I 
     took my family camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota and 
     got hooked on the country, and the topic brought me back to 
     the Black Hills many times. I did Meriwether Lewis to have an 
     excuse to keep returning to Montana, thus covering even more 
     of the American West.
       My World War II books flowed out of the association with 
     Eisenhower, along with my feelings toward the GIs. I was ten 
     years old when the war ended. I thought the returning 
     veterans were giants who had saved the world from barbarism. 
     I still think so. I remain a hero worshiper. Over the decades 
     I've interviewed thousands of veterans. It is a privilege to 
     hear their stories, then write them up.
       What drives me is curiosity. I want to know how this or 
     that was done--Lewis and Clark getting to the Pacific; the 
     GIs on D-Day; Crazy Horse's Victory over George Custer at the 
     Little Big Horn; the making of an elite company in the 101st 
     Airborne, and so on. And I've found that if I want to know, 
     I've got to do the research and then write it up myself. For 
     me, the act of writing is the act of learning.
       I'm blessing to have Moira Buckley Ambrose as my wife. She 
     was an English Lit major and school teacher; she is an avid 
     reader; she has a great ear. At the end of each writing day, 
     she sits with me and I read aloud what I've done. After more 
     than three decades of this, I still can't dispense with 
     requiring her first of all to say, ``That's good, that's 
     great, way to go.'' But then we get to work. We make the 
     changes. This reading aloud business is critical to me--I've 
     developed an ear of my own, so I can hear myself read--as it 
     reveals awkward passages better than anything else. If I 
     can't read it smoothly, it needs fixing.
       Hesseltine used to tell his students that the act of 
     writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the 
     seat of a chair. It is a monk's existence, the loneliest job 
     in the world. As Moira and I have five kids (at one time all 
     teens together; the phone in the evening can be imagined) I 
     started going to bed at eight to get up at four and have 
     three quiet hours for writing before the teaching day began. 
     The kids grew up and moved out and I retired in May, 1995, 
     but I keep to the habit.
       I'm sometimes asked which of my books is my own favorite. 
     My answer is, whatever one I'm working on. Right now (Winter 
     1999) a book on World War II in the Pacific as well as a book 
     on the 15th Air Force and the B-24 Liberators they flew. I 
     think the greatest achievement of the American Republic in 
     the 18th Century was the army at Valley Forge; in the 19th 
     Century it was the Army of the Potomac; in the 20th Century, 
     it was the U.S. military in WWII. I want to know how we beat 
     the Japanese in the Pacific and how our airforce helped us 
     beat the Germans. To do a book of this scope is daunting but 
     rewarding. I get paid for interviewing the old soldiers and 
     reading their private memoirs. My job is to pick out the best 
     one of every fifty or so stories and pass it along to 
     readers, along with commentary on what it illustrates and 
     teaches. It is a wonderful way to make a living.
       My experiences with the military have been as an observer. 
     The only time I wore a uniform was in naval ROTC as a 
     freshman at the University of Wisconsin, and in army ROTC as 
     a sophomore. I was in second grade when the United States 
     entered World War II, in sixth grade when the war ended. When 
     I graduated from high school, in 1953, I expected to go into 
     the army, but within a month the Korean War ended and I went 
     to college instead. Upon graduation in 1957, I went straight 
     to graduate school. By the time America was again at war, in 
     1964, I was twenty-eight years old and the father of five 
     children. So I never served.
       But I have admired and respected the men who did fight 
     since my childhood. When I was in grade school World War II 
     dominated my life. My father was a navy doctor in the 
     Pacific. My mother worked in a pea cannery beside German POWs 
     (Afrika Korps troops captured in Tunisia in May 1943). Along 
     with my brothers--Harry, two years older, and Bill, two Years 
     younger--I went to the movies three times a week (ten cents 
     six nights a week, twenty-five cents on Saturday night), not 
     to see the films, which were generally Clinkers, but to see 
     the newsreels which were almost exclusively about the 
     fighting in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. We played 
     at war constantly. ``Japs'' vs. Marines, GIs vs. ``Krauts''.
       In high school I got hooked on Napoleon. I read various 
     biographies and studied his campaigns. As a seventeen-year-
     old freshman in naval ROTC, I took a course on naval history, 
     starting with the Greeks and ending with World War II (in one 
     semester!). My instructor had been a submarine skipper in the 
     Pacific and we all worshipped him. More important, he was a 
     gifted teacher who loved the navy and history. Although I was 
     a premed student with plans to take up my father's practice 
     in Whitewater, Wisconsin, I found the history course to be 
     far more interesting than chemistry of physics. But in the 
     second semester of naval ROTC, the required course was 
     gunnery. Although I was an avid hunter and thoroughly 
     familiar with shotguns and rifles, the workings of the five 
     inch cannon baffled me. So in my sophomore year I switched to 
     army ROTC.
       Also that year, I took a course entitled ``Representative 
     Americans'' taught by Professor William B. Hesseltine. In his 
     first lecture he announced that in this course we would not 
     be writing term papers that summarized the conclusions of 
     three or four books; instead we would be doing original 
     research on nineteenth-century Wisconsin politicians, 
     professional and business leaders, for the purpose of putting 
     together a dictionary of Wisconsin biography that would be 
     deposited in the state historical society. We would, 
     Hesseltine told us, be contributing to the world's knowledge.
       The words caught me up. I had never imagined I could do 
     such things as contribute to the world's knowledge. Forty-
     five years later, the phrase continues to resonate with me. 
     It changed my life. At the conclusion of the lecture--on 
     General Washington--I went up to him and asked how I could do 
     what he did for a living. He laughed and said to stick 
     around, he would show me. I went straight to the registrar's 
     office and changed my major from premed to history. I have 
     been at it ever since.
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 2

                   Books by Historian Stephen Ambrose

                    [The Associated Press--Oct. 14]

       ``To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian,'' 
     release date Nov. 19, 2002.
       ``The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the 
     Louisiana Purchase to Today'' (with Sam Abell and Douglas 
     Brinkley).
       ``The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over 
     Germany,'' 2001.
       ``Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the 
     Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869,'' 2000.
       ``Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals,'' 1999.
       ``Witness to America: An Illustrated Documentary History of 
     the United States from the Revolution to Today'' (with 
     Douglas Brinkley).
       ``Lewis & Clark: Voyage of Discovery,'' 1998.
       ``The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys, the Men of World 
     War II,'' 1998.
       ``Americans At War,'' 1997.
       ``Rise To Globalism: American Foreign Policy from 1938 to 
     1997'' (Eighth revised edition with Douglas Brinkley).
       ``Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches 
     to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 
     1945,'' 1997.

[[Page 20898]]

       ``American Heritage New History of World War II'' (original 
     text by C. L. Sulzberger, revised and updated).
       ``Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, 
     and the Opening of the American West,'' 1996.
       ``D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War 
     II,'' 1994.
       ``Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st 
     Airborne From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest,'' 1992.
       ``Eisenhower and the German POWs: Facts Against 
     Falsehood,'' 1992.
       ``Nixon: The Ruin and Recovery of a Politician, 1973-
     1990,'' 1991.
       ``Eisenhower: Soldier and President,'' 1990.
       ``Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972,'' 1989.
       ``Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913-1962,'' 1987.
       ``Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944,'' 1985.
       ``Eisenhower: The President,'' 1985.
       ``Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-
     Elect, 1890-1952,'' 1983.
       ``Milton Eisenhower: Educational Statesman'' (with Richard 
     Immerman).
       ``Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage 
     Establishment,'' 1981.
       ``Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two 
     American Warriors,'' 1975.
       ``General Ike: Abilene to Berlin,'' 1973.
       ``The Military and American Society'' (with James Barber).
       ``The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. 
     Eisenhower,'' 1970.
       ``The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Vols. 1-5,'' 1967.
       ``Institutions in Modern America,'' 1967.
       ``Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the 
     Elbe,'' 1967.
       ``Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point,'' 1966.
       ``Upton and the Army,'' 1964.
       ``Halleck, Lincoln's Chief of Staff,'' 1962.
       ``Wisconsin Boy in Dixie,'' 1961.
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 3

               [From the New York Times, Oct. 14, 2002.]

  Stephen Ambrose, Historian Who Fueled New Interest in World War II, 
                               Dies at 66

                         (By Richard Goldstein)

       Stephen E. Ambrose, the military historian and biographer 
     whose books recounting the combat feats of American soldiers 
     and airmen fueled a national fascination with the generation 
     that fought World War II, died yesterday at a hospital in Bay 
     St. Louis, Miss. Mr. Ambrose, who lived in Bay St. Louis and 
     Helena, Mont., was 66.
       The cause was lung cancer, which was diagnosed last April, 
     his son Barry said. ``Until I was 60 years old, I lived on a 
     professor's salary and I wrote books,'' Mr. Ambrose recalled 
     in November 1999. ``We did all right. We even managed to buy 
     some mutual funds for our grandchildren. I never in this 
     world expected what happened.''
       Mr. Ambrose, known previously for multivolume biographies 
     of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon, emerged as a 
     best-selling author during the past decade. He was also an 
     adviser for films depicting heroic exploits, a highly paid 
     lecturer and an organizer of tours to historic sites.
       His ascension to wealth and fame began with his book ``D-
     Day, June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II,'' 
     marking the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. 
     Drawing upon combat veterans' remembrances collected by the 
     Eisenhower Center in New Orleans, which Mr. Ambrose founded, 
     it became a best seller.
       ``The descriptions of individual ordeals on the bloody 
     beach of Omaha make this book outstanding,'' Raleigh 
     Trevelyan wrote in The New York Times Book Review.
       Soon Mr. Ambrose was producing at least a book a year and 
     becoming a star at Simon & Schuster, which published all his 
     best-known books.
       But earlier this year Mr. Ambrose was accused of ethical 
     lapses for having employed some narrative passages in his 
     books that closely paralleled previously published accounts. 
     The criticism came at a time of heightened scrutiny of 
     scholarly integrity. The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian 
     Doris Kearns Goodwin acknowledged in January 2002 that her 
     published, Simon & Schuster, paid another author in 1987 to 
     settle plagiarism accusations concerning her book ``The 
     Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.'' In August 2001, the historian 
     Joseph J. Ellis, also a Pulitzer Prize winner, was suspended 
     for one year from his teaching duties at Mount Holyoke 
     College for falsely telling his students and others that he 
     had served with the military in Vietnam.
       Mr. Ambrose said that his copying from other writers' works 
     represented only a few pages among the thousands he had 
     written and that he had identified the sources by providing 
     footnotes. He did concede that he should have placed 
     quotation marks around such material and said he would do so 
     in future editions. He denied engaging in plagiarism and 
     suggested that jealousy among academic historians played a 
     part in the criticism.
       ``Any book with more than five readers is automatically 
     popularized and to be scorned,'' Mr. Ambrose said in an 
     interview with The Los Angeles Times in April 2002. ``I did 
     my graduate work like anybody else, and I kind of had that 
     attitude myself. The problem with my colleagues is they never 
     grew out of it.''
       Two years after his D-Day book was published, Mr. Ambrose 
     had another best seller, ``Undaunted Courage,'' the story of 
     Lewis and Clark's exploration of the West. He reported having 
     earned more than $4 million from it.
       In 1997, his ``Citizen Soldiers'' chronicled combat from D-
     Day to Germany's surrender. In 1998, Mr. Ambrose wrote ``The 
     Victors,'' a history of the war in Europe that drew on his 
     earlier books. In 1999, be brought out ``Comrades: Brothers, 
     Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals,'' an account of his own family 
     relationships and those of historical figures. In 2000, he 
     recounted the building of the transcontinental railroad in 
     ``Nothing Like It in the World.'' In 2001, he had ``The Wild 
     Blue,'' the story of B-24 bomber crewmen in World War II's 
     European theater.
       Mr. Ambrose's most recent book was ``The Mississippi and 
     the Making of a Nation,'' with Douglas G. Brinkley and the 
     photographer Sam Abell, published this fall by National 
     Geographic. After learning he had cancer, Mr. Ambrose wrote 
     ``To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian,'' which 
     is to be published by Simon & Schuster later this year.
       Mr. Ambrose was also a commentator for the Ken Burns 
     documentary ``Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of 
     Discovery,'' broadcast on PBS in 1997. He served as 
     consultant for ``Saving Private Ryan,'' the 1998 movie 
     acclaimed for its searing depiction of combat on D-Day. His 
     book ``Band of Brothers,'' the account of an American 
     paratrooper company in World War II, published in 1992, was 
     the basis for an HBO mini-series in 2001.
       He founded the National D-Day Museum in 2000 in New Orleans 
     and was president of Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours.
       In August 2001, The Wall Street Journal estimated that the 
     Ambrose family company was bringing in $3 million in revenue 
     annually. It said that Mr. Ambrose reported having donated 
     about $5 million over the previous five years to causes 
     including the Eisenhower Center and the National D-Day 
     Museum.
       Stephen Edward Ambrose was born on Jan. 10, 1936, in 
     Decatur, Ill., and grew up in Whitewater, Wis., the son of a 
     physician who served in the Navy during World War II. As a 
     youngster, he was enthralled by combat newsreels.
       He was a pre-med student at the University of Wisconsin in 
     the mid-1950's but was inspired by one of his professors, 
     William B. Heseltine, to become a historian.
       ``He was a hero worshiper, and he got us to worship with 
     him,'' Mr. Ambrose told The Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate many 
     years later. ``Oh, if you could hear him talk about George 
     Washington.''
       After obtaining his bachelor's degree from Wisconsin, Mr. 
     Ambrose earned a master's degree in history at Louisiana 
     State and a doctorate in history from Wisconsin. He went on 
     to interview numerous combat veterans, but the only time he 
     wore a military uniform was in Navy and Army R.O.T.C. at 
     Wisconsin.
       In 1964, Eisenhower, having admired Mr. Ambrose's biography 
     of Gen. Henry Halleck, Lincoln's chief of staff, asked him to 
     help edit his official papers. That led to Mr. Ambrose's two-
     volume biography of Eisenhower.
       The first volume, ``Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the 
     Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952'' (Simon & Schuster, 1983), 
     was described by Drew Middleton in the New York Times Book 
     Review as ``the most complete and objective work yet on the 
     general who became president.''
       Mr. Ambrose also wrote a three-volume biography of Richard 
     M. Nixon, published in the late 1980's and early 90's.
       He wrote or edited some 35 books and said that he often 
     arose at 4 in the morning and concluded his day's writing by 
     reading aloud for a critique from his wife, Moira, a former 
     high school teacher. His son Hugh, who was also his agent, 
     and other family members helped with his research in recent 
     years.
       When he was confronted with instances of having copied from 
     others--``The Wild Blue'' had passages that closely resembled 
     material in several other books--a question arose as to 
     whether he was too prolific.
       ``Nobody can write as many books as he has--many of them 
     were well-written books--without the sloppiness that comes 
     with speed and the constant pressure to produce,'' said Eric 
     Foner, a history professor at Columbia University. ``It is 
     the unfortunate downside of doing too much too fast.''
       David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, said of 
     Mr. Ambrose's pace, ``We welcome that he is prolific.'' He 
     added, ``He works at a schedule that he sets, and we 
     encourage the amount of his output because there is a 
     readership that wants it.''
       George McGovern, the former senator, whose experiences as a 
     bomber pilot were recounted in ``The Wild Blue,'' said 
     yesterday, ``He probably reached more readers than any other 
     historian in our national history.''
       Mr. Ambrose retired from college teaching in 1995, having 
     spent most of his career at the University of New Orleans. He 
     received the National Humanities Medal in 1998.
       In addition to his wife and his sons Barry, of Moiese, 
     Mont., and Hugh, of New Orleans,

[[Page 20899]]

     he is survived by another son, Andy, of New Orleans; two 
     daughters, Grace Ambrose of Wappingers Falls, N.Y., and 
     Stephenie Tubbs of Helena; five grandchildren; and two 
     brothers, Harry, of Virginia, and William, of Maine.
       In reflecting on his writing and on his life, Mr. Ambrose 
     customarily paid tribute to the American soldiers of World 
     War II, the object of his admiration for so long.
       ``I was 10 years old when the war ended,'' he said. ``I 
     thought the returning veterans were giants who had saved the 
     world from barbarism. I still think so. I remain a hero 
     worshiper.''

  Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be added 
as an original cosponsor of the Landrieu resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. It is my understanding Senator Reid has some 
business to conduct before I begin my oration. As the Senator knows, I 
am getting warmed up to get into the subject of the economy. So I yield 
the floor to Senator Reid and ask unanimous consent that when the 
Senator is through, I would be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. I appreciate my friend, the Senator from Florida, for being 
his usual courteous self.

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