[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 17243]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING JOHN W. KLUGE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, on Tuesday, September 7, 2010, John Kluge 
passed away at a family home in Charlottesville, VA. He was 95.
  Mr. Kluge was a successful businessman who parlayed the money he 
earned from a Fritos franchise into a multibillion-dollar 
communications company, Metromedia. This conglomerate grew to include 7 
television stations, 14 radio stations, outdoor advertising, the Harlem 
Globetrotters, the Ice Capades, radio paging and mobile telephones.
  Mr. Kluge was born on September 21, 1914, in Chemnitz, Germany. His 
father died in World War I. After his mother remarried, John was 
brought to America in 1922 by his German-American stepfather to live in 
Detroit. He began work at the age of 10, working for his stepfather's 
family contracting business. At the age of 14, he left home to live in 
the house of a schoolteacher, driving by his desire to have an 
education.
  He worked hard to learn and speak well the English language and get 
the grades he needed in high school to win a scholarship to college. He 
first attended Detroit City College, which was later renamed Wayne 
State University, and transferred to Columbia University when he was 
offered a full scholarship and living expenses. He graduated from 
Columbia in 1937 and went to work for a small paper company in Detroit. 
Within 3 years he went from shipping clerk to vice president and part 
owner.
  After serving in Army intelligence in World War II, he turned to 
broadcasting and, with a partner, created the radio station WGAY in 
Silver Spring, MD, in 1946. In the 1950s he acquired radio stations in 
St. Louis, Dallas, Fort Worth, Buffalo, Tulsa, Nashville, Pittsburgh 
and Orlando, FL. Meanwhile, he invested in real estate and expanded the 
New England Fritos Corporation, which he founded in 1947 to distribute 
Fritos and Cheetos in the Northeast, adding Fleischmann's yeast, Blue 
Bonnet margarine and Wrigley's chewing gum to his distribution network.
  In 1951 he formed a food brokerage company, expanding it in 1956 in a 
partnership with David Finkelstein, and augmented his fortune selling 
the products of companies like General Foods and Coca-Cola to 
supermarket chains.
  Mr. Kluge served on the boards of numerous companies, including 
Occidental Petroleum, Orion Pictures, Conair and the Waldorf-Astoria 
Corporation, as well as many charitable groups, including United 
Cerebral Palsy.
  His philanthropy was prodigious. The beneficiaries of his gifts 
included Columbia University and the University of Virginia.
  Mr. Kluge also contributed to the restoration of Ellis Island and in 
2000 gave $73 million to the Library of Congress, which established the 
Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanities.
  In his business endeavors, Mr. Kluge savored the chance to move into 
new areas of high technology and often took Wall Street by surprise 
with some of his commercial decisions. He never lost his zest for 
developing new businesses or his taste for complex financial deals. Mr. 
Kluge once said, ``I love the work because it taxes your mind.''
  At the time of his death, Mr. Kluge was deeply involved in a new 
biological cancer treatment that has a positive effect on multiple 
organ cancers, with no side effects. He also was engaged in a new 
treatment for diabetes.
  He is survived by his wife Maria, sons John, Jr. and Joseph, a 
daughter Samantha, a grandson Jack, and stepchildren Jeannette Brophy, 
Peter Townsend, and Diane Zeier.

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